Outgrowing the Web Log...Last week Hope Clark published a very useful bit of clarification of the difference between a Beta Reader and an Editor. She didn't go (here) into the difference between a Copy Editor and a Developmental Editor...
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A Beta Reader
1) Is not paid.
2) Is familiar with you.
3) Is familiar with what you write (and generally likes the work).
4) Is familiar with your genre.
5) Is an experienced reader (and maybe a writer, too).
6) Is willing to tell it like it is.
7) Sometimes asks you to trade in beta reading each other.
8) Critiques in an assortment of styles, often informal.
9) Feedback is an impression, not educational or solution-oriented.
An Editor
1) Is paid.
2) May not know you or your writing at all.
3) Is familiar with your genre.
4) Is a professional and willing to show credentials/testimonials of other editing projects.
5) Will negotiate a contract with you, defining the documents to be read and the feedback format, as well as the type of editing (i.e., developmental, copyedit).
6) Feedback is solution driven.
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There are people for whom I'll beta-read any day and twice on Sunday. You've seen some of their books reviewed here. Barb Taub, Ellen Hawley, JD Edwin, Emily Dana Botrous, Priscilla Bird, come to mind...several dozen people whose books I've read only as regular printed books, and presumably they have beta readers already, but ooohhh, ooohhh, I'd love to be among their beta readers. (Isabel Allende! I read the ARC of her newest book, in English only, I still have the Spanish edition to look forward to, and even just the English version was a reward.) I already know that reading any of their books is going to be its own ample reward.
Editing is what I'm really here to advertise and do, of course. Editing pays bills. So, a few words about the type of editing:
Developmental editing takes your manuscript apart and makes it better. Shortens it, if you tend to write too long and leave in too many details. Expands it, if you tend to write terse outline-type manuscripts that don't paint a pretty visual picture of a place. Suggests that, if your plot is a classic hero's journey (or isn't), something would traditionally happen to the mentor about here and the hero might fail on the first attempt here.
Copy editing mostly just looks for spelling and grammar issues. If you send a copy editor a printed manuscript, you might get oldfashioned colored pencil marks right on the pages. If you send a Word .docx or Google Docs .doc, you might get it back with the Track Changes feature used to cross out and insert words right in the document. If you send a document in some other format, and you are very very lucky and I can actually read this format, you might get a full-length document with page numbers and suggested changes listed, thusly:
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Page 1. "ths book" should be "this book"
Page 2. "3 pages" should probably be "three pages"
Page 3. "Shut up!!!" he explained,." should be "Shut up!!!" he explained."
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Sometimes a copy editor has an opinion ("If the character X is a professional, wouldn't X think of this point here?" or "The character Y is stereotyping X in an offensive way here"), but copy editing is generally humble work, often assigned to student interns and junior editors, paid something like a dollar a page. Developmental editing can be worth much, much more money if it's done right. Even traditional publishers these days don't feel confident about anyone's being able to do it right, and are likely to turn down manuscripts flat rather than offering developmental editing.
I need to explain that what I do well is copy editing. I've not given great satisfaction as a developmental editor. I tend to look at other people's books with a humble, receptive attitude of "This is Tracy's book; it's probably better than any book I'd be likely to write!" This makes it impossible to suggest detailed improvements like "You need a plot twist to expand the manuscript in between Pilgrim's starting the quest and the first confrontation with the ogres," or "If Lovestruck Lolly says no to Tempting Tom, even once, and spends even one night seething with frustrated hormones, readers might respect her a little more," even when I'll agree, after the fact, that such changes have been improvements.
I can quibble with things about a manuscript. "Did you really mean to suggest that it was a good thing, even after they've all achieved spiritual enlightenment, for Pilgrim to kill Pard, who's been his best friend all through the book?" "That photograph shows the most embarrassing wardrobe malfunction young women suffer. How DARE you feature it and use it as the 'evidence' for a claim that X is 'really' a man. You are obviously no gentleman, but as I am a lady you owe me an apology for that suggestion." "Those people aren't happy, they're stoned. Leave their religion out of it and don't ever suggest that the peace of true spiritual enlightenment comes in a bottle." "If all of the characters really are natural blonds, could one of them at least dye per hair purple to relieve the monotony?" "Since this adventure takes place on board a battleship I can't complain about the characters swearing like sailors, but could some of them throw in a few more specific words, now and then, to give readers the picture of what they're swearing about?" This is not real developmental editing since it's almost entirely negative. I'm unlikely to think of ways to improve your book but I can tell you whether something about it really reeks. Or you could spare yourself some drama by just thinking these things through before asking people to read your manuscript.
But what I do, usually faster and more ferociously than other people do, is copy editing...God willing and the Internet permitting. Send your unedited manuscript if you want flags for every stray punctuation mark that's hard to see on the screen, every single numeral that should traditionally be spelled out as a word, every time you forgot whether you were spelling a character's name Jeanie, Jeannie, or Jeanne. That's my niche. I failed rather dramatically to do it for Hunter Chadwick last summer, when the computer with all the edits on it crashed somewhere around page 450 of 500, but I've done it to the satisfaction of many people whose printed books succeeded, and that included a 500-page reference book that went into reprints.
(What can we do to avoid the horrible possibility of the computer crashing when I'm editing page 450 of your 500-page manuscript? What some of the hack writing and editing sites encourage, and I'd like to encourage writers to do it in real life, is DAILY UPDATES. If every single day's edits are sent to you as a separate e-mail, that may be half a dozen e-mails to deal with where one would suit you better, but it does mean that only one day's edits can be lost, and there's probably time for me to do those over.)
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