Before You Hire an Editor

You’ve written your masterpiece. Or at least a short story, novel, or essay you believe worthy of publication. But is it? Other than your mother, who thinks everything you write is perfect, has anyone else laid eyes on your work? Is it really submission-ready?

Writers need editors. As a freelance editor, I hope that doesn’t conjure up an image of a stern-faced, red pen-wielding person whose only purpose in life is to make yours miserable. Far from it. Would you be surprised to learn that editors face each project with as much trepidation as you do when submitting a piece for their review? Though I can’t speak for others, I know that to be true for me. My goal is to help you make your writing say exactly what you mean in as clear and understandable language as possible. Share on X Peter Fallon describes the relationship between writer and editor as more of a duet than a duel. It ought to be a collaborative, not adversarial relationship, intended to make your writing sing.

Assuming I’ve convinced you that you need an editor, here are three things to do before passing your work off to a professional.

1. Format:    Standard publishing format calls for one-inch margins, 12 point font, typically Times New Roman, double-spaced with one space between sentences. Yes, if you learned to type on a typewriter, you learned to put two spaces between sentences. And habits die hard. But in the computer age with proportional fonts, just hit that space bar once after a period or other end punctuation.
2. Spell-check:    Do run spell-check, even though it won’t catch all the errors. Spell-check won’t find homophone errors or actual words used incorrectly. But it can eliminate extra spaces, double periods, and other kinds of errors that creep in when you’re in the zone and the fingers are moving faster than the brain.
3. Critique:   One of the best things a writer can do is seek out other writers who will honestly critique her work. Whether you join a group such as Word Weavers or search out an accountability partner who can also offer meaningful feedback, you need someone to look at your work with unbiased eyes. As a reader would. A good critique will point out the positive and negative aspects of your writing and suggest ways to clarify the language or engage the reader more effectively.

Aside from the value of the honest feedback of a critique, the camaraderie of other writers is essential for the often-lonely exercise of writing. It may be just the motivation you need to keep putting pen to paper.

These simple steps will save your editor time and frustration, save you money, and ensure the writer-editor relationship gets off to a good start. It may just be the beginning of a life-long friendship.