On writing: Editing.

I don’t have a professional editor.  I’m sure this comes as not even kind of a shock to anyone who has read my writing… but honestly after reading books that I’m SURE must have had a professional editor, I’m not completely convinced it’s necessary.

That’s not to say my writing wouldn’t benefit from one.  I just can’t afford it.  I had an aspiring author who hasn’t even published a single book yet condescend, “I just read the sample of your book that you have available on Smashwords.  My suggestion is to hire an editor right away and to work on basic grammar and punctuation.”  Apparently, he has not one, but TWO editors as well as a publicist, a web developer and probably a stylist.  I haven’t read his book though.  It’s not done yet.

I’ve read books published by major publishers with misspellings, bad grammar, awful sentence structure, and worse but still loved the book.  I’ve also read books with perfect grammar that were just awful train wrecks… so to what extent is having a perfectly edited book necessary?  I suppose it probably means more to English majors, literary agents, book nerds, and publishers than it does to your average reader.

I dunno, but every time I read one of my books I re-write at least some of it.  Every time I re-write something in one of my books it usually gets better.  I know that’s not really ‘editing’ like normal people do it but there it is.

I’ve used Grammarly for all my books now, so at least I can be marginally sure that they all meet minimum spec for “Remember to put a comma instead of a period at the end of a sentence that’s a character talking if the sentence isn’t finished,” which is IMO the monocle, top hat, white-glove, raise the pinky while drinking your tea version of who gives a shit editing.  I mean 50 Shades of Grey sold millions of copies.  Did you ever read the dialogue in that pile of rancid rat droppings?  How’d that pass muster?

I’d love to have a dedicated editor who I could pay to argue with me over story consistency, sentence structure, and that horrible accent I want the street urchin to have.  Sadly, at this point, I’m stuck to just hacking at it with a dull hatchet and hoping the rough-hewn timbers of my stories don’t give my readers too many splinters.  I just can’t afford it.

May your edits be swift, may your intuition be spot on, may the fees be small, and may the royalties flow freely.