An editor can be a writer’s best friend, no matter how much of an expert the writer is. One reason is that a fresh set of eyes can almost always spot errors that you can overlook time and time again.
But not all editors are the same, so in this post, we want to talk about the different types of editing so you know which type your project can benefit the most from at whatever stage you are in.
What is editing?
Editing is the process by which someone goes through a finished manuscript and looks for areas to improve and fix. Some newbie authors opt to self-edit, and while we believe in your prowess for writing and spotting errors, nearly all professional authors swear by the power of getting someone else to edit your work.
Once you understand the different kinds of editing that your manuscript needs to go through, perhaps you’ll be more willing to consider hiring someone for the tedious process!
Five Different Types of Editing
Here are five of the most common types of editing that your book can—and most often, should!—undergo:
Editorial assessment
If your manuscript is in its beginning stages, an editorial assessment can be very helpful. Through this type of editing, the editor can take a big-picture look at your project, and also give you broad-strokes suggestions and feedback. For example, he might point out major flaws in your plot, or highlight necessary changes in your characters, or make suggestions on your overall structure.
Sometimes, we think about editing as having our work come back with all the red marks like we used to receive on our schoolwork. You need to understand that during the editorial assessment stage, an editor typically would not go into such detail; don’t expect specific comments or examples of how to rewrite a passage at this stage, because you most likely will not get them.
Instead, expect your editor to give you a wide-angle perspective of things that can be improved for your work on the overall scale of things. The good thing is that when you get an editorial assessment done in the early stages, you can already work within the suggestions and avoid much trouble further down the road.
Developmental editing
In the developmental editing stage, the editor will look at the content of your work, which is why it’s also known as content editing or substantive editing—the latter is probably because this is a substantive stage of editing where the editor can give you more detailed feedback.
Take note, though, that although we’re talking about specifics, at this stage it’s still very much big-picture. The editor will look through your ideas, scrutinize your narrative, and help point out major plot holes or inconsistencies, so that you can pull everything together more coherently.
Some of the questions that a developmental editor asks include:
- Why does this character act like this? Is it consistent with his personality or past?
- What’s driving these characters?
- What does this scene contribute to the overall storyline? If it doesn’t add anything, can it be scrapped?
- How does the story portray the main theme?
- How do the characters change throughout the story?
This is the time when you will receive your manuscript with annotations, or markups for the things that you can improve, including their specific suggestions. The editor will also typically give you a summar of all the raw feedback, known as an editorial report.
Copy editing
Once the big picture snags are fixed, you then move into copy editing. In this stage, the editor will keep an eye out for the readability of your text. This process includes line editing or mechanical editing, and focuses on things like redundancies, lack of clarity, word choice, and all these that factor into how readers can understand your work.
A copy editor essentially helps your book become more coherent, clear, consistent, and correct. It helps you communicate clearer so that your readers receive exactly what you’re trying to say.
Here are some of the things that a copy editor watches out for and helps you fix:
- Correct spelling
- Grammatical correctness
- Proper capitalization
- Correct word usage
- Minimizing unnecessary word repetitions
- Appropriate dialogue tags
- Point of view and verb tense
- Character, setting, or historical inconsistencies
Although line editing can be considered a form of copy editing, they’re not exactly identical. Line editing specifically deals with the content and the readability of your writing. Also known as stylistic editing, it focuses on fixing your writing style, and not on the mechanics. For example, this is the realm of copy editing that focuses on word usage, point of view, and tense consistency.
Proofreading
Even though copy editors can also fix spelling issues, their focus is more on correct word usage, such as using “there” instead of “their.” Proofreaders are the ones who are the most responsible for spelling and grammar issues.
Here are the things that a proofreader looks out for:
- Spelling and style inconsistencies
- Typography and layout inconsistencies
- Awkward word breaks or page breaks
- Correct pagination in the Table of Contents
- Captions on included illustrations
The proofreader typically works with a style sheet. This is especially helpful if you prefer any specific spelling style, or in the case of fantasy novels where you’ve invented a few words.
The proofreader generally returns your manuscript with mark-ups so you can revise them. After you make the suggested changes, your writing will be almost ready to go into production with a typesetter.
Fact-checking
Another important editor in the whole book-writing process is the fact checker. The fact checker’s work doesn’t come in any specific stage, but if you’ve written a book that has a lot of nitty gritty details, it can be helpful to hire a fact checker to make sure you got all the information right.
Fact checkers are crucial for nonfiction books, but they also come in handy for historical fiction novels and hard science fiction.
Why You Need These Types of Editing
At the end of the day, no matter how much of an expert writer you are, an outside editor can give you a fresh perspective that can help improve your work. As we’ve detailed in this post, all these different types of editing play a different role in your finished product.
We therefore recommend that you subject your manuscript to this lengthy—but clearly important!—editing process. That way, you will be able to give the best version of your work to your readers!
Did you find this post helpful? Let us know in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, then you might also like:
- Copy Editing: What It Is and How You Can Do It
- Line Editing: What It Is and Why You Need It
- 11 Online Copyediting Courses and Whether Certification Is Right for You
- Developmental Editing: What to Look For and How to Find the Right Editor
Yen Cabag is the Blog Writer of TCK Publishing. She is also a homeschooling mom, family coach, and speaker for the Charlotte Mason method, an educational philosophy that places great emphasis on classic literature and the masterpieces in art and music. She has also written several books, both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion is to see the next generation of children become lovers of reading and learning in the midst of short attention spans.
