How to Edit [like a maniac]

Death by a thousand joke cuts

Editors get a bad rap. Probably because almost everyone is a writer first and an editor second. No one wakes up and goes, “I can’t wait to edit today!” Editors wake up like all of us - with an ever-foreboding sense of dread hanging over them. In that way, we should all feel some sort of comradery with them. Except they have the added burden of being anointed as a fixer.

However, that surface-level empathy disintegrates into full-blown authoritarianism when I decide to join the editorial ranks. What does that mean?

As Iggy Azalea once said, “First things first, I’m the realest.”

This is to say that, especially in an editing capacity, I am an absolute and total bastard. If I’m editing your piece, I am Galactus: a devourer of worlds. I have no feelings, no emotions - just glowing eyes full of red ink.

So, don’t give me your piece and expect to get it back with a few grammatical changes. That’s what friends do. The friend edit is free and quick. It’s also delivered with an emoji and some general thoughts.

If I’m really editing your piece, we aren’t friends - we are opponents. We’re going to battle because that’s what feedback is all about. I say all of this not to discourage you, but to remind you that you asked me to do this.

A lot of editors are much more kind than I am in this regard. My bedside manner is curt because that’s how I was taught. See, all of you J-school bros can lean on your “Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How?” While you were learning that, I was getting my knuckles slapped by AP English teachers every time I used a simile. The fury of those punishments and limitations forged me into a warrior for the MLA format. A format that no one uses anymore. I’m mad about it.

These are the five steps I use in my [paid] editing process.

Read through for Errors

This is self-explanatory. At this point, I’m not actually focusing on your content so much as I’m looking for you to mess up. Commas, run-on sentences, spelling errors - they all die here. In fact, the entire thing might die here. If you have too many rudimentary errors, I’ll regard your piece as a waste of my time and send it back to you.

If you have a dozen spelling errors I’m not really going to take your piece seriously. Or you. Sorry, not sorry.

If your piece references people you had better get the spelling of those names right. This is the most egregious error that I see when I’m editing a first-timer’s work. Basically, you’re saying to me that you either:

A. Rushed this piece.

or

B. Didn’t even check it before you sent it.

One of those is forgivable, the other is not.

Read through to Fact Check

If you have a statistic in your piece I will automatically seek to disprove it, not corroborate it. Again, you asked for the full edit, this is what you get. I don’t do it because I’m trying to be contrarian - I do it because that’s exactly what someone else will do if they don’t like your point. Take it from someone who has had to do their own math to create usable statistics - if you’re wrong someone is going to tell you just how wrong you are.

This is also the step where I “fix” your quotes. A lot of people just throw quotes into a piece and don’t review them for effect or brevity. If you’re leaning on your quotes to hit your word count…I feel you, but I’ll also call it out.

Read through for Context and/or Construction

This is a step that a lot of editors skip or merge into the previous two steps. I like to save it because without context we are all senseless children wandering through an apocalyptic hellscape. Yes, context matters that much. At least, it does to me.

My biggest question is, “Why am I reading this?” If you don’t provide that answer in the text you sure as hell better give me a reason on the back end. Without cause, we are all lost. See the previous metaphor in this section.

If you jump around a lot with your points, that’s actually okay. I will fix that in step four. You may not like HOW I do that, but I’ll do it.

Annihilate

This is the step where I rip apart everything I have already read through and lay it out in front of me in chunks that I like. I'll create my own google doc for this step just to keep the best lines, quotes, and stats. Then I’ll walk away for a bit. I’ll come back on my own time, re-read the piece and add more of your lines as well as some of my thoughts before advancing to step five.

Reassemble

Now it’s time to really make some sense of your piece. After steps one through four, I lay out all of the guts on a table and try to stuff them back into an entirely new body cavity.

This new golem is what I send back to you. One of the changes that I make most frequently in this last stage is rearranging the order of your points. Sometimes writing linearly creates a weird disconnected dissonance - if you disassemble the parts, you can reassemble the machine and leave some scraps on the ground.

I also suggest new - or improved - transitions to make the points in the piece flow better. Reading flow is more important to me than most editors because I want to enjoy my reading experience. If you’re going to dump exposition on me without any flair or fun - I’m going to excise it and tell you to try again.

I know this all sounds extremely harsh. And if you’re reading this, I’m probably not winning you over as the next great editor of your transcendental treatise on the importance of being dispassionate. (That’s a Hemmingway joke. No, you shut up.)

I should also add that I am very bad at editing my own writing.

I have my own mental ticks and word blindness that editors legitimately hate. For example, I used to write the Canadian/English spelling of words like “Honour” and “Favour” much to the chagrin of my many editors. Sorry, guys. Try as I might, I can’t tell “Form” and “From” apart on the page. It’s totally blocked for me and I don’t know why. I also can’t give up the Oxford comma. I can’t. It just makes more sense, okay? Your boy also loves him some similies and metaphors. And past/present/future tense switching for effect. Or by accident.

The point is that I know that I need good editors to make anything I write great. I hate admitting that, but it’s true. That’s a huge part of why I attack editing outside work so aggressively. You are asking me to make you better. That’s an hono[u]r.

All editors know that the axe forgets, but the tree remembers.