Mad Swede
Auror
In a thread elsewhere on the forums pmmg expressed surrpise when I wrote that editors shouldn't be readers or writers of the genre the author is writing in. I based that comment on my own experience as a published author, but I'm aware that this seems to be a minority view. My view is that using an editor not immersed in the genre means that I as an author get a more open and potentially more critical examination of my books, something which I as the author benefit from. I know there is an argument that an editor who isn't familiar with the genre won't know what makes a book in that genre successful and hence won't give a good edit. My counter-argument is that the basics of good storytelling don't change with genre, and that if we are to develop both the genre and as authors we should encourage critical examinations of our work. But maybe I'm wrong. What do the rest of you think?