I work with several excellent editors.
We always come into contact with people who claim to be editors but don’t have a clue what the job entails. I decided to write a short tutorial to help writers learn how to hire an editor.
Why Hire an Editor
A professional editor, whether academic, fiction/publishing, or business editor talks the lingo, knows the trends, understands the styles, and structure demands.
The important thing to remember is that no one can edit all styles, even if they have a BA in English and are multi-published. I work with people who write for academic purposes. They include writing text books, essays for university students, speeches, and content for schools. At the most, editors can memorize 3 or 4 styles: MLA, APA, Harvard, British, New York, Medical, Scientific, Chicago, etc. There are 18 recognized ‘main’ grammar and style in the USA alone. No one can know them all.
There are also various vernaculars. Newspapers and most web writing is written at a grade eight level. Fiction novels have several vocabularies based on the genre.
Thrillers and literary are written at a post secondary level of English. Romance, mystery, fantasy are all written at a high school level. Historical novels bastardise English to mimic ancient dialects.
Structure is vital. Each of the fiction genres have a specific story arc structure that controls the flow of plot and character development through the book. The novel should also explore the human element. A writer who doesn’t have a solid understanding of the trials and pain of human life, different personality types, character archetypes, relationship counseling and shelf growth cannot promise to write a fiction novel which will be received favorably from publishing houses.
Types of Editors
There are different types of editors. A line editor knows all the different grammar styles and can write in several vernaculars. They can fix grammar mistakes without changing the writer’s style. Most of today’s editors are amateur line editors. They will look for tense variations, sentence structure that ventures from the acceptable style, spelling that is ‘wrong’ for the current country of publication, or typos.
Proofreaders do not change grammar, syntax, or prose. They only look for typos, missing periods, homonyms, etc. Most proofreaders can use the tools available with today’s word-processing software and finish a manuscript in less than 3 – 5 hours.
A full length book that is 99.99% accurate can still have 30 mistakes. This is tolerated in fiction, but is not in business or non-fiction writing.
Content editors know all about ACTs and Story Arcs. They can map a novel, outlining the character growth. They know where things should appear, how long conflicts and scenes should be. Ask a content editor who Joseph Campell is and they will talk about the hero’s journey and mythology.
A fiction editor should be a content editor and line editor. A great way to find a good editor is to ask them what story arc they use, do they have a preferred character growth arc, and how many of their client’s books are published.
Never focus on how many of their books are published – because they had a professional editor helping them.
A non-fiction editor should have a basic understanding of the industry. They will prefer the APA or Harvard style of grammar. (Chicago/Showing is for fiction). Just asking an editor what style they use, and why, can separate the pros from the amateurs.
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