All Comments on 'A Checklist for a Good Editor'

I now understand why your stories are so good.

Boyd

A lot of good points both for editors as well as writers. I found some of the 'rules' to be, a bit (LOL here!) too constraining. Remember that an editor can purge a story of style and character, taking some of these rules too far. There are several authors who write with great regularity, who follow all of these rules until there is no juice left in their writing!<br><p>

The actual use of an ellipsis in grammar (which I regularly abuse,) is to indicate that there are words missing from the passage or quotation. Often used by journalists to misquote, and change the real meaning of a sentence! LOL! I prefer to use it in dialog as the speaker drifts off into ...

Thank you for your helpful and informative article. I do have one minor quibble. According to telephonetribute.com, "By 1902, there were 81,000 pay telephones in the United States."

This sure looks familiar! Oh yeah, it's the same thing I have saved on my desktop! :) I refer to it quite often these days, not only for my own work, but for the works of others I edit. Thanks for posting this, Selena.

Yes! In Thunder.

Excellent capsulization of very good advice. Now if we can only get everyone to listen.

BTW, At the risk of confusing those who haven't yet had an opportunity to read it, "Monday" is extraaordinary!

It's So irritating to struggle through pieces with primary school grammatical errors! ie. to and too, their and they're, kneeled and knelt, general lack of apostrophes and commas, etc, etc ....

Good advice, just one nitpick: don't mix up 'i.e.' and 'e.g.' i.e. means "that is", e.g. means "for example" - they're not interchangeable.

As one who hasn't written a story in a while, but who would like to start writing again, I found this very helpful. Thank you for the fine piece.

I am a brazilian old man with a bad English, I know. But you in the condition of a professional writer give in your text a clear vision about the importance to dominate grammar, literature, and a lucid project how to make a literary good work. Obviously talent is the background. I am not a writer only the complement - the reader. Instead of that I learned a lot. Congratulations. Thanks.

I've seen so many authors on this site that could really use an editor to improve their work. Your own editing of Montana Summer was just an outstanding piece of work. I worried for a while that the change of your nom de plume might have been a signal that you too had become disillusioned with Literotica as a site where you would choose to post sunmissions. I'm so thankful that you are still around!

It is rare to find a good guide that is both helpful, and easy to understand. It gives a clear meaning and good examples of each point you have made. Thank you for posting!

Thank you. As Yoda might say, "Very helpful, this was." I'm not an editor, but I am a writer.

I am not an editor but found this to be informative. what does mss stand for?

thanks for the info. good advice for any writer (wish some of those people who email you would read this too?!)

Mss stands for "manuscript" :)

I find your advice very helpful, but a bit intimidating. I've been writing stories on Lit for a while now, and given the difficulty I experienced finding a reliable editor for my work (I'm not too cocky to admit that although I've taught English 'conversation' to foreigners for many years, I still have a blind spot to grammatical errors in my own works), I'd offer my services as an editor on this website.

God knows I've seen a lot of pretty good story lines ruined by spelling and grammatical errors, and tense shifts that made absolutely no sense at all.

But I can only imagine that those authors might not have taken advantage of an editor if they'd been able to find one.

I've enjoyed your work, on this site and the 'other' ones; and I suspect that I'll be envious of your success for some time to come.

Thanks for the article.

H-

Great advice to any would-be author. It's so tempting to think this genre is an easy one to get into and just start writing, hoping it will turn out all right. I don't think formal lessons in writing for fun are necessary, and if they were, you probably wouldn't benefit from them very much anyway, but guide-lines like this can be invaluable.

Thank you for your compact, lucid and entertaining piece; I hope that reading and learning from it might show some improvement in my own attempts at literate smut!

I have been writing for a while now, but never thought I might be making some serious flaws. My biggest problem is the passive voice. Thank you for the other great tips.

A few thoughts of my own:

#8: I agree, mostly. Other times, for example in using unfamiliar terms to talk about parts of a sailing ship, it's better to establish a vocabulary and use it consistently.

#21: I use an inexpensive pocket dictionary when writing for a wide readership, the kind that advertises 20-40,000 listings. It acts as a filter: any word not in that dictionary could cause many casual readers to stumble, interfering with the smooth flow of their reading. Using a rich and varied vocabulary is one thing; baffling, confusing, and taunting the readership is another.

Avoid deeply nested sentence structures. Not much loses a reader faster than Russian-doll nesting subordinate clauses. If you believe that many readers won't be native English speakers, simplify sentence structure even more.

Unless you're an experienced editor, try reading a piece out loud as you work on it. Normal habits of fast readers let them skip over minor glitches in a text. Reading aloud slows the pace and allows more attention to be paid to each word.

One more thing: Check the blurbs that Lit editors use to describe their services. If the blurb has blatant errors in spelling or grammar (lots do!), have a good laugh and keep looking.

...especially for someone who self-edits. I could probably go down the list and find exceptions I would make to, well, some of them. I'm a big fan of encouraging authors to tinker--try writing from a different POV, try both present and past tense, and sometimes just breaking it down paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, and asking, Is this helping or hurting my story?

I think writers sometimes need to be pushed to make their own choices. Of course grammar, spelling and other obvious errors should be corrected or pointed out. But every writer needs to get familiar enough with their own voice to pick out their own 'false notes' eventually.

I've just volunteered to be an editor and I found a few of your suggestions quite valuable, especially your opening admonition to resist the temptation to replace the author's voice with the editor's own. An editor's job is to improve an existing work, not to build a new one. I've yielded to that temptation in the past, but, thanks to your warning, I'll be more aware of the danger and better prepared to keep my instincts in check.

You've pointed out errors that I make, and I thought I knew how to write. Excellent!

Very helpfull stuff and I recognised many faults in my story. Then I did some editing of my own! There were payphones in WW11, even in WW1! Should this be cell-phones, mobiles, handys, etc?

An exception to #10. Many years ago I was taught that numbers from one to twenty should be spelled out, but that numbers above twenty are more appropriately written and more easily read in numeric form. Overall, I think that your list was very helpful.

Thank you.

I believe many stories would have higher ratings if the author used an editor.

When I decided to submit a story, I made a conscious effort to read stories with higher ratings. Consistently, the higher rated stories also used correct grammar, spelling and punctuation.

I love the word ‘had’. Kirk takes them out most of the time. On occasion, he would send a note, ‘I’m not sure what you mean here.’ The only time he ever suggest a complete change in a sentence was when I was having so much trouble with it and ask for help.

Great for the novice writer with way too much literature and not enough writing courses in her background! Thank you!

No one should be allowed to post on Literotica without having first read this. There are a few nits I might add from my years as a professional editor but these are the ones that cannot be ignored. Editors should also remember that the work belongs to the author; never change the author's voice or style. Your job is to hone the work, not rewrite it. If major revision is required, give the author your thoughts and let him/her do the rewrite.

It's nice to see that someone cares enough about both their works, and that of OTHER authors to post something like this. It actually is quite sad how many people, even during high school and college, can't figure out worth a damn how grammar works.

Seriously, thanks.

(On another note, I feel like literotica should auto-favorite helpful guides like this for every person who has an account.)

Great info here, I like the hobby of

erotic writing, yet plenty of mistakes

in using the wrong word like they're for

their or there or bad punctuation, etc.

I frankly thought I was pretty good and

I found out I forgot an awful lot about

spelling and punctuation. One does forget

after being out of school for thirty eight

years

So even if the story is great and loaded

with erotic scenes, if the reader has to

figure what is going on, he/she will look

for a story that is easier to read.

Thanks for this. It's great information.

I admit it: I'm an adverbaholic! Is there a meeting or a twelve step program? Lol.

To be honest, I've been trying to reduce or eliminate them altogether. Getting better with each story, thanks in large part to my wonderful editor, aussie_101.

This is a very informative post. I even saved a few I was unaware of so I can refer back easily. I almost skipped it because the title is for editors. I think the title should be: READ THIS SO YOUR EDITOR WILL LIKE YOU!

An ellipsis is used to denote an incomplete thought or missing words - that's it. The literal translation of the word ellipsis as stated by Merriam-Webster's dictionary:

Origin of ELLIPSIS

Latin, from Greek elleipsis ellipsis, ellipse, from elleipein to leave out, fall short, from en in + leipein to leave

Link to the page here: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ellipsis

An ellipsis should really only be used at the end of a scene or chapter though. if a character gets cut off while speaking - use a hyphen. Pauses in action or breaks in speech should all be denoted with a hyphen too.

Also, there are 101 rules about correctly using numbers in text but you can safely ignore most of them. The most important thing you can do number-wise is to be consistent. If you want to spell out 1-10, 1-20 or 1-100 even - that's fine; just do it all of the time.

One last note about numbers: avoid them as often as possible. The thing about numbers is they are overly specific. Height, weight, age, size, time of day and even the era can and should be described in a creative way. If people must know exactly when things are happening, they can google an event in the story.

Great article, very informative and I made a copy for my files. Thanks! I haven't search for stories by Selena_ Kitt, I hope to find some examples of your editing skills. I'm still struggling within the Literotica site to find what I want, so if you do have stories achieved I hope to find them. Thanks, again.

Your article, "A Checklist for a Good Editor," is also a checklist for any authors who wants to improve their writing style and skills. Thanks for the info. It was very helpful and informative. Your list identified at least two errors I often make. I will now start to change my errors and bad habits.

Unless you're writing a legal brief, don't use Latin abbreviations in place of the more easily understood English expressions. But if you do use them, use common ones, and use the ones that mean what you're trying to say. For instance

"e.g." (exempli gratia) means "for instance"

"i.e." (id est) means "that is"; it's used for giving a *specific* example

"etc." (et cetera) means "and other things" similar to the ones just named.

I always feel like I'm putting my kids on the bus for their first day of school when I send anything to an editor. Once you've put that much of yourself into the work, it's hard to think about it being scrutinized by anyone.

One question. The head hopping that you mentioned is something I can't seem to get past. When I think of a scene, it seems like a movie is playing and I'm narrating it as it plays. I want to know what each person is thinking in the moment. Any hints?

Thank you for the help.

Or can you suggest someone who will?

Actually, MSS stands for "manuscripts". The singular is MS, or ms.

Perhaps this is like "criteria" (pl) vs "criterion" (s), now universally misused.

Thanks for the article, Selena. From the sad evidence, I doubt that many Lit authors are aware of it.

Is the guidance in Item 22 still valid? I see cum commonly used as a verb and seems to me to be more appropriate in much of erotic literature than come.

I'm cumming! just seems to fit the case much better than I'm coming!

Also, did you cum? or did you come?

Or am I misreading the guidance in Item 22?

This is the editor who I would like You to recommend dear author of the article. :)

As a writer of two stories, this was helpful, and I appreciate your taking the time to write it. Naysayers can always find something negative. This guide is well received.

Is it possible to limit one's editing to a quick review of spelling, grammar and punctuation? I'm not interested in investing more than that for most of what I see posted on Literotica.

Also, you should revise #19. At least for the United States, coin-operated payphones were in general use well before WWII.

I had no idea that head hopping was such a no-no in writing. Since fixing that, I think my story has seriously improved.

what you wrote is accurate, but there are always exceptions, often for an individual author e.g. to cum is, to me, a verb and the ejaculate is spunk, or even ejaculate (though not sperm, as any man who has had his tubes cut, will tell you!)

An additional point is to be consistent, if an author calls her cunt her sex, keep doing so, readers might prefer cunt or pussy, but if it is always called her sex, translation becomes automatic and not an issue.

Failure to match subjects with pronouns

First parargraph 4 examples

Second paragraph 1 example

Eleventh paragraph 2 examples

Twelfth paragraph 1 example

Last paragraph 1 example

8 Highlight repeated words and have your authors choose alternates if you find them often repeating the same word throughout the mss. Also, avoid repeating words within sentences, paragraphs, or even succeeding paragraphs.

23. The word is all right, not alright.

Merriam Webster disagrees. “It is less frequent than all right but remains common especially in informal writing. It is quite common in fictional dialogue and is sometimes found in more formal writing.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/alright.

Opinions are legitimate, provided they are acknowledged as such.

The best course of action when editing is to suggest changes and allow the writer the leeway to make them or not.

1405 words 27 paragraphs

8 forms of edit

7 forms of they

5 forms of them

4 forms of their

Inconsistent ways to express point-of view/points-of-view. With and without dashes, acromyms, and ‘s for the plural form.

Paragraph 7 point-of-view

Paragraph 17 POV, multiple points-of-view (POV), POV's, point of view

saw it on another author's Faves list...b looks like very sound advice by a prolific pro...

a fan of her works

5

every time I see someone thank one or more editors and yet they get looser and loser mixed up.

The are trying to insult someone by calling them a "looser".

Are the editors here that bad?

Thank you. I've started as a volunteer editor and appreciate this information.

Alright is valid if used colloquially, also used to separate British and US English .. isn't it? ... and .. are both fine to use unless writing essays on say, grammatical historical use or suchlike; they are decorations if used in creative writing .. right?

:p

Anachronism? There were pay telephones in WWII. Local calls were a nickel! For long distance calls, each different coin was channeled into a different small chime in the phone, which the operator counted. If she said, "Deposit 25-cents, please," she counted the tones each coin type until the right amount was deposited.

I have several stories however I am poor at proof reading. Your advice has given me a new perspective or writing. I read as I see it in my head. I need to consider the reader who does not know my thought process but relies on spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Thank you so very much.

Do you know if we can edit stories after they have been published to correct errors we are aware of from feedback?

Thanks again.

Very helpful!

This is SO good...as an honors English student Selena love everything packs a lot into this page

Great checklist, thanks!

The advice about the ellipse is a matter of style and depends on what style guide you look at. I think the important thing is to be consistent. As most people are probably reading these on their phones it's probably wise to follow the AP style guide and for the same reason. Layout of text in narrow columns benefit from spaces around ellipses (and probably the em-dash too).

Excellent and concise. I’ll print it out and laminate it. I’ll carry with me. I’ll give my children a copy when they enter kindergarten and make them produce their copy on demand. At the age of thirteen I will get each of them a lifetime subscription to Literotica complete with a username.

In the process of writing my first story. Great read very helpful

This is so helpful! I before every story I submit.

Succinct and essential. You're outstanding!

Super!! I'm definitely putting this in my list.