What an editor *really* does
"Editor" is a pretty sweeping job title that covers a multitude of sins. There are many different facets to this job. I am going to reveal to you the main ones.
Did you know that there are several different levels of editing?
I thought that I would run through a few of the key ones (in other words, the ones that I focus on!) to give you a bit more information on what an editor actually does.
The broadest, most macro level of editing is structural / developmental editing. This involves taking a holistic view of a document, text, or (most commonly) a book. It is especially important for fiction, where it can identify poor characterisation, plot holes, structural issues etc. This type of editing takes a view of the work as a whole, looking at flow, pacing, writing style, and plot.
The next level of editing is copy or line editing. Sometimes these are referred to as separate types of editing, copy edits focusing more on the mechanics of the language and line edits on the style of the language. For me, however, these two are inseparable; one goes hand-in-hand with the other. At this level, I eliminate spelling errors and grammar mistakes, inconsistencies in the language (verb tenses, noun agreement etc), and writerly tics (the overused phrases that each writer has, for example).
At the micro level is proofreading, which is the final stage. This is about identifying any errors that might have crept back in during the back and forth between writer and editor or any mistakes in newly added text, and also checking the layout / typography - for example, for potentially confusing line or page breaks.
Many of us also include fact-checking or formatting at the various different stages as well, but in a large publishing house, a different member of staff would most likely deal with these.
So, there really is much more to editing than initially meets the eye.
Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash
What I’ve read and enjoyed recently
It has felt as if I have been starting more books than I have been finishing recently. And a visit to Good Reads only confirmed this. I’ve completed just two books since this time last month.
The first was Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld, which I gulped down in a few days, and not only because I had borrowed it on a short loan from the library. It imagines what Hillary Rodham’s life would have been like had she decided not to marry Bill Clinton. I thought that Curtis Sittenfeld nailed Hillary’s voice (as far as I imagine it to be from seeing her in the media these past few decades) and I loved what she had Bill Clinton getting up to after he and Hillary split.
The other was How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X Kendi. I was surprised by this book as I hadn’t expected it to be part memoir. However, I think that was what gave it so much power, hearing his stories and what he has learned from them.
What I’ve been up to recently
We have adopted a Sonos speaker. It came home to live with us at the end of July and, after a few teething problems (mainly wifi related, and eventually fixed by me crawling up into the ridiculously high cupboard up by the ceiling where the telecom engineer insisted on placing our router), we had it all set up.
The speaker now lives in our kitchen, has its own little wifi network (resolving the issue that the music stopped every time a new device wandered by), and has been a revelation.
The revelation has not been that I cannot sing. I already knew that. My family certainly already knew that. I would love to be one of those people who can just break into (tuneful) song at any given moment. But I cannot. I won’t. I might know all the words to all the songs that I have ever heard (both a blessing and a curse), but I cannot pull off even one good note. No, the revelation has been that, given the opportunity, I sing all the time, as long as no one can hear me. If a Kat in her empty home sings, but no one hears, does she even make a sound?
The other discovery is that classical music is not a good working tool for me. I have read countless articles about particular pieces of music that should help your concentration and productivity. But they just make me anxious. I can feel a tightness developing in my chest when I listen to them. I believe that one sign of a great piece of music is that it can invoke a physical reaction. But this isn’t the type of response I want when I’m trying to work.
No, what I’ve found works best for me is songs that I love. Songs that I know inside out and back to front. Songs that I can sing along to without them interrupting my thought process. I’ve been compiling a playlist of these, and now I just put that on, let it play back to back and, hey presto, I am in the zone. It’s the perfect mix for me: a few recent hits, a handful of grime tracks, a dash of Hungarian hip hop (which might qualify as the only track I *cannot* sing along to), and a big dollop of 90s nostalgia. Oh, and Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones, because that song is perfection.
Other than getting unnecessarily excited about a piece of audio hardware, I have been working away on my structural / developmental / copy edit of the novel I mentioned last time. I finished reading the book this week, but my work has not ended there. Two reasons for this: when I take on a project, I like to immerse myself in it, to let it marinate, and I often come up with ideas and thoughts after a good night’s sleep, in the shower, or while running; and the other reason is that I have really enjoyed the story. The characters have been with me for the past couple of months. It feels hard to let them go after delving so deeply into their lives, their thoughts and their motivations.
So, while I learn to say goodbye to these characters, you all take care of yourself. Until next month,
Kat
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