Thursday, April 05, 2007

BOM: The Editing


I have only one real clear memory of the editing--and it's a story I often tell to illustrate a point.

I had two editors on the last book, The Emerald Isle. As acquisitions editor, Lisa read it. As the substantive freelance editor, Rick read it. There are two stories in the book.

Can you see where this is leading? Yep--Rick preferred one story and Lisa preferred the other one!

From that I learned that 1) men and women have different tastes and 2) editing is often subjective. :-)

Tomorrow: The results and reader reaction. Feel free to leave any questions you might have in the comments and I'll answer them at the end of the week.

~~Angie

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the picture that goes with this post :)

Anonymous said...

Greetings from Malaysia!

Our family just moved from Florida, and we are teaching at an international school in Penang, Malaysia. I have been teaching my students the need for revising, re-reading, and editing.

Last week I looked like the man in the comic as I graded descriptive essays.

I can agree that editing is subjective, and I try to tell my students that they can change what I've suggested (in content only), or create a new sentence on their own.

Angie, do you have any writing suggestions for my students? They are 9th and 10th graders.

- Kerry