a question about editing

I'm not a fan of paying for editing unless there is a valid reason you cannot do it yourself. It might be well worth the price for someone writing in a second language or someone with a condition which makes it impossible to learn and remember grammar rules.

What I try to do is write something and edit it until I see no way to improve it. Then I seek beta readers. As a long-time member, I can usually blackmail convince someone to tell me what's not working.

Often the problem is not with the writing itself but with plot or character development. It's difficult to address either without scrapping that draft I was pretty pleased with and starting over, lifting some big sections and overhauling them, plus writing new material. But I do it, because it's not correcting my grammar which makes the novel the best it can be, but thinking it through in light of its present weaknesses, then tackling it as if I hadn't already written the damned thing.

Of course, what works for me may not be what works for you. I believe strongly in writers who need edits in writing mechanics--sentence structure, punctuation, using the right word, like that--taking the time and making the effort to learn this stuff themselves rather than paying someone to fix up each manuscript.

So I guess what I'm asking is this: what kind of edits do you believe your manuscript still needs?

Maryn, rambling on as she too often does

AussieBilly said:

I have finished the story, have had a number of people read and comment. Have revised numerous time, each an improvement and am satisfied it is as good as I can make it. Queried a few agents and rec'd no response from any.
I'm now considering paying for a professional edit and possibly pay for a manuscript assessment. All with the goal of making my story a product that will interest an agent/publisher. Is this a good idea?
I've always thought any final editing or polishing would be done to fit the needs of a publisher. If I have the professional work done will that appeal to most agents or will the story, from her POV, still need 'polishing'?
As with most writers, money doesn't grow on any of my trees, but...
What do other writers, those who are published, do? Who edits their work... their agent's favorite editor? the publisher's favorite editor?
Any help with these questions will be appreciated. Don't forget Christmas is coming!

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Commercial presses will invariably assign an editor to work with the author for every contracted novel. No manuscript is ever going to be word-perfect when it's submitted, and presses often will want little changes to conform to 'house style' or to make the story fit a particular line/market. So, yes, final editing will be done to fit the needs of the publisher.

However, the publisher isn't going to contract a work unless they think it's commercially viable. Part of that means that they feel confident the author could, if needed, edit/revise/rewrite sections of the book. This means the quality of the prose in the submitted work has to be of a certain standard.

As for hiring an editor yourself.....there are as many schools of thought on this as there are writers in the world. Things to consider:

1. You will always need to be able to edit your own work, so you'd better learn to do it now rather than rely on a paid editor.
2. Since less than a tenth of one percent of manuscripts end up being contracted by big publishers, investing thousands in an editor is unlikely to pay off.
3. Nearly every writer has to write their 'million words of crap' before they write something publishable. Very few authors sell the first book they write. Usually their first published novel is the third or fifth or tenth book they write.
4. Some writers learn better with one-on-one tutoring, so they'll progress in their craft faster if they hire an editor who will work with them scene by scene, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, on their own manuscript. This makes hiring an editor not an investment in that manuscript so much as an investment in their career.
5. Some writers learn better by editing prose that they aren't attached to. Critique groups are great for this: you get to find the mistakes in other people's works, and that makes it easer to see the same mistakes in your own.

So, obviously, there's no right answer. Certainly there is no guarantee that investing a hundred dollars, or a thousand dollars, or ten thousand dollars, in an editor will automatically get you a publication contract with a commercial press. For many authors, it will further them in their craft; for others, it will give them a more marketable manuscript but will teach them nothing. Only you can tell what's right for you.

AussieBilly said:

Queried a few agents and rec'd no response from any.

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Adding: that may have nothing to do with the manuscript and everything to do with the query letter. Good queries are fiendishly difficult to write and require quite a different skill set to writing a good novel. There's a query section in Share Your Work where you can get input on your query letter.

AussieBilly said:

I have finished the story, have had a number of people read and comment. Have revised numerous time, each an improvement and am satisfied it is as good as I can make it. Queried a few agents and rec'd no response from any.
I'm now considering paying for a professional edit and possibly pay for a manuscript assessment. All with the goal of making my story a product that will interest an agent/publisher. Is this a good idea?
I've always thought any final editing or polishing would be done to fit the needs of a publisher. If I have the professional work done will that appeal to most agents or will the story, from her POV, still need 'polishing'?
As with most writers, money doesn't grow on any of my trees, but...
What do other writers, those who are published, do? Who edits their work... their agent's favorite editor? the publisher's favorite editor?
Any help with these questions will be appreciated. Don't forget Christmas is coming!

Click to expand...

Also adding: It will depend to some degree on the genre/subgenre you write in, and who the target publishers are. Frex, if you write lesbian erotica, a subgenre that is published pretty much exclusively by a few niche-market small presses, paying an editor is probably not advisable, and neither is seeking agent representation. If you write YA SF/F, you'd be more likely to target the Big Publishers and need an agent.