What is Book Editing, and Why is it Important

Once you finish your book and put the two most satisfying words, ‘The End,’ after toiling for months, there’s another beginning. It’s called Editing. The most crucial and heart-breaking process for authors. But at the same time, it’s something your book can’t survive without. Writing without Editing is like getting dressed in the dark and stepping out of the house without checking your reflection. Even if you do look down, you will never get the full perspective of how you look.

Well, before we get to the sheer importance of book editing, let’s find out what book editing is and the various types of book editing.

There are four types of Book Editing:

1. Developmental Editing

As Stephen King said, “When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you must step back and look at the forest.” You know your book inside out, and it all makes sense to you, but will it make sense to others?

This is where a developmental editor comes in. The DE gives you the outside objective you need. They focus on the big picture. Does your plot make sense? Is it missing anything, or does it contain too much? DE looks for plot holes, undeveloped characters, weird pacing, change in tones, conflicting ideas, strange jumps in point of view, the flow of the story and soundness.

You won’t get a file with physical changes, rather just feedback on whether your book will work the way it is or not and if not, why?

2. Structural Changes

This is where actual changes happen in your book, which becomes awesome. You might start hating the editor in this process, but you need to keep the faith. Your editor is the master of all the readers out there. Your editor wants your best. There may be a few deletions and the addition of a new paragraph or the whole chapter. The editor may suggest you develop a few characters or rearrange how you tell the story. It is a long and fruitful process. Considering the clothes example, Structural Editing is patching up the holes your dress might have, ensuring the chain is closed tight, that the colour won’t fade, and that the buttons won’t fall. You get the point.

3. Copy Editing/Line Editing

This is the most common type of editing. While copy editing checks for grammar, punctuation, and sentence restructure, Line editing is a bit comprehensive. In-Line editing, the editor pays attention to each sentence. This type of editing doesn’t necessarily focus on the story OR grammar but on the “craft” of a manuscript. In other words, line editing examines how well a writer can organize his/her words.  Does the sentence fit, can there be a better way or better words to express it? Some publishing houses confuse these two, so make sure to ask them what the service exactly includes.

4. Proofreading

This is the last step of editing. Sort of like putting on perfume or lipstick. In proofreading, the editor checks for punctuation, spelling errors, typos, alignment, and common grammar mistakes. It’s more like a reviewing process. There are a few tools available for proofreading, but if you want to put in your best for your book, go with a human proofreader.

It looks hard and time-consuming but is worth every second and penny. If you are a new writer, don’t skip any step. Development editing can help you in the long run. For an experienced writer, the last two editing processes may be enough. Far more times than not, the reason behind the failure of a book is bad editing or no editing.

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