Editor’s notations.

Hi Guys,

I know it’s been a while. I have been working on a really big project which I will share with you in due course. With such big projects, there comes a great number of challenges. One of the things I learned during this and my past projects, I felt, warranted a special blog.

The last post I wrote was about finishing off or the resolution of your writing. Then what happens next? I have talked about the three stages of writing and the stage after writing is that of the dreaded editing stage. The editing stage is also when you start the marketing stage as far as I am concerned. It’s the part when you start telling people about your book and generating some interest about it.

So you hire an editor and trust me you should always do this.
Here’s why:

1) You are too close to see the mistakes that you made.
2) A fresh set of eyes will help you spot any grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes.
3) You might think that your story is perfect the way that it is but trust me “It can always do with improvement.”

Now, please take my meaning the right way. I am not saying that your writing is bad; just that you can improve it. Every single serious writer knows they can always improve and anyone that takes their writing beyond the writing stage has to have someone look at it.

So, after receiving the manuscript back from an editor you will see this.

That is a small segment from my upcoming novel “The Hunt for Veritas.” What is happening in the scene is not important, but look at the red marks. A word is struck through like the word ‘commented’. The editor is saying to remove it. He would then offer a replacement for the word, also in red, which would be underlined.

If you have a hard copy and you see something that is both struck through and then underlined this means that the editor changed his mind and you should keep the original. As we have the ability to edit what we do in the document on our computers you won’t see that happen.
This also happens with punctuation marks so it can get a little difficult to know what is going on as a strike through would not look the same. The line remains in the same place as it would be if there was text. So do be careful.

I hope this helps the struggling authors when they get their precious manuscript back from the editor and find it filled to the brim with red lines and marks. This just means that the editor worked really hard to find all your mistakes.

Keep Reading.

Peter