Writing During an Apocalypse

A friend of mine is self-publishing his first book, and he mentioned how much money he was investing in his cover art. It felt high to me, so I asked him how much he spent on the other parts of the self-publishing process.

“Like, how much did you spend on your editor?”

“Oh, I’ didn’t hire an editor. I can do that myself. That’s why I have more to spend on my cover art.”

That’s when I slapped the manuscript out of his hands. Papers went everywhere like it was the last day of school.

I’m kidding.

But, editing, in my opinion, is probably the most important part of the writing process. It’s the part of the process that marks the point where the writer is pulled out of the wonderful world inside their minds and placed in the real world where their story will have to survive. I know that sounds a little dramatic, but here’s why it might be more accurate than you think:

There are different levels of editing.

People may assume editing is simply about knocking out the typos and errors. That’s called copy editing, and it’s a crucial step in the editing process. But there is a more in-depth level of editing, editing that looks into more abstract elements like theme, plot logic, character development, and tone, called developmental editing. This type of editing, if your work needs it, is done first. No one wants to polish a sentence to perfection, only to realize that you’ll need to delete it because the tone of it is wrong. Once it’s determined that the story is fundamentally sound and is doing everything you want it to do, then you move onto copy editing.

Editing catches your grammatical errors.

There’s a reason why Microsoft Word underlines your errors with that red. It’s meant to catch your eye because without it, most people would never see them. When you are writing, you know what you want the sentence to say. You know your work inside and out, which makes it incredibly difficult to read your own work unbiased. An editor is not familiar with your work, so any typo or error will be glaring to them.

Editing can provide clarity to your writing.

Beyond grammatical errors, a good editor is trained to identify areas where your work can be sharpened. From passive voice to wordiness to sentence choice structure, there are many facets to writing that contribute to clear, sharp writing. You can’t know how sharp your writing is until you test it out on someone. If your editor is confused about something you’ve written, it can be a great chance to learn how you can tighten you writing and learn other techniques that fit with your style.

Editing gives you your first peek at how your story might truly be perceived.

This just happened to me. My editor finished working on my short story collection a couple of days ago. This collection contained stories that were written over 10 years ago. Over time, I moved onto different projects and as time went on, my mind told me that the stories were better than they probably actually were. When I finally passed it to my editor and she told me that they looked really interesting after skimming them, I told myself I was in good shape. So, imagine my surprise when I saw an overwhelming amount of comments and notes I needed to work on.

At first, I was upset (with myself, not my editor). I thought my work was a lot better than these notes suggested. But after I stepped back and took the emotion out of it, I realized that I had been living in a fantasy world. This is what I meant when I said earlier that editors help pull writers out of the world inside their minds and places them in the real world. Time passed and instead of seeing the stories the way they really were, I was left with how I imagined the stories should have been. My editor gave me my first insight into how the rest of the world might view my work. Now, the editor is just one opinion, but they will likely be one of the first people outside of you and your circle to read your work. They should serve as a good barometer for how the general public might take your work. As it turns out, I was in the developmental editing stage of the process. It kind of stung, as I had thought I was much further along than I actually was. But the way to think about it is I’d much rather have a personal editor tell me all of this than an agent or literary magazine.

I explained all of this to my writer friend. I told him to invest in a good editor. Someone who will be supportive and constructive, but most importantly, honest. Someone who is knowledgeable and well-read.

When I started looking for an editor, I found Reedsy to be a really helpful source. It allows you to filter through editors who specialize in certain genres and you can select different types of editing services.

Whatever you use to find your editor, don’t underestimate the value that a good editor can bring to your work. NO ONE writes anything perfect in a first draft, so be sure to invest in yourself.