Every writing project begins the same way. Authors ruminate on a subject until they convince themselves that the unique thing they have to say—let’s call it a “book”—adds something to the world, and that they deserve something for sharing it.
Problems arise when authors try to monetize that work. “Hi! I have 200 pages of words on paper. If you pay me $20, I will let you—and only you—read it.”
Most people would rather invest their $20 in something more exciting than sitting still for an unknown period of time, looking at black letters on a white page. After they’ve tried it once, they will never do it again. They have no idea what they might be getting themselves into.
Over time, the author has developed pathways in their brain that make navigating their own book effortless. They understand every part of it. Other people don’t have those pathways, and reading something new is like going to the gym for the first time: a lot of heavy lifting, and frankly it’s unpleasant.
Some people will help the author adapt what they wrote into a format that readers can recognize. In essence, these people impose a commonly understood roadmap to the author’s words. The reader will not necessarily see where the author is taking them, but they will recognize that a knowledgeable person leads the way. They are sure they are not staring at chaotic words typed by monkeys.
Developmental Editing
The people who help authors shape their work into these formats are called developmental editors. They have honed a difficult skill, and there are not very many of them. They don’t enjoy doing it—it’s like going to the gym for the first time, over and over, but they’ll do it if you pay them. A well-established author working with a publishing house may think the editing is being done for free by the publisher. The publisher pays the developmental editor and deducts that amount, plus a markup, from what they ultimately pay the author.
The author and developmental editor work together to create a memo that sets structure and style rules. The author rewrites the book with the memo in mind. They do not concern themselves with dotting i’s or crossing t’s or grammar in general at this stage of production.
Line Editing
When authors complete rewriting their work, they engage line editors. Line editors ensure the revised work follows the development memo. They may adjust words, restructure sentences, or make any other changes that make the revised book more readable to the intended audience. They ensure the prose flows smoothly from the beginning to the end. They refine the wording, pacing, and clarity throughout.
They are the second-most-transformative editor (after the development editor) in the evolution of the book. They return the reddest, most heavily notated pages to the author to incorporate into the master document. They don’t concern themselves with page numbers or strict spelling and grammar rules. There are plenty of errors left to be corrected, but less expensive editors can make those corrections. They could do it if they wanted, but it would be economically unfair to the author.
The author (or someone they pay) incorporates some or all of the line editor’s suggestions into the master copy of the book.
They now have a line-edited manuscript. It has changed considerably from the original document. A jumble of words now looks like something people may be willing to exchange money for.
Copyediting
But not yet. When book buyers glance through the pages, they will see errors that suggest the author has not thought through the subject sufficiently. The most highly educated will see the most errors, and, unfortunately (from the author’s perspective), they are the most influential in shaping the public’s opinion of the book and its ultimate salability.
To avoid a literary stillbirth, the author hires a copyeditor to correct all the errors they can find. There are electronic tools that can help them find these errors. Spell check is at the head of the list. It’s not perfect, but it catches most spelling errors. That is its strength, and that is its weakness. They’re/their/there are all spelled correctly but mean different things. Public and pubic are both spelled correctly. Making that error can be humiliating.
Grammarly is an excellent tool, but it’s not perfect either. It looks at whether the text is grammatically correct. It doesn’t understand when grammatically correct text is incorrect. It makes suggestions that can profoundly change the meaning of what the author intended. Just because Grammarly says something is correct or wrong does not make it so. Only humans know how to read between the lines of written words, and that is often where readers can find the most critical knowledge.
The copyeditor corrects everything they can find, and the author (or someone they pay) incorporates the suggested changes they approve into the master document, which now looks almost ready to print.
Proofreading
But hold on a moment. In life, when you correct one thing, you break another. The book needs a final eye. A proofreader is the last person, besides the author, who reviews the manuscript. They check page numbers and other numbers in the writing, they look for repeated words, such as the at the end of one line of text and the beginning of the next. They look for double spacing between words. It’s perhaps best to do this stage when the document has been typeset and is in ‘ready to print’ format. Changing fonts can expose errors. The words “guilty” and “quilty” look very similar when typed in Courier. Imagine the climactic moment when a jury declares the defendant “quilty as charged.”
Let’s compare what we started and ended with. We started with something the author had to pay someone to read. In economic terms, it had a negative value. It cost the author a lot of time and effort, time and effort they could have used for more traditionally productive activities. Thinking is a leisure activity. Writing about what you thought is a leisure activity. Writing as an occupation is a gamble with many risks. The payout can be enormous. Isn’t it wise to eliminate risks to increase the probability of the risk paying off? That’s what editing is all about.
When you boil it down, editing is the difference between a pile of words someone had to slog through and a book someone actually wants to read. Each stage tightens the screws a little more—development gets the story straight, line editing makes it readable, copy editing cleans up the mess, and proofreading keeps you from embarrassing yourself in print. You start with a manuscript that costs you money. You end with one that might actually make some. That, in a nutshell, is what editing is all about.
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