You Can't Do It Wrong: Editing

YOU CAN'T DO IT WRONG: EDITING

Last week I talked about how you can't do revision wrong (found here) and this week I thought that I would apply that to editing as well. At the moment I am going through the dev edits stage for my next book and while I've worked with a handful of editors, all of them have had a different process for how they give me their corrections and how I go about making them. None of these are wrong or less valid.

A lot of the time, writing advice, and yes this does apply to editing as well, is tailored to the mainstream, or the most common ways of doing things, and it can lead to the belief that if you don't do it the way all these other writers do it, then you are somehow not a valid writer, or doing it so wrong that everything is going to be ruined and you might as well give up now.

Over my, almost, twenty years of publishing, I have done things a myriad of ways. I've done in line comments. I've done getting the whole document back with comments, I've done making corrections with my editor there to help. I've also done getting edit letters and making those corrections on my own. None of these are wrong ways to do it. Some are more common in indie, some are more common in trad, but they are still not wrong. They are valid ways to go about the editing cycle and you gotta do what works for you.

Too often the emphasis is to emulate a popular writer with the idea that since their book(s) sells, then if you do everything the way they've done it, you'll be an instant success, and writing and creating just doesn't work like that. It never has, and it never will. One great thing about writers, about all creatives, and humans in general, is we all work differently. We all have our own unique way of thinking, of doing things, of solving problems, and of creating. And they are all valid.

I have taken literal years to find a way that works for me with all parts of the writing and publishing process, and even then, I still find new ways to make it work. I will still come across advice that sparks an idea and I sit down and try it, sometimes putting my own spin on it, and find it works, but the same can be true for finding it doesn't. It's all about finding what works best for you personally.

It's all very well and good starting out and looking for advice, I get that, I write these posts every Monday because I know how daunting it is for a newbie to suddenly be handed an edited manuscript and told to fix it, and have no idea where to even begin. When I first started publishing, way back in 2005, I didn't have things like social media for me to garner ideas and advice, I had to learn as I went. I am so happy that there's the ability to pass information onto new writers now because while not every piece of help will actually speak to you, the abundance of it means you're more likely to find a way that does, or at least, end up combining this way and that, and coming up with a brand new way that is just yours.

My point is basically that no matter how you go about it, you can not edit wrong. Lemme say that louder for the people in the back: YOU CAN'T EDIT WRONG.

It's all about finding what works for you and applying it to your own way of working. Good luck!

Any questions? Lemme know in the comments!

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