What’s In An Editor?

I’ve been fortunate.

My editors have been amazing women. As a former editor myself, I appreciate the work they do - reading and reading and reading and actually attending to, not only the author’s words, but the author’s intent. They have to pull out every error, every misplaced comma, every incorrect grammatical construct and either fix it or suggest an appropriate fix.

An editor has to make sure words flow seamlessly. Is an author guilty of relying upon too many commas? Too few? Does he or she overuse incomplete sentences? Does the author try to emphasize a character’s words by relying upon Bold print, caps or exclamation points? What about the adjectives and adverbs? Do they need to be culled? How much back story does the reader need - can it be trimmed or is it essential for understanding why our characters do what they do? Feel what they feel? Think what they think - erroneously or not?

A good editor doesn’t dumb things down. She doesn’t say - this word is too big for the readers. As a reader, I want to be challenged. How do you think I increased my vocabulary growing up? By reading. I read new words and I either understood them thanks to the context in which they appeared or I looked them up. One of my mentors taught - say what you have to say as simply as possible. So no, I don’t use…what are they called…ten dollar words when a ten cent word will suffice, but occasionally a scene requires a word that says a bit more than - he walked across the room. Perhaps he strode or stomped or danced or skipped or hurried or tripped or picked his way across the cluttered room.

I will take this sentence - she stood on the curb, in rapt attention, watching the parade pass by, over this sentence - she was on the curb while the parade went by - any day.

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