Breaking Down The Most Important Types of Editing

Julie L.
York

I’m just going to list all the editing terms I could find: developmental, substantive, copy, line,
proofreading, rewrite, substantial, basic, content, heavy, stylistic, structural, publish-ready, manuscript evaluation, project, indexing (list of names, places, people, etc. that appear in your book that can be listed and used inside Amazon/eretailers as keywords or for marketing purposes--Penultimate Editorial), fact checking, reference checking, review, formatting, and mechanical stylistic, copy, line, mechanical, basic, fact checking, reference checking, proofreading, publish ready, formatting, manuscript evaluation/review, indexing.

There are as many terms for editing as there are words for that wet stuff that falls from the sky. Whether it’s a descriptive word about something like rain looks, how hard or soft it falls, if there’s wind, the color of the wet stuff and the sky it comes from, you’re still getting wet. If an editor uses a term you don’t understand, just ask for their definition. Editing is still editing, no matter what anyone calls it.
This month we move into the realm of the specifics and nitty gritties. This is where the term grammar Nazi begins to peek around the corner. I’m going to delve into stylistic, basic, copy, line mechanical, and fact/reference checking. Wait, what? Huh?
Trust me, even we fiction authors sometimes need that last one. I will explain, I promise.
Let’s begin with why I didn’t put stylistic in with the big boys of structural or developmental.
It’s not always a heavy hitter. That’s why.
Stylistic editing is all about your voice. Just like with professional singers without the auto-tuner—we authors have unique voices. Yes, our style may “resemble” or be “similar” to other authors, but no one’s voice is exactly the same as anyone else’s. Which is one reason we LOVE LOVE LOVE our readers, who are typically the ones who catch plagiarizers. They know our voice—and know when they don’t hear it inside one of our books that something fishy is going on.

Read the entire article in the April 2019 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

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