For a year now (or two, or ten), you have been hammering away at your manuscript, revising and reworking every scene and nuance until you know the characters better than you know your spouse. You have sacrificed sleep, dinner with friends, your favorite sitcom, even...
Everyone who creates a work of art, literary or otherwise, needs an editor. Why? Because creation involves different mentalities than craft; and rare is the artist who has the left brain/right brain balance to be creator and audience at the same time. All the arts...
In a vague sense, every author knows what an editor is there to do—make the manuscript as good as it can be. But how does this process work? And what’s the author’s role in this process? Step 1: Let’s Talk By email or on the phone, the author and the editor meet to...
The following interview appeared in a newsletter published by a small press. Have you ever wondered what an editor really thinks about literature today? When Lynda Lotman (Book Editing Associates) agreed to be interviewed for our Fall newsletter, I knew this edition...
Do you use Word's “embedded comments” feature? It's a tool I use every day when I am editing, but I also find it extremely handy when I am writing. I often want to leave a note to myself about a character or a plot idea or some back-story, but without stopping to find...
Recently, the New York Times notified their editorial staff that they were going to lay off buy out half of them. So the editorial staff published an open letter to Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn. In it, they describe some of what we editors...
What is a beta reader? A beta reader, at the behest of an author, reviews and provides feedback on a work of fiction before it is submitted to agents or publishers. Beta readers, like "beta testers" in the software industry, look for inherent flaws in a product before...
You can save money on your edit. I have received literally hundreds of manuscripts. Every one is its own universe. An edit cannot be a flat rate depending on word count (or, in the old days, page count.) Some manuscripts are submitted with, for example, a lot of...
John Ethier’s novel, a basketball thriller titled The Little Red Boat, was edited by Marie Valentine of Book Editing Associates. Here, she gets more information on his process. MV: Tell us about your book. JE: The Little Red Boat is the story of two friends, Jamie and Angel, who come from a small town in northern […]
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that as much as an agent or editor might wish otherwise, they will never be able to read each and every page of the projects they have in on submission. They have to eat, pay attention to pesky children and spouses, and occasionally even read other books so they have […]
The publication of journalist Tim Teeman's biography In Bed with Gore Vidal: Hustlers, Hollywood, and the Private World of an American Master (Magnus) for the first time looks at Vidal's romantic and sexual lives and their influence on his writing and political...
The differences between editing for grammar and professional book editing.