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What is the job of the editor
Hello marieclaire66. I like this pieces, It is a very interesting question: "What is the job of the editor?" It reminds me of a passage in Jeffery Archer's biography. He is sharing a taxi with his editor on way to a publicity event and Archer, who was notoriously bad at spelling and punctuation, turns to his editor and says, "How is it that, you, who is a much better writer than I am, earns only a fraction of what I am earning?" His editor replies, "It is the contents of the story, Jeffrery, the plots, and the characters who populate the story, which makes the difference." 
posted by
patmore
on January 21, 2017 at 4:30 PM
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food4thought, that does not leave any room for slackness...
80 % of the population cannot write properly and I am one of them, on the other hand, not all of us are experts gardeners, mechanics etc...why should writing skills be any different to other professional skills. Not everyone is a whizz at maths, but just gets by, so why is it different with a language?? is it some kind of sacred cow, a cultural icon, or is it a simple matter of being able to communicate well and avoid misunderstanding?
posted by
marieclaire66
on November 14, 2006 at 11:22 PM
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Since publishing is a business...
I would imagine you can count of editors not wanting to spend a lot of time on any project needlessly, so the more accurate one can write and correct mistakes, the more kindly an editor is going to feel about using your work again. An editor may also feel if the writer can't get the mechanics right, maybe they haven't bothered to get the facts right.
posted by
food4thought
on November 14, 2006 at 9:18 PM
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Thanks Troosha,
I suppose I think it is common sense, but just because editors do the last quality control, it is not an invitation to be careless. Do writers tend to rely too heavily on them?
I am still hoping someone in the "know" will enlighten me? Obviously no one is losing any sleep over my post, in fact it might even be sleep inducing...
posted by
marieclaire66
on November 10, 2006 at 2:16 PM
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You never really received an answer
And I'm certainly no expert but I tend to agree with you that a piece of work submitted for publication should be a finely
honed, impeccable, almost flawless piece of work. Personally, I don't think an editor would give it a second thought if within the first few lines there were obvious grammatical errors. And surely, if the string of thoughts are not pieced together with tightness and cohesiveness that submission is going to hit the waste basket pretty fast.
posted by
Troosha
on November 10, 2006 at 11:21 AM
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Good post on the workings of a publishing industry .
posted by
afzal50
on November 8, 2006 at 7:07 AM
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