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> Sorry about that. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s fixed now. No problem, shit happens. > My first draft is better than the finished product you’ll fi

> Sorry about that. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s fixed now. No problem, shit happens. > My first draft is better than the finished product you’ll find in most publications (not bragging, it’s just the truth). Before it’s published, however, it goes through several rounds of editing with from one to three editors, and a technical review. This can last weeks. I may have to generate five revisions before it’s good enough. It could be that your acquaintances are writing for publications with lower standards. Premier genre periodicals, as no other short fiction venues pay worth a damn, these days. Novels through trad publishing—the ones I know who self-publish barely edit at all and certainly don't pay for editors, which is, judging from the quality of the median self-published work, evidently the norm in that world. Household-name monthlies, with non-fiction writing, in those cases, though some of those publications do also print fiction. The ones I know who publish longer-form non-fiction writing do seem to get somewhat more support from their publishers, to be fair, but most of the editing work does still need to be done before submission or you're getting round-filed. Those also tend to be more well-defined and goal-oriented pieces, so content editing is less necessary or extensive. What most will do, at least, is tell you what to cut if they need the piece to be shorter. [EDIT] > EDIT: By the way, if you have friends who are submitting to publications that don’t pay, or pay only a token amount, please suggest to them that they stop. This depresses the market for writers who are tying to make a living with it. Don’t fall for the “exposure” gambit or give away your stuff to feed your ego. You‘re being robbed. Oh don't worry, they're all pretty allergic to that. Good warning though, and worth mentioning. The lit-fic market especially is a complete joke in this regard. But I suppose it's hard to blame publishers when they have such a glut of people willing to put words to paper for little or no compensation.

leephillips 4y ago
Hmm. I had in mind non-fiction, as we were discussing editing. I can't imagine a fiction writer wanting his or her creations to be touched by an editor. But I accept your report that such people exist.
- halostatue 4y ago
  A lot of fiction writers don’t, but desperately need such editing. I’ve read plenty of books that could have told the story in 20% fewer pages, or had a swapped character name, or… Some of these passed through multiple layers of editing. Some of these "passed" through those layers because the writer got too famous or cantankerous or… I acted as one of my wife’s editors for her books, and some of the things that I checked (as it was recent historical fiction) included whether the weather she described for a chapter matched the weather reported by Environment Canada. She had one scene in early April of a year where she said that the "last of the snows had gone…", but there was a snowstorm on the 3rd of April or something like that. As the weather was not critical to the scene, I insisted that it either be dropped or changed (she changed it) — because getting that sort of item wrong can throw a reader out of the flow of the book. In another instance in her second book, she had a weather condition that was crucial to the plot. We looked to see that it would be plausible (e.g., it was not 50℃ in February in Toronto in 1979), then let the weather condition stand because it mattered.

leephillips 4y ago

Hmm. I had in mind non-fiction, as we were discussing editing. I can't imagine a fiction writer wanting his or her creations to be touched by an editor. But I accept your report that such people exist.

halostatue 4y ago
A lot of fiction writers don’t, but desperately need such editing. I’ve read plenty of books that could have told the story in 20% fewer pages, or had a swapped character name, or… Some of these passed through multiple layers of editing. Some of these "passed" through those layers because the writer got too famous or cantankerous or… I acted as one of my wife’s editors for her books, and some of the things that I checked (as it was recent historical fiction) included whether the weather she described for a chapter matched the weather reported by Environment Canada. She had one scene in early April of a year where she said that the "last of the snows had gone…", but there was a snowstorm on the 3rd of April or something like that. As the weather was not critical to the scene, I insisted that it either be dropped or changed (she changed it) — because getting that sort of item wrong can throw a reader out of the flow of the book. In another instance in her second book, she had a weather condition that was crucial to the plot. We looked to see that it would be plausible (e.g., it was not 50℃ in February in Toronto in 1979), then let the weather condition stand because it mattered.