“You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what’s burning inside you, while the editor helps the fire show through the smoke.” Source unknown.

I love this quote because it captures the editor’s role perfectly. Too many people assume the editor goes through a manuscript with their metaphorical red pen, treating it like an English teacher marks an essay – searching for the mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation. As an English teacher, I spent much of my career doing just that! The editor’s role is way more complex and goes beyond such trivialities.

Dr Seuss described, in inimitable style, another role of the editor, “The writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” American best-selling author Larry Enright offers a useful metaphor, “Editing is like pruning the rose bush you thought was so perfect and beautiful until it overgrew the garden.” Your editor is your friendly gardener who cuts, prunes and refines your manuscript.

I’ve asked my fellow writers at Spotlight Indie, who are also professional editors, to offer their advice in this article. Speaking in a personal capacity, I prefer to employ an editor who is also a successful author. For me, their experience as writers helps them understand what I’m trying to do as well as offer constructive suggestions about how things might be improved. Most editors do this but I’m saying it fills me with greater confidence, and it inspires me too. Handing over something so new, raw and uncertain is a sensitive process, you need an editor who fully understands what that’s like.

Phil Williams is a highly successful author and creator of the brilliant Ordshaw series of urban fantasy novels. He has fourteen years’ experience of editing professionally so his advice is a good place to start. Here are his three top tips:

1. Cut as much as possible – it’s a rare piece of writing can’t be improved in some way merely by making it shorter. This forces you to focus on what matters.

2. Be aware that you don’t know what your readers don’t know – your readers never come at your writing from the same perspective as you, so always consider how they will interpret/understand your writing from a point of limited information and don’t take for granted that they will see/feel what you see (or want them to). The best way to figure out where you might need to work on this? Get feedback. Lots of feedback.

3. Take your sweet time – sometimes the best thing you can do when facing an edit is to give yourself time and space to come at it fresh. Whether there’s a tricky plot point or you just want to polish the text, taking your time between rounds can help you see things more clearly and from different perspectives.

You learn a lot about writing professionally when you hire an editor, especially one with experience on both sides of the writing fence. When I look back at my earlier work I’m horrified by its lack of refinement. Phil is my editor and I’m indebted to him for his patience, integrity, insights and (perhaps most important) his encouragement – he’s helped me become a better writer.

Ed Crockeris another successful author and professional editor who’s worked with Sunday Times bestselling authors, he’s also an ex-English teacher, journalist, reviewer and blogger; a more rounded pedigree would be hard to find! Ed is also author of The Everlands series of fantasy novels currently selling in America and across Europe. His three tips:

1. Avoid the “my editor will sort it” approach. Studies have shown only 92% of clear-cut errors are found by an editor. Learn your SPAG – annoying as it is, it will pay off!

2. Overusing redundant time phrases is common problem. “He stared at her *for a few second*s/They were silent *for a few moments*” – delete, delete, delete!

3. Beware any editing rule that sounds too simple. “Cut out adverbs” No – cut out adverbs that aren’t giving new information. “Cut out all your info-dumping” No – cut out info-dumping that’s boring. Some of the best authors in the world infodump for pages. As with most things in life, context and nuance are key.

I’m going to pick up on Ed’s second tip because it’s going to get repeated by others shortly. As writers we don’t recognise the words and phrases we overuse. We’re oblivious to them, even when we re-reading for the umpteenth time. Editors bring fresh eyes and, as with all grocery shopping, who wants stale goods?

If you check out the profile of author and editor Patrick Samphire, you’ll find he has worked as a teacher (yes, another one!), an editor and publisher of physics journals, a marketing minion, a web designer, and a pen pusher (real job!). He has a PhD in theoretical physics, which is about as much use as you might expect. As well as writing, he works as a freelance editor and book cover designer. Again, advice from someone with a wealth of experience that validates the wisdom in these three tips:

1. If you find you’re struggling to fix something and nothing is working, just delete it. 9 times out of 10, that will fix the problem.

2. Learn to listen to your gut. It’s very easy to read your own work, feel a slight bit of unease, and then move past it. If you’ve read a lot, you will subconsciously know when something isn’t working, but it’s incredibly easy to ignore that. Don’t.

3. Set a goal of cutting 10% of the words from every single page. It’ll force you to write more efficiently.

Once again, I want to emphasize Tip No.2. As writers I firmly believe we instinctively sense when something isn’t working, the problem comes from not knowing what it is. Phil Williams mentioned earlier about the need to step back to gain objectivity and Patrick’s tip is the precursor to that step. If you think something isn’t quite right, trust your gut. Step back, take your sweet time and come back with fresh eyes.

Tim Hardie is another successful fantasy author, reviewer and blogger. Tim is currently setting up his own professional editing service too. I’ve left Tim’s advice until now because his centres on a type of editing we’ve not mentioned so far. The previous tips are primarily linked to copy editing. However, some editors will go into greater depth and offer a service called development editing. Tim explains it:

“At the developmental stage, the key areas where I always want feedback as a writer are (i) whether the reader is able to follow the story and (ii) understand the motivations and actions of the characters. Applying the maxim of ‘show, don’t tell’ is important when it comes to writing a good, engaging story. However, this can be a trap if the reader isn’t able to work out what it is you’re showing them!

It could be some more character development is needed. Perhaps the historical elements need explaining more fully. Maybe the intricate magic system is too confusing. Whatever the issue might be, you need to make sure your crucial points are on the page, rather than hiding away in your head. The reader will never find them there!”

Tim’s next tip reinforces what’s been said already but it’s included here because Tim goes one step further, showing ways in which those suggestions can be implemented.

“I find it astonishing how much the eye deceives you when you’re reading your own work. It took me a long time to realise you read what you think you’ve written, not what is actually on the page. This is why editorial services are so useful in giving you that fresh perspective.

Other ways you can tackle this are to read your work out loud, or have someone else read it for you (if you have a particularly good friend or a very patient partner). I know authors who print off their manuscript when they start editing, or simply change the font on the screen in order to alter its appearance. Basically, you need to do something to help trick your brain into thinking it’s looking at something new.”

Such good tips, aren’t they! Personally, I’d reinforce Tim’s suggestion about having your work read aloud. If you use MS Word, it will read your work aloud (albeit in a robotic voice but that helps for the reason Tim defines.)

Finally, like the others, Tim rates the importance of gaining objectivity: “I deliberately take a break. However, when I say a break I mean a break. Some people swear you should leave your novel in a drawer for six months at least. Personally, I’ve found even a month or two is effective, especially if you work on different projects in between.”

Conclusion

Sometime ago, Keith W Dickinson, author of steampunk fantasy novels (including the brilliant Dexter and Sinister) wrote a blog post describing his experiences in editing his own already-published novel and the lessons he learned from it. I thought Keith was the best person to write the conclusion to this article for that reason so I asked him to suggest some helpful tips for other writers.

1. Editing is reverse cooking. Throw in all the ingredients you have, then take out what you don’t need until you figure out what kind of cake you were baking in the first place.

2. Leave out the boring bits. Imagine your book was being adapted into a film. Which bits would they leave out, in order to make the film work? Maybe you should leave those out too.

3. Don’t keep it because it’s good. It’s meant to be good, but if it doesn’t work anymore it’s got to go.

4. Is that the most interesting way to say that? Anyone can walk into a room. People remember the character who climbs in through a window.

5. Go nuts. It’s easier to take a big idea and make it small than it is to take a small idea and make it big. This mostly applies to drafting, but it comes into play when you start to edit.

6. Everything should happen on as short a timeline as possible. Where characters and scenes can be combined to save time, they probably should be.

7. Characters who appear only once should maybe not appear at all… but only maybe. If the information they provide could be provided by a Post-It Note, find a more interesting way to provide that information.

8. Do characters sound unique? Are they consistent? Did I forget anyone along the way? Sometimes going through the book character by character can yield surprising results.

Final Words

Let’s finish with some advice from the wonderful Zadie Smith: “Try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an enemy would.”