Here is something I hear a lot when I ask an author about their book launch:
“Well, my friend checked it and she always finds mistakes on menus…”
I nod and smile reassuringly, but I know what’s coming next.
“But when the reviews came in, I was devastated.”
I immediately log onto Amazon and see the all-too-familiar one-star ratings and barbed comments.
“Shocking errors! Did a five-year-old write this?”
“Does the author not know how to spell their main character’s name the whole way through?”
“The action scenes were about as believable as a cartoon.”
When I ask how I can help, invariably the answer is:
“I don’t know. I put so much work into writing the script, and I checked it twice. The story is amazing – my family even said so.”
And here the first red light flashes brightly. The simple truth is: family and friends sugar coat things.
If you want your ego stroked, then ask your family and friends to read it and then press upload, but expect to get bitten by the review sharks and your sales to stop before they’ve even started. However, if you want your hard work and dedication to finishing your book to pay the dividends it deserves, then hire an editor.
Many authors suffer from script blindness; it’s that old adage of not being able to see the wood for the trees. Some are first-time authors who are flexing their writing muscles, while many just don’t have the tools or technical knowledge to be able to transfer their thoughts into believable text. Part of my job is to take your imagination and help you craft your worlds, flesh out your characters, and turn those fight scenes from yawns to hell, yeahs!
Consider this: have you ever read a story where every line of dialogue ends in an exclamation mark? It makes the inner monologue of the reader shout louder and louder, and is a common mistake writers make during the first or second draft. Your editor will deal with this issue, and many more like it during the process.
Another common one is the action scene when the hero shoots a weapon and the next thing, he drops a knife from the same hand. In the writer’s head, this works perfectly well; it’s not the same for the reader. Your editor will point this out and advise you to make changes.
Or even when Aunt Bessie, who has some vital information for the mystery to be solved, never appears in the story again. What about the Deus ex Machina, where something unexpected and implausible is brought into the story to resolve it or? It is the death of a story, and it happens all the time.
Even for the most experienced authors, an editor’s fresh pair of eyes is essential. Not just for the wayward full stop that disappears, but also to make sure that the reading experience flows from the beginning to the end. Once immersed in a story, there is nothing more annoying than reading something that doesn’t gel and being ripped out of the fiction world and back into the real one. Or even reading a good bit of non-fiction and saying, “Hang on…” If your writing stops the reader mid story and makes them pull up a web browser to check something, then you have a problem that could have easily been dealt with through the editing process.
Fiction is created in layers and should mostly be character driven. At the very heart, there are interesting people with motivations and quirks. You want your reader to cheer along with them, to love them, or even to hate them. They are the engine that powers your story, and a poorly constructed character will make the reader lose interest faster than the roadrunner can evade a certain coyote.
The developmental edit layer ensures that the story makes sense, that it has a clear beginning and end (or lead in to the next chapter/book), and that your characters are believable and fit within the context of your story.
The copyedit layer will look at the grammar, syntax, and consistency to ensure fitness, and the last layer is the proofread for final tweaks.
I often envisage an author typing “The End” and sitting back with that celebration cuppa to cheer a job well done, and indeed they should. But as that cup touches the table, I hope that their finger also presses the send button to deliver their baby into the safe hands of their editor, where it will be honed and polished into the finished article, ready to hit the publishers and wow the world.
On the back of every successful book, there is a picture of a smiling writer. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the writer, but invisible in the pictures, is the team, and the right hand is always an editor, someone they can rely on to be honest and respectful and to help them grow. All you need to do is find yours. Good luck and don’t forget: be genuine to your story and your readers.
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