When you finish your manuscript, because you've been working so closely on it for so long, you've probably become kind of blind to the errors that still exist in it. You know, like when your beard has started to grow in gray, but you don't really see it. But, as you force yourself to look a little more closely, you realize that some of your comedy falls flat, the transitions seem rough, and there's a chance that you changed a character's name in chapter 23, and - worst of all

Because I’m an editor, you might expect me to be pretty biased when it comes to whether or not people should go through editing. And, well, you’d be right—but not for the reasons you think. You see, in the far-distant reaches of my brain, I’m also a writer. I truly love the written word—and when those words were written by me, I tend to love them even more. I find myself obsessing over the way I’ve turned the perfect phrase, and thinking that I will never change anything ever

Before I start any editing project, I like to find out from the author who the target audience is. It seems like a very simple set of questions: Who will be reading this? What do you know about your readers? In short, the question is “Who is your book’s audience?” I cannot begin to tell you how many people, when asked, respond with “everyone who likes to read” or “anyone who is interested in X” or—possibly one of my least favorites—“I don’t know.” Let’s be honest. No book is

Last month, we talked about two aspects of editing. There was the article in the middle of the month asking about whether you want someone just like you doing your editing, and there was another at the end of the month talking about what kind of editor you need at any stage in the writing process. This month, let’s look at how those two things collide when you’re writing in a specific genre. I apologize, in advance, if it seems at times that I’m talking in circles when it com