What do you guys think is the general role of a book editor?

MeronZG · Post by **MeronZG** » 16 Jan 2012, 10:28

What do you guys think is the general role of a book editor?

What do you expect from an editor?

How do you find an editor that sort of compliments your work, and not water it down everything to their literal self.

Meron

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes · Post by **Scott** » 16 Jan 2012, 17:24

Mainly I think an editor's job is to find typos as well as spelling and grammar mistakes or just generally improve the structural fluency of the writing. That's just how I understand it.

Jackosaurus · Post by **Jackosaurus** » 18 Jan 2012, 01:51

Scott wrote:Mainly I think an editor's job is to find typos as well as spelling and grammar mistakes or just generally improve the structural fluency of the writing. That's just how I understand it.

I agree. I once hired a editor just to catch mistakes and she practically rewrote the entire manuscript.
Not for the better either.

XanderRichards · Post by **XanderRichards** » 28 Apr 2012, 11:21

MeronZG wrote:What do you guys think is the general role of a book editor? What do you expect from an editor? How do you find an editor that sort of compliments your work, and not water it down everything to their literal self.

I would describe the role of the editor in three words: quality control manager. I would expect an editor not only to warn me when I'm about to (analogously) drive my car off the edge of a cliff, but to get behind me and push me harder in the direction I'm already going. I also expect them to make me aim for excellence.

I had my novel edited twice. The first editor was a friend of mine who's a screenwriter. So he was really helpful in getting all the plotting right and pointing out the utterly unrealistic bits. Initially his comments were harsh (or my reaction over-sensitive), but they were all great comments and really helped the finished thing. The second editor was a colleague who has an extremely fine eye for detail and lots of editing experience. He covered all the nit-picky kinda stuff and, again, did a brilliant job. So I'm really grateful to have found two superb editors almost by accident.

Cheers,
Xander.