The Editor

The sun was shining brightly. It was a September morning and Jeffery Taylor was on his way to work. Sadly, neither Jeffery Taylor, nor his job exist anymore. His job was editor. And it would be much appreciated had word processors with spell checkers and grammar checkers not driven them to extinction.

So what the hell am I talking about now? Well, for you fiction writers out there, this is someone you're going to want to know well, it's someone who is more than a proof reader, but not like the editors of old, those guys got paid. It's also not something you can do as a qriter.

It's not what? We'll get back to that in a second, but what you see there is something I typoed, the spell checker caught it, and I could have fixed it, but didn't so I could make this point. This is the kind of thing a proof reader used to catch (another extinct job), and something your guys will catch too, but that's not what you want/need them for.

Back to why it's not something you can do as a writer. There are very few people on the face of the planet who can write something, then read it as if they were looking at it for the first time, and are functional humans. As the writer, you're going to be trying to edit it, and at the same time, you're going to be remembering what was going on when you wrote it., and that's going to have a huge impact on what hits the final cut.

I'm not saying don't go back after your drafts, do. There will be things you put it in that don't work. Spots where you had a word you were searching for and couldn't remember. Whole sections that make you think, "and this is why I shouldn't try to drink like Faulkner." Those you can fix in draft revision. What you can't do is that part about the fresh eyes.

That used to be part the friends/family (who are still important, even more so now) but if you were getting published, the publishing house had editors who would tell you, "This section is slow, that section is good, and I don't think you should drink like Faulkner because this section? This is just... Tell you what. Throw this whole crap section out, now you figure out how to connect the ends."

You need that guy. That guy is extinct. Like I said earlier, somebody just got more important.


And none of this deals with the most important guy for getting published, an agent. I haven't been published but know a couple people who have, and they are universal, if you want to get published, you need an agent, without one, you won't even find the door in.