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Originally Posted by LuvReadin
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Horowitz makes an excellent point about levels of editing that aren't simply reducible to proofreading.
Here in the Immense Pippin, we've been grousing for yahs about the absence of proofreaders at
The New York Times. However, the editor of that cabbage corsage is savvy enough to hire copy editors, which is why said corsage tends not to consist of unreadable swill.
When I've worked for publishers and been involved in editing other people's novels, we were all quite concerned about repeated words (at different points in the paragraph and page, not just adjacently), inconsistencies (which have included the names of the main characters changing halfway through the book), redundancies, cliches and circumlocutions.
Most of the time, we were also vigilant about drastically unimportant scenes, violations of the tone, distracting or overdone sound patterns (unless poetic prose was both intended and effective), unnecessary asides and soporific pacing.
Readers might not think editors are needed, but their reading life is certainly better for editors' work. We need to find ways to involve professional editors in self-publishing without that simply becoming another way for self-styled entrepreneurs to hoodwink the abnormally ungifted into paying for incompetence.
Even so, those whose work hasn't benefited from editing can still find ways to improve it. One of these is for people to read their fiction aloud in public. I can't tell you how many times I've thought a story of mine was perfect, read it to people, and realized that one third of it was unnecessary and another was hopelessly indirect.
Personally, I believe in writing about what's truly resonant for me and not second-guessing what's likely to sell (we tend to pick novelists for our literary magazine's book publishing imprint in the same way that I choose what to write). I also believe in not dumbing down the work to suit some imaginary reader.
But refining one's style and storytelling is hardly dumbing the work down, any more than trimming away the unnecessary is runaway populist pandering. These are things one should do for the work no matter how personal or peculiar; for the presumed reader no matter how supposedly enamored of difficult work. Failing to do those things is irresponsible whether your name is John le Carré, Charles Bukowski, Robert Coover or Samuel Beckett.