Book Editing Tip: Less Is More
My best book editing tip is just three words: Less is more. The deliverables for a developmental edit are (1) an edited manuscript and (2) a revision letter. It doesn’t get any more basic than that!
A Simple Book Editing Tip – Less is More
That’s it.
Sometimes newer editors also add charts, spreadsheets, color coding, and map keys, which can feel unintegrated and overwhelming to the author receiving them.
Certainly, some editors can have success with this approach, but usually, less is more. You don’t have to do this kind of thing (and I would argue you generally shouldn’t) to perform an effective edit that the author can use to guide their revision.
If you are going to add spreadsheets and treasure maps, at least be sure your client understands you’re going to do it. When you deliver it, make sure the author understands how the moving parts work together.
But you’re probably overcomplicating it and making the author’s process harder rather than easier. The reason is simple: to produce a cohesive edit that doesn’t require more than an edited manuscript and a revision letter, you have to do a lot of work! You have to connect many dots and do a lot of thinking.
So when you add a lot of supplemental materials to an edit, sometimes, even (I would argue) often, this means you’re not creating a cohesive edit – you’re shifting at least some of the editorial burden back to the author.
“But I’m using the spreadsheet to show the author what to do in each chapter!” such editors sometimes say. But that’s what the editorial queries are for and what the overall revision letter describes. Don’t needlessly complicate the end product.
Over the years of teaching editing, I’ve learned to appreciate the beauty of a revision that runs six or seven pages (I used to say this was far too long for a revision letter). Now, I see how adding more examples and fuller explanations of problems helps my authors create excellent revisions. So sometimes, more is more!
But be sure that anything you add to an edit serves the author instead of yourself.
Tips for Editors & Writers
Focus on a limited number of problems in story development
Typically in a manuscript evaluation or developmental edit, I focus on what I perceive to be the three-to-five most important concerns I’ve noticed in the ms. This is the approach I teach my editing students. Editing too many problems at once overburdens the author In any given ms, there may be ten or fifteen developmental problems…
Clients who want services you don’t offer
Newer freelancers sometimes come to me in a panic because a client has approached them to do work that’s outside their typical scope. Commonly this is something like the freelancer offers copyediting and developmental editing but the client wants coaching. What should they do? They don’t know how to coach, they don’t offer coaching services,…
Expand into Book Doctoring and Ghostwriting
If you’ve been a developmental editor for any length of time, you’ve likely encountered an author who just wants you to write the book for them. Or, you’ve encountered a manuscript that was in such disrepair that it required a herculean effort to fix it, dropping your hourly rate down to pocket change. As a…
Join the Club!
New to story editing? Begin at the beginning.