Editing is all about enhancing meaning. A good editor will never try to change the meaning of a document. Rather, preserving and clarifying the author’s intent is the heart of the editor’s job. The editor is a stand-in for the reader—the “average” reader, and perhaps even more, the most perceptive and most critical reader—the type of person who spends a lot of time reading and has a thorough knowledge of English.
My main goal as an editor is to create smoothness, flow, and focus. That goes beyond grammatical correctness and punctuation; it also involves word choice, syntax, consistency, and overall feel. Editing also means having a bird’s eye view of an entire document in order to see what is needed for maximum order and meaning.
Editing is also a balancing act, in several ways. It’s important to constantly keep in mind the excitement factor, which requires weighing the author’s material and creativity against the reader’s attention span. A similar aspect is balancing the wording of the author against the expectations of the reader. An editor must rearrange, avoid redundancy and inconsistency, and add perspective to a document without losing the focus on main themes.
A good editor won’t overthink the job. That means balancing perfectionism against realism. The 90 percent rule is a good standard for most editing projects: unless it’s a Pulitzer candidate, I aim for 90 percent perfection, because the last ten percent will take 90 percent of my time. That’s a tough thing to do: most editors are perfectionists by nature. Writers who want perfect 100 percent editing need to know up front that it will cost extra.
Since many writers tend to overwrite, “less is more” is a good rule of thumb; often an editor has to do “more” to get the writing to “less.” The guiding principle of all writing is that it’s all about the reader. Therefore, an editor’s job is similar to what Isaiah described: to “Make the road straight and smooth…fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks” for the reader.*
A word or phrase that seems perfect to the writer may not make sense or feel right to the reader. Generally, my first strategy is to reword and rearrange sentences rather than rewrite them; when I do rewrite or replace a phrase, it is based on believing I know what the author is trying to say and finding a way to say it that will connect well with the reader and also provide greater efficiency and clarity.
Providing clarity and fulfilling the reader’s expectations may mean attempting to fill in missing or incomplete information. Sometimes I do that in an early draft as a way of encouraging an author to add needed material in the next draft. Occasionally, more serious rearranging is required. Phrases, sentences, entire paragraphs, or even whole sections of a chapter may need to be moved to a different chapter. Sometimes even the order of the chapters needs to be rearranged—again, all in the interest of clarity.
All of these issues contribute to the overall readability of a story, memoir, nonfiction blog, or novel. On the other hand, since I’m a freelance editor—basically a professional writing consultant—what I do is make suggestions and recommendations. The author or publisher has the ultimate say on what goes into the final product.
*Isaiah 40:3-4, The Message Bible