Writer, whatever you do, get a real editor

I’m reading a book about a topic that really interests me, but it’s a tough read because the book is so poorly edited.

There are punctuation errors, particularly missing or unncessary commas, on every page. There are word use issues (weary instead of wary, for instance). There are things like “l” instead if “i” in the name Diana (which appears on almost every page).

The author wrote that someone fought in World War II, and after he returned home, he began working at a company “in 1941, the year [the company] opened.” It’s hard to know what the problem is there. Is the year a typo? Does the author not know when World War II ended? Maybe the guy he’s writing about wasn’t in the war at all? Maybe it’s a poorly constructed sentence, so it’s not saying what he meant it to say.

There’s really no good art to go with a post like this, but everyone loves a good cat, so this is Penny lying next to my book outline whiteboard. She’s very helpful when I’m writing!

A good editor would catch that and ask about it.

I don’t mean to pick on this one author. His is just the latest in a series of horrifically edited books I’ve read lately.

I know I’ve said it before, but the retired English teacher next door or your brother-in-law who’s “good with spelling” may come cheap, but they are not editors. A good editor will know publishing style, as well as recognize point of view issues, too much exposition, weak characters, bad dialogue, clauses that don’t match the subject, and all the zillons of other things that can drag down a book.

I’m not going to go into a long list of every single thing that needs to be looked at when a book is edited, but any book, no matter how awesome a writer you are, will have some of those things.

At author talks, when people ask about getting books edited, I get a lot of pushback when I say every single person who wants their book to land somewhere besides their mother’s bedside table needs an editor. It seems like a lot of people who write want to be told it’s OK to not pay for an editor. I’m not going to do that. [By the way, I haven’t edited books in years and don’t plan to, so this isn’t a sales pitch.]

I don’t care if you’re submitting to agents or self-publishing. Pay for a good editor. If you don’t have the money, save it up or find it.

The most frequent excuses I hear for not getting an editor are:

With texting and email, readers are a lot more tolerant about bad puncutation, usage, etc.Even books published by big publishers are poorly edited, so it doesn’t matter if mine is.It’s too expensive.I’m an editor, so I don’t need one.Not everyone’s an English major who obsesses about every little comma. Get off my back.

My answer is that those “reasons” don’t matter. A reader may not realize they’re slogging through an unedited minefield, but their understanding and enjoyment of your book will still suffer.

If you care about your work and want other people to care too, present it in the best way possible. Get an editor.