Editing: The Final Touches

If you’ve followed this series of self-editing articles from the beginning, put on your cape, go to the top of the tallest building in your city and pose your best Superman pose. You. Are. A. Rock Star!
Self-editing, alone, is a meaty and difficult subject to tackle, not to mention needing to learn what kinds of editing are out there so you know what type of editor you need to have. A pat on the back for pushing through it all.
Very, VERY few amazing authors sat down and were immediately amazing. True, some didn’t have much to learn, natural storytellers do exist, while some have a gift and were able to read enough books and internalized the storytelling process.
The most amazing authors struggled to get to that amazingness, had to learn what to and not to do from editors. And the entire reason I started teaching self-editing, while learning the process myself, was that so many indie authorlings—unpublished or newly published—didn’t know what they needed to know. Especially those who embarked upon self-publishing. It’s hard to grow if you didn’t find the right editor, but then again, how is an indie author supposed to know what an editor really and truly is if
no one has explained editing to them, and they have no publisher to tell them they need “X” kind of editor? It’s also hard to grow if you don’t know the kinds of mistakes that are common and easily fixable on your own, if the information isn’t out there.
Hence, my journey into guru-ness on self-editing. Don’t take that to mean I’m a perfect fiction author with perfect books. *snort* Ha! Far from it. One book I have up was the first one ever, with all its warts and too many “that” words in it because I didn’t quite understand the editing process and knew *this much* about self-editing. It will eventually get polished and re-released.
This last of the “Types of Editing” series ends with the most groan worthy, stereotypical types of editing: proofreading, publish-ready, formatting, manuscript evaluation/review, and indexing. This is the full-on Grammar Nazi, Coke-bottle glasses, red pencil wielder, tweed coat, hunched over a desk piled 10 feet high with manuscripts type of editing.

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

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