Literary editing

Literature can include short stories and novels, playscripts, poetry, non-fiction books and essays. It may be written mainly to entertain, to inform, to get people thinking or feeling in a new way, or for any number of other reasons.

Before editing

To edit literature of any kind, the editor needs to know:

• what genre of writing he or she is dealing with (fiction/non-fiction, drama etc)
• the purpose of the writing and what it is trying to achieve – is it to make people laugh? to create a special atmosphere? to influence them through argument? 
• what the author wants – substantial improvement/suggestions or just a final polish?

Editing essentials

Literary editing calls for more sensitivity than almost any other field. As well as carrying out all the usual editing tasks, a good literary editor should:

• read the whole text carefully before starting, to get a sense of the author’s personal style
• note inconsistencies and discrepancies as well as obvious errors. For instance, if a character in a novel is shown doing something very ‘out of character’ for no reason, a good copy editor could mention this
• point out style problems such as repetition or use of cliché 
• make no unnecessary changes; especially, never change a phrase etc because you don’t ‘like’ it
• especially in fiction and playscripts, be aware that ‘mistakes’ may be deliberate, eg dialect/slang features or linguistic jokes
• work closely with the author and raise queries as they arise.

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