Suess's Pieces

By Kelly O’Connor McNees

You’ve decided to publish your novel or nonfiction book independently, and that makes you more than just the author—you’re also the project manager. As a wise manager, you know that you can’t—and shouldn’t—try to do everything on your own. You need to recruit a team of experts who can help make your book shine, and an experienced, reputable editor should be at the top of your list.

But what, exactly, does an editor do?

As a way of answering that question, let’s examine the editorial process. A book begins as a first draft. Then you revise, revise, and revise some more. Then you ask some early readers—your friends, your mom, teachers or colleagues—to help you figure out what else might need work. You revise a little more. Then, finally, you have a draft you’re ready to share.

Phase One: Substantive/Developmental Editing

You might consider hiring an editor at this phase in the process to get focused, specific feedback based on your goals for the manuscript. Some editors call this substantive/developmental editing, or a manuscript evaluation. An experienced editor understands what makes a novel engaging for readers, and what makes a nonfiction book informative and compelling. She can provide an evaluation that outlines the steps you might take to get the manuscript closer to your goals: Engaging your reader and building an audience for future titles. Specifically, this kind of editing addresses things like organization, structure, plot, character development, pacing, and dialogue.

With this evaluation in hand, you can make one last revision. Now, after all this work, your manuscript reads just the way you want it to. Each chapter begins and ends with a bang. If your book is a novel, each scene is vivid, and the characters’ conflicting desires lead to conflicts that propel the story forward. If your book is nonfiction, your prose is concise but packed with the results of your careful research. This manuscript is ready to become a book! Well, almost.

Phase Two: Copyediting

An important, sometimes invisible last step is copyediting. I say invisible because it seems that we only notice copyediting when it has been done poorly or not at all. And nothing says amateur like an e-book full of grammatical errors, punctuation missteps, and cut-and-paste blunders. Copyediting clarifies meaning, eliminates jargon and repetition, and polishes word choice; it also addresses grammar, usage, spelling, punctuation, and other mechanics of style so that your manuscript will be clean, professional, and ready to publish.

Finding the Right Editor

The abundance of freelance editors available online is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you have plenty to choose from. On the other hand, some of them don’t really have the skills to serve you well. Before you commit your time and money to this relationship, be sure to find out about a prospective editor’s level of experience, and what kinds of projects he or she has worked on in the past. Ask for testimonials from past clients because good editors will have plenty of happy customers ready to sing their praises. And don’t work with an editor who doesn’t put everything in writing up front: schedule, fees, and a detailed description of the services he or she will provide.

How long?

The editorial process can take a few weeks or a few months, depending on the editor’s schedule and the length and complexity of your manuscript. Be patient—good editorial work and revision take time. Focus on doing it well, not quickly. Besides, while you’re waiting to hear from your editor, you can get started on writing your next book!

Kelly O’Connor McNees is the founder of Word Bird Editorial Services, and along with colleague Kelly Harms Wimmer, edits traditionally and independently published books by writers of all stripes. She is also the author of two novels, In Need of a Good Wife and The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, published by Berkley/Penguin. Follow @wordbirdedits on Twitter.

No tedious grammar rules here! Just helpful advice from one self-editor to another.

Give Yourself the Chance to Shift Gears

Editing is hard, but it’s even harder if you are still in creative mode. After you write a draft, put it down and take a break. Come back later when you’re geared up to start revising. Because writing and editing are two distinct jobs that require completely different skill sets, most people become frustrated easily when they begin editing too soon. The more you practice, the more quickly you’ll be able to shift from writing tasks to editing tasks.

Don’t Edit the Way You Write

At the very least change how you view your writing from drafting stage to proofing stage. If you write in a web-integrated text editor, do your editing by reading in preview mode. If you crafted a rough draft in a word processor, print out a hard copy to check for mistakes. If you don’t, your eyes and brain will be all “Hey, we’ve seen this before. Next!”

Read Your Draft Out Loud

Reading your stuff out loud to yourself might be a little embarrassing. However, I’m pretty sure it’s less embarrassing than having an important business document go out with careless typos. Reading forces you to slow down, making it easier to catch those goofy mistakes. It will also help you find overused words and clumsy sentences.

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com

In college, I spent some time in the University Writing Center in Cavanaugh Hall at IUPUI helping students edit their work. And, if you know anything at all about teaching or peer tutoring, you know I was learning way more than they were.

When students had their big idea already on paper and it was revising time, I’d invite them to commence nitpicking. My favorite students were ones with overbearing writing tics or favorite words. “Okay,” I’d hand the student a yellow highlighter, “I want you to mark every place you wrote ‘due to the fact that.’”

At the end of the exercise, the too-proud-of-herself frosh would be holding a 10-pager drowning in yellow. “But if I take all of those out, I’ll only have 7 pages!” she’d cry.

Another easy way to improve your writing is to examine preposition usage. Since that’s what this post is really about, let’s get started.

Preposition Pitfalls

First, you need to understand why prepositions can be harmful.

• Use them too much, and your writing gets wordy. If you irritate your clients, you make less money. So chuck the useless details.
• Excessive use of prepositions makes you sound stuffy and bureaucratic. If you irritate your clients, you make less money. So write like you’d talk to them.
• Overuse of prepositions makes sentences too long and boring. If you irritate your…oh wait. Shhh. Your clients are sleeping.

Common Prepositions

Next time you write a blog post, an e-newsletter, a proposal or even an email for your small business, take a few minutes to examine your prepositions. If you can’t remember them all, use the list of common prepositions I’m spoon-feeding you. Find ‘em and highlight ‘em in your text. (Bonus tip: Writing in MS Word? Use the “Find” tool to locate and judge each instance of ‘in.’ Then it’s just lather, rinse, repeat for the other preps.)

Flashback to my days as a tutor: “But, Emily,” the whining starts, “it’s impossible to write without prepositions.”

“Well, duh. Just get rid of the frivolous ones—not all of them. Let’s start where you have three or more prepositional phrases in a sentence.”

Deciding What’s Frivolous

Let’s keep this simple and focus on just two things.

• Get rid of details your readers don’t need.
• Put your subject first.

Example 1:

In college, I spent some time in the University Writing Center in Cavanaugh Hall at IUPUI helping students edit their work.

After re-examining, I don’t think my audience of small business owners and bloggers really needs to know that I worked in the Cavanaugh Hall UWC. (There was also a University Library UWC, but I bet you don’t care about that either.) So I revise the sentence and eliminate one of the prepositional phrases:

In college, I spent some time in IUPUI’s University Writing Center helping students edit their work.

Example 2:

The best place for the eating of pizza is at Chicago’s in Clermont.

This time, I’m going to be hardcore about it. Betcha I can rewrite that sentence with just one prepositional phrase!

Chicago’s in Clermont is the best place to eat pizza.

Of course, you could always try to say the same thing without prepositions.

The Clermont Chicago’s has the best pizza.

How would you edit the following sentence?

Using the products from our brochure will add to the value of your company by reducing the amount of downtime you have between your projects.