On Editing
Stephen King is one of my favorite authors. He has also written what may be my favorite book in any genre, On Writing.
It's a great look into the mind of a great writer. And it is more autobiography than it is reference material for wannabe writers.
Writing is a creative endeavor. And Mr. King leaves much of the technical writing considerations to the vast amount of other books on writing. He provides a more meaningful insight into the life of one of the greats of American letters.
So I hacked his book's title for this blog post. That's because I have recently come to recognize the need for authors to have editors.
My best friend was reading my novel Pilgrimage recently. When we got together last weekend he glibly pointed out several errors in the book. I don't mean to suggest he was happy there were errors; just that he was happy he found them.
The errors were nothing terrible, just basic oversights like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. But that meant I had to go back through the manuscript once again. So as I work on completing my next book I am back to reediting Pilgrimage.
It's a bummer, but it needs to be done. I don't want readers to avoid future books of mine because of sloppy editing in the version of Pilgrimage they read (earlier versions had more errors. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, Amazon does not automatically update the books on your Kindle with the most recent, revised edition. I hear that is coming, however).
Which brings me to professional editing. I think authors, being the creative minds that I presume we all are, tend to get lost in the story even when editing. It is too hard for us to look at the manuscript objectively, and therefore are prone to missing things that need correction.
But it is expensive to hire an editor. And I'm sure it is a challenge to qualify one unless the editor has been referred to you.
So for now I'll be reediting Pilgrimage myself. But it must be nice to have an editor like Stephen King does. To know that someone will be checking the manuscript for you before publication eliminates much of the worry and presumably allows the writer to focus exclusively on the story.
Someday. Someday.
It's a great look into the mind of a great writer. And it is more autobiography than it is reference material for wannabe writers.
Writing is a creative endeavor. And Mr. King leaves much of the technical writing considerations to the vast amount of other books on writing. He provides a more meaningful insight into the life of one of the greats of American letters.
So I hacked his book's title for this blog post. That's because I have recently come to recognize the need for authors to have editors.
My best friend was reading my novel Pilgrimage recently. When we got together last weekend he glibly pointed out several errors in the book. I don't mean to suggest he was happy there were errors; just that he was happy he found them.
The errors were nothing terrible, just basic oversights like misspelled words and misplaced punctuation. But that meant I had to go back through the manuscript once again. So as I work on completing my next book I am back to reediting Pilgrimage.
It's a bummer, but it needs to be done. I don't want readers to avoid future books of mine because of sloppy editing in the version of Pilgrimage they read (earlier versions had more errors. Unfortunately, as far as I can determine, Amazon does not automatically update the books on your Kindle with the most recent, revised edition. I hear that is coming, however).
Which brings me to professional editing. I think authors, being the creative minds that I presume we all are, tend to get lost in the story even when editing. It is too hard for us to look at the manuscript objectively, and therefore are prone to missing things that need correction.
But it is expensive to hire an editor. And I'm sure it is a challenge to qualify one unless the editor has been referred to you.
So for now I'll be reediting Pilgrimage myself. But it must be nice to have an editor like Stephen King does. To know that someone will be checking the manuscript for you before publication eliminates much of the worry and presumably allows the writer to focus exclusively on the story.
Someday. Someday.
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Thanks for the feedback Amber.If you don't mind sharing, what do your editor and proofreader charge for their services? Pilgrimage is kind of long, almost 98,000 words.
Thanks,
Steve
Long? For me that would be short. But then I sit at the border between literary and genre fiction. (Crossed that border when it came to length.) Editing is $1.50 per page if the editing needed is mostly just polishing and $2.50 per page if you need more done. This is per double-spaced ms page. My proofreader charged a flat fee of $100.00. Some charge more.
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I once found some proofing errors in a hardcover Stephen King book.