The Edit with Me Series

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Abstract

g, on using the Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster to create and update style guides, all so I can pass that on to the authors I work with.</p><p id="afa9">Essentially, my goal as an editor is to provide a personalized, one-on-one writing course to every person I work with, using their book as an example.</p><p id="0021">The nature of the business means that I can’t actually show people the work I do in a general sense, because my base layer, so to speak, isn’t my own. I don’t own the book. My name isn’t on the cover and might not be in the pages at all. So I don’t get to show, in detail, what editing looks like.</p><p id="9bf2">This series will change that.</p><p id="24be">Right now, I’m working through a fifth draft of my <i>own</i> book, one I’m preparing to self-publish (under a pseudonym). These are my words. I give myself permission to use them as an example.</p><p id="258e">In this series, we’re going to examine <i>how</i> I edit, word by word. What I look for, what questions I ask myself, why I make the changes I do, and how I update the document based on those questions. My goals are both to show what it is an editor does — and why it can be so different than a beta — as well as give a guide for your own self edit

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ing.</p><p id="3767">In the next post in Edit with Me, we’ll look at the book itself: where it started, the work I did to begin writing it, when I set it aside, and why that was precisely the moment I should have called in an editor.</p><p id="35f3"><i>If you like my work and would like to read more of it, consider joining Medium with <a href="https://medium.com/@rochelledeans/membership">my referral link</a> to get full access to every article on Medium. Using my referral link doesn’t cost you anything extra, but half of the fee goes directly to supporting me each month.</i></p><div id="a7e0" class="link-block"> <a href="https://medium.com/@rochelledeans/membership"> <div> <div> <h2>Join Medium with my referral link - Rochelle Deans</h2> <div><h3>As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/0*cP5hubGsSYhxUAYn)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Looking behind the scenes of an editor at work

What does an editor even do? What do you think?

I bet every single person who read that question came up with a slightly different answer. From “I have no idea,” to, “they’re the ones who choose which books to publish,” to “fixes grammar and stuff, right?” to “what, like, a film editor?”

My main job as an editor is none of these things, although I have done most of them. (The one I have not is choosing which books get published. I have edited video before.)

My job, as far as I describe it, is to see your story for what it is and what it could become. I study craft relating to every angle of writing so I can learn how best to apply it to the books I edit. I became an expert in a few variations on structure, on line editing, on using the Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster to create and update style guides, all so I can pass that on to the authors I work with.

Essentially, my goal as an editor is to provide a personalized, one-on-one writing course to every person I work with, using their book as an example.

The nature of the business means that I can’t actually show people the work I do in a general sense, because my base layer, so to speak, isn’t my own. I don’t own the book. My name isn’t on the cover and might not be in the pages at all. So I don’t get to show, in detail, what editing looks like.

This series will change that.

Right now, I’m working through a fifth draft of my own book, one I’m preparing to self-publish (under a pseudonym). These are my words. I give myself permission to use them as an example.

In this series, we’re going to examine how I edit, word by word. What I look for, what questions I ask myself, why I make the changes I do, and how I update the document based on those questions. My goals are both to show what it is an editor does — and why it can be so different than a beta — as well as give a guide for your own self editing.

In the next post in Edit with Me, we’ll look at the book itself: where it started, the work I did to begin writing it, when I set it aside, and why that was precisely the moment I should have called in an editor.

If you like my work and would like to read more of it, consider joining Medium with my referral link to get full access to every article on Medium. Using my referral link doesn’t cost you anything extra, but half of the fee goes directly to supporting me each month.