Incanus
Auror
Hey Scribes!
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to hang out here.
More and more, I’ve been wondering about finding and working with an editor.
My basic question boils down to this: Does a writer who has strong editing skills need to have an editor? Put another way: Does every single writer on the planet NEED to have an editor?
I’d like to discuss this theoretically first, before trying to determine whether or not I personally have sufficient editing skills. On that point, I really have no idea.
So far, I’ve seen the work of two professional editors. In one case, the editor(s) generally lowered the quality of the prose, suggesting adding poor adverbs to dialogue tags, swapping words with ones that didn’t actually fit, and other questionable items (it’s been a while since I looked at that stuff). In another case, the editor didn’t understand the conventions of the genre very well (and admitted as much), and found no proofreading errors and minimal copyediting issues.
I can certainly see the value in simply having a second set of eyes on my work. But such eyes need not belong to an editor.
To wrap up, here are my two questions:
Does everyone need an editor?
If not, how might I determine if my own editing skills justify not using an editor?
It’s been a while since I’ve been able to hang out here.
More and more, I’ve been wondering about finding and working with an editor.
My basic question boils down to this: Does a writer who has strong editing skills need to have an editor? Put another way: Does every single writer on the planet NEED to have an editor?
I’d like to discuss this theoretically first, before trying to determine whether or not I personally have sufficient editing skills. On that point, I really have no idea.
So far, I’ve seen the work of two professional editors. In one case, the editor(s) generally lowered the quality of the prose, suggesting adding poor adverbs to dialogue tags, swapping words with ones that didn’t actually fit, and other questionable items (it’s been a while since I looked at that stuff). In another case, the editor didn’t understand the conventions of the genre very well (and admitted as much), and found no proofreading errors and minimal copyediting issues.
I can certainly see the value in simply having a second set of eyes on my work. But such eyes need not belong to an editor.
To wrap up, here are my two questions:
Does everyone need an editor?
If not, how might I determine if my own editing skills justify not using an editor?