Book Update: Editing & Five Things I’ve Learnt From It

So I’ve finally got a book update that’s somewhat eventful and notable, I’ve finally finished editing my manuscript and oh boy was that a lot of work! Anyway, might as well write a meta post about it because a lot of people wonder what goes on behind the scenes of writing a book and I want to share the realities and give back to my fellow writers and creatives and share what I’ve learnt and from there we can all be better writers. Writing a book is fun, but it’s definitely far from the glamorous image that you imagine in your head. Unfortunately I was not in my fanciest clothes and laying on my divan as I wrote Crime of the Century. Far from it! But that’s a story for another time.

A lot of people think writing a book is really simple and how long can it possibly take? Well, creating anything takes a lot more time than you’d think. This book was over two years in the making with countless hours of research that went into it. I watched so many documentaries and videos about true crime. I read a lot of books. I looked through newspaper and magazine archives online. I listened to a lot of music, that was the really fun part. Editing was no exception, that took a lot of time. Writing a book doesn’t just cost a lot of your time, it also costs you a lot of money, if you’re going the self-publishing route, but that’s not what this blog post is about and that’s something I’ll talk more about later as I go through the process of getting Crime of the Century published.

Anyway, here are five things that I learnt throughout the editing process:

1. Editing is necessary and don’t try to do it yourself!

This should be the most ‘duh’ one, but I know why people think this way. Editing a book is expensive. There’s a real human being reading your manuscript and checking for spelling and grammar errors and trying to keep the style consistent so your book looks professional and not like some really long hastily banged out blog post, and they deserve to be paid fairly for their work. Even then, I wonder how fairly paid editors are. While it cost a pretty penny to edit an over 100,000 word manuscript, how many hours did it take the editor to go through it all and then divide the cost with the hours, what was that hourly rate? So it’s not like you’re being swindled. Artistic and creative jobs are undervalued.

Think back to when you were in school, revising your own essays was not fun and it was hard to do because you’re looking at your own work. I don’t care how good of a writer you are, you need another set of eyes looking at your work. There’s a reason that in school the teacher got you to pass your essay to another student to critique it. It’s not easy being a solo creator. One of the biggest challenges is that I don’t have someone else to bounce ideas off of and I have to hope that those ideas work and that the readers enjoy it. Your editor is someone who can give a little pushback and get you to think more about your writing and figure out how to improve it.

For any university students reading this, make sure you take full advantage of your university’s writing centre. Just because you go to the writing centre doesn’t make you stupid or a bad writer. It’s foolish to not use the resources offered to you. Even seasoned writers use the writing centre. I used my university’s writing centre and I found it helpful in making me a better writer.

I’ll talk more about this in another point, but whatever you do, get someone else to read your own writing because there’s only so much of your own writing you can take. Just pony up the money for editing.

2. Know the different types of editing

Not all editing is the same and you should think about what type of editing you need. Copy editing is where they check your grammar, punctuation, and spelling – this is absolutely necessary for everyone and every writer should at a bare minimum go for copy editing. It’s not as simple as spellcheck. Spell check and autocorrect can save you a bunch, but it’s not foolproof and a lot of mistakes escape the computer, even though AI is getting better, there’s no replacement for a human being. Typos happen to all of us, even those who did well in the spelling bee and got good grades in English class. Some of us are caffeine-fuelled and writing these books late at night and we’re in a hurry to get words on that page! No matter who you are, you’re definitely going to think lesser of a book if it’s full of typos and grammar errors. However, copy editing isn’t about the content of your writing, the structure, the narrative, fact checking, how it looks on a page, or if it’s engaging for a reader. They’re not going to move paragraphs around or restructure your writing. Those are different types of editing and that will cost you even more. In a perfect world, you’d be able to afford all the types of editing and your book would be perfect and polished.

If you do have the money, you could consider other types of editing as well as copy editing like: developmental editing early on in the writing process to make sure your manuscript makes sense – good idea for a new writer; evaluation editing – to check the flow, structure, and quality of your writing on a big picture level; content or line editing – checking the flow, structure, quality, tone, and voice of your writing on a more detailed level; proofreading – an editor looking through your printed proof (you could think of it as like a mockup of your book) and checking for errors; and having beta readers read your manuscript – which isn’t exactly editing but can provide valuable feedback about your book – they’re like a focus group for your book and feedback from your target market can provide some interesting perspectives.

3. Good speaking and good writing is not the same thing

I’m one of those people who writes as if they are speaking and there’s definitely a time and a place for it like on a blog, but a book is a different medium. It’s definitely a friendly, welcoming approach to writing and makes it less intimidating, but that casualness needs to be kept in check. I remember my dad saying that English is harder than Spanish and I was like wait, how? But after going through the editing process for my book, I can see why. One of the most common grammatical errors in my book was some special type of past tense (I think it’s the past perfect tense?) I don’t know how to use and I’ve been writing for almost a decade and generally did well enough in writing essays for university. I remember speaking to a French guy about grammar and he said there are so many different tenses in French and he doesn’t know how to use them all and he’s a smart guy with a PhD.

One other thing to be mindful of is what country you’re from, what country your publisher and editor are located in, and who’s your audience. I’m originally from America, but have spent most of my adult life outside of America so for the most part my written English fits more into British standards than American standards, but not always. Some Americanisms stayed, and from briefly living in Canada, some things from there stuck with me and after spending nearly a decade in Ireland, some things from there rubbed off on me. My English is all over the place, let’s just say that. My audience on the blog are mostly American and British and thankfully I think they’re mutually intelligible. A few words here and there that are different, but not so bad once you get the hang of it.

4. The editor’s feedback is for your own good, the editor is there to help you, not hurt you!

No one likes hearing criticism, but it is necessary and for your own good. The editing process is not a hugbox and shouldn’t be a hugbox. It’s not Barney & Friends! I think back to when I was in school. The whole point of being in class is to make the mistakes in class, where it’s much lower stakes, so when you get to the workplace you don’t make mistakes that cost you a lot more. You mess up in a journalism class, okay well you get a bad grade – happens to the best of us and one bad grade isn’t going to ruin your chances of getting a job, but if you mess up while working at a newspaper, you could end up fired and that’s way worse.

The editor is not the enemy even if they’re criticising your work. They want the best for your book and for you as an author. They’re there to help you, not hurt you and I got that line from my theatre professor from undergrad. Just like an editor, a professor is going to give criticism and feedback, but they’re ultimately there to help you, not hurt you. It should be obvious, but it’s a good reminder.

5. Take breaks, take your time going through all the changes, and don’t be afraid to disagree with the editor sometimes

And that last tip leads me to this one. It can be draining and demoralising to read ‘change this’ ‘change that’, stupid typos and grammar mistakes being pointed out. But let me remind you this, if you’ve gotten to the stage of finishing your manuscript and you’ve made it this far, you don’t have much longer to go, keep going, it will be worth it in the end. If you need to take breaks because of how draining it gets to see constructive criticism, do it! Don’t overwork yourself. Keep everything balanced.

Another reason you might want to take breaks is looking at a screen is tiring. My eyes hurt from looking at a screen for hours on end and my wrists and hands hurt from all the typing. I had periods of my life where I did a lot of writing and it took a toll on me physically, so bad I went to the doctor worried I had carpal tunnel, thankfully I didn’t have that. Nope, just tendonitis. If you don’t take breaks, you might not catch mistakes and you might miss things when you’re editing, even with the ‘track changes’ option on in Word. And sometimes I even caught some mistakes that the editor didn’t catch. Slow and steady wins the race. Don’t rush it!

This section here technically has two tips, but I had to include an extra one as a bonus. Don’t be afraid to disagree with the editor. The editor is human and you know your book, your topic, and your audience best. Think critically and think for yourself. You can always disagree with the editor. Ultimately when you’re self-publishing, it’s your book! Write the best book you can write and make it something you’re proud to put your name on.

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