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Old 07-16-2010, 04:41 PM   #3
DMcCunney
New York Editor
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lemurion View Post
I think good editing is incredibly valuable.

Bad editing starts at worthless and quickly drops to negative values.

Being able to tell the difference is priceless.
Every selling professional writer I know talks about the value of a good editor, and how editing can take a good book and make it a great one. The best example was a story told by a new author with a first novel being published, who said "The first thing John (his editor) said was 'You have to make up your mind what story you're telling.'" And indeed, that was the problem. The manuscript lacked drive and focus because he hadn't clearly decided what story he was telling. Once he did, and concentrated on it, a far better book emerged.

Even established pros benefit, because a good editor will see things the author is too close to the story to notice, like "You can drop the first chapter, because everything you set up in it is either retold later in the book or should be", or "I don't believe character X would behave as described in chapter Y, everything you've said about the character so far makes it an unlikely thing for her to do."

Everyone dreads getting the revision letter after the editor has seen the first draft, but after the initial qualms have subsided, the reaction is generally "She's right. I need to fix this."

The problems I see today are two fold: first, the Internet and advances in technology make publishing your own stuff relatively easy, and an awful lot of folks don't see why they might need an editor for their deathless prose. They might not, but the readers sure will... Second, too many publishers are cutting back on editing. I knew one editor whose boss explicitly questioned why she bothered with extensive line edits, as the glory was in acquisitions.

The purpose of an editor is to make a good book better, and to keep a bad book from being published. Both are utterly necessary, and both are increasingly less done.
______
Dennis

Last edited by DMcCunney; 07-17-2010 at 11:29 AM.
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