Edit Me Pretty

"Hmm, so is 'a week nod' one that takes seven days?"

As an English teacher, I was all-too-often handed stories and essays so badly written that they were difficult to decipher and impossible to read with any sense of enjoyment.  When I pointed this out to students they invariably said: “I didn't worry about mistakes because I was concentrating on my ideas.”  What they were really saying was that they couldn’t be bothered!  And the problem with that is that when a reader has to work her socks off just to understand what is being said on the very first page, many of those excellent ideas will fail to shine out beyond the first paragraph.

Literary agents and editors don’t have to be kind in their rejections, of course.  They have polite but firm standard rejection letters, which none of us want to receive.  To avoid them, therefore, we need to feel confident that when we release our literary babies, we are giving them the best possible chance of delivery onto the bookshelves of the world.

Editing is the co-parent in the literary process and cannot be denied access to the progeny.  Readers are unforgiving and, quite rightly, consider themselves as experts - they know what spoils their reading enjoyment and are generally quite willing to advertise that to the world.  Agents and publishers are no different – but they don’t have to resort to negative reviews – they just give the thumbs down. 

Every writer knows how difficult it is to edit one’s own work, but getting it right – especially those early pages – could well pave the way for the child of our creation into the big wide world.  We owe it to ourselves and to everyone we want to take us seriously as writers, to do our best to get it right so it shows off our skills to their best advantage.

Badly edited work is a sure way to alienate your readers.  I've done a lot of reading recently for review purposes and whilst I've read many truly delightful stories, there were some that left my teeth jangling in my head in amazement.  They were worse than the first drafts of some of my less accomplished students and left me baffled that the writers seriously expected readers to tolerate such gibberish, much less pay them for the insult!

I read about engaged couples practising their marital vowels, about someone who had sweat dripping from every auriferous and about another who repapered (when he should have reappeared).  I’ve been faced with novels in which every single paragraph is dense with mistakes and these are not just from self-published authors, sadly.  It seems a number of online publishers are letting their authors down when they promise an editing service which they can’t deliver.

Whenever I read badly presented work from authors who expect their readers to pay for the privilege of reading their stories, my hackles begin to rise.  I don my teacher’s hat and wag my index finger severely – but sadly in vain.  Badly edited novels continue to be churned out and foisted upon the trusting (but no longer unsuspecting) public.  It really isn’t fair to expect readers to flip backwards and forward between pages to ensure they’ve understood what is being said or read a sentence three times to work out its meaning.  Enjoyment interruptus is a definite no-no!

I edit work for a small group of clients and am currently unable to take on any more.  However I would urge all writers to shop around to find a reliable editor before unleashing their masterpieces onto the paying public.  Edit and edit and edit again. The most useful and comprehensive resource I've found in recent years is Writer's Companion by Carlos J Cortes & Renee Miller. This guide covers just about every editing question imaginable and will allow you to self-edit with confidence.

I’d love to know what editing blunders spoiled your reading experiences.