Do Indie Writers Need Editors?

 
Camille LaGuire gives her opinion on this brand-new, age-old, never-ending topic: Do Indie Writers Need Editors?
 
I was prompted to write this post by two things:


One: the reason I quit Kindleboards was because so many indies think that editing = quality, and they cover their ears and scream when you want to talk about actual craft. And Two: I read a series of rants by various more traditionally oriented writers saying, basically, "you indie writers need to get editors!" And even they were talking about typos and usage, and not about craft…
 
Read the whole post here.
 
I like how she said what I think.
 
All the editing in the world at ridiculous per-word charges won't help a bad story be anything but a grammatically correct and properly spelled bad story. (And, as she points out, not all stories need either proper English or correct spelling.)
 
My own take on this topic is "Learn to Edit Your Own Work".
 
The only way to learn to write better stories is to get the worse stories written and out of the way. Which means you have to write those worse stories. You don't have to share those worse stories if you don't want, but there's no way around getting them written.
 
That's why I like the short story and flash fiction formats as learning tools. You can write a lot of short stories in the same time as it takes to write one novel, and you'll learn a lot more about storytelling from beginning and ending lots of times versus just once.
 
-David
 
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