On Editing...

[Robert_Moriyama]

Well, I was going to correct your spelling and grammar, but then I remembered your gun collection and thought better of it. ;D

I have actually been LESS pushy about editing stories this past month or two, partly because I got burned (with "Girl Facing Village", where major rewrites were rejected by the author), partly because I had to devote some time to the "Best of" preparations. I haven't even been doing my anal-retentive (some bran will fix that) line-by-line editing and occassional deletion/insertion/rewriting schtick on most stories.

Which leads to a question: which approach is 'better'? Some authors, who really needed help at the beginning, have improved immensely (to the point where I hardly change anything). Others are technically proficient already, but have minor quirks in terms of word choice or sentence structure that I sometimes feel compelled to filet and resect.

Do authors WANT me/us to nitpick for them (with the danger being that I/we may rewrite things because "that's not how I/we would have written it")? Even the most experienced writers turn in things with bloopers that would have been caught by a careful third-party proofreader (stuff like homonyms, correctly spelled, that are just WRONG in context).

Nobody gave me the "Guidebook to Editing Behavior" delineating the limits of my editing powers and responsibilities, so I have been winging it for over two years now. To paraphrase "Number Five" from the "Short Circuit" movies, "Need i-i-input. Need feedback."

Have I been a Good Editor? A Bad Editor?

Negative responses will not affect the likelihood of having a story accepted, possibly with only minor amputations and transplant surgery. Honest. ::)

Robert M.