Do you spot every detail? Cringe at the Grocer’s Apostrophe? Do you love great prose that leaps off the page? You might have what it takes to be a great editor.
Editors are the safeguarders of the literary world. They ensure that readers get the experience they deserve: full immersion without the interruption of poor grammar, clumsy syntax, or long, winding passages that lead nowhere.
This article explores what makes a great editor by examining the 7 traits that publishing teams really need.
Ready? Let’s go.
What is a literary editor?
A literary editor helps refine and shape an author’s manuscript to meet the publishing house’s quality standards. A great editor offers an essential outside eye, assessing the coherence and readability of the text before it goes to print, and ensuring the manuscript’s clarity and consistency.
Editors work closely with authors, helping them hone the structural “big picture” of plot, characterization, and pace. They also help refine the text at the sentence level, ensuring that the style and grammar support the pace and improve the reader’s experience.
Ultimately, a literary editor helps bring the author’s vision to fruition, offering a valuable outside perspective on the text and helping the manuscript meet its objective.
What are the key responsibilities of an editor?
An editor effectively manages the entire lifecycle of a novel by fostering a partnership with the author.
They offer:
- Developmental editing: Assessing and refining the novel’s structure and pacing.
- Line editing: Ensuring the style and tone feel consistent throughout the novel or series.
- Copy editing: Checking the text for grammar and syntax
- Collaboration: The editor works with the publishing team to ensure the project meets publishing milestones and deadlines.
What does Relay Publishing look for in an editor?
Relay Publishing produces many unputdownable novels a year, in a range of genres from romance and dark romantasy to medical and legal thrillers to post-apocalyptic and LitRPG. We have a tried-and-tested, refined process for working—placing ghostwriters with editors to ensure high-quality fiction for our international readership.
We’re a remote team of creatives dotted across the globe, but we rely heavily on collaboration to ensure timely project delivery.
Other than scheduled meetings, our team members define their own working hours, so if you’re looking for flexibility and a great creative environment with like-minded writers, editors, and designers, a career with Relay Publishing could be for you.
This is what we look for:
1. Strong editorial judgment
Experience isn’t as important to us as intuitive editorial bones. Sure, we want experienced editors, but we’re open to newcomers as long as they display strong editorial judgment.
We’re looking for people who can make, defend, and justify creative content decisions. They can recognize and refine a manuscript’s tone and accuracy to align with high reader expectations.
Many of our books are released as a series, so a great editor will be familiar with the tone, pace, and pitch of the books that precede it, ensuring that the new novel sits comfortably within the oeuvre of its predecessors.
Key components of editorial judgment
We value the reader’s experience at Relay, so our editors focus on delivering an excellent read without dampening the writer’s creative satisfaction in a job well done.
Our ghostwriters are producing work in the voices of other writers, but we don’t want to stifle their own creative expression.
This demands sensitivity and awareness in the following ways:
- Contextual awareness: An editor needs to understand the “why” behind the guidelines, not just the “what,” in order to apply them.
- Audience focus: Our audience has expectations for our books, and we want them to keep coming back for more. So, our editors are responsible for safeguarding our brand. They know our audience intimately, and understand how to serve them with a great, page-turning yarn they’ll tell their friends about.
- Structural clarity: Our editors maintain an appropriate tone, pace, structure, and format to keep readers turning the pages.
2. Respect for the author’s voice
This is a double-edged sword because our writers are ghostwriters, which means their writing must match the named author’s established voice.
However, while our editors help maintain the named author’s voice, they also recognize that our ghostwriters are often talented authors in their own right.
If we wanted carbon copies of earlier books, we’d use AI. But we’ll never work with AI writers — we want talented human writers with life experience and an individual voice.
Experienced editors know that the work is not their own book, respecting the writer while ensuring a prime reading experience.
How does an editor honor an author’s voice?
A great editor prioritizes the author’s intent, tone, and style while ensuring that the text serves the narrative. This may mean putting any personal preferences aside and following the project’s specific guidelines.
A great editor is like a great theatre dramaturg, whose job is to help the writer find the most dynamic and dramatic iteration of the script.
A great dramaturg never says something is wrong or right. That’s not their job. Instead, they help the writer find the answers for themselves by posing respectful queries about the text.
For example:
- What would happen if the protagonist didn’t leave the room?
- Have you considered the impact of character B when character A forces them out of the room?
- Does this passage of dialogue feel authentic to your character?
A great editor frames suggestions to improve the reader’s experience and adapts their requirements to the project’s context. They avoid making stylistic changes just because they might have written it differently themselves. More importantly, they offer feedback that serves the project, not themselves.
3. Great editors have an eye for detail (without rigidity)
Many writers tend to be better at creating than proofreading. When you know the text, it can be easy to overlook mistakes. And that’s why we need editors, because they’re typically better at identifying typos and grammatical mistakes.
That’s not to say that a writer should hand in the first draft and expect the editor to tidy it up. Again, that’s not necessarily the editor’s job. But there are definitely common grammar myths that editors wish you knew.
Our editors use style sheets and series bibles to track and maintain preferred spelling, tone, and phrasing to suit the project or the house style.
4. Great editors are excellent communicators
Offering feedback requires empathy and a generous approach to query. We want our editors to get the best out of our writers, and that only comes from reinforcing their talent rather than stripping it down to bare bones.
So, a great editor is an excellent communicator.
However, excellent communication isn’t only important for the writer-editor relationship. We operate remotely, relying heavily on regular meetings to track project progress. And while we don’t dictate working hours, we need all editors available for regular meetings.
We use web-based project management software to monitor progress, keep everyone updated, and stay on track, and we meet regularly online with the whole team to discuss, share, and support each other.
5. Big-picture AND sentence-level thinking
A great editor can step back from the writing to consider the bigger picture, assessing how a chapter, paragraph, or sentence fits into the story’s broader universe.
This is especially useful if they’re working with a writer on a series.
At the same time, the most proficient editors look at the sentence-level tapestry, identifying whether the words allow the images to flow or whether the reader has to do a lot of work to decode it.
Sentence-level edits
When an editor addresses a manuscript, they look for how the syntax assists or interrupts the flow of action.
Is there, for example, repeated use of pronouns that interrupt the pace?
“He looked at the window. He thought to himself: Is there somebody behind the curtain? He stepped forward. He heard the floorboard creak as his shoe leather pressed into the board. He spotted another movement. He panicked.”
Could be pacier as:
“He spotted the curtain noting how it moved despite the lack of breeze. Was somebody hiding behind it?
He crept forward, holding his breath, and cringing at the creak of the floorboard. Was someone there? Another flap.
A silhouette.
His heart thumped.”
6. Editors need to be deadline-savvy
Relay Publishing has published hundreds of books over the past decade, so we know how long it typically takes to go from concept to publication.
And while we’re generous with our schedules and expect our team members to choose their own hours, we need to know that projects are hitting their milestones.
Of course, if more support is needed, we’re here to help. But we rely on regular updates so we can adjust our timeline and marketing plan if necessary.
Why we value timeliness
Our readers are genuine fans who want the next installment of their favorite series sooner rather than later.
So, we’re serving our readers, and they repay us with continued support.
At the same time, when projects are laid out and the different components are assigned to the relevant creatives, submitting your part of the project late impacts everyone else waiting to complete their assigned tasks.
For example, if a developmental editor is late finalizing the manuscript for the fact checker, the fact checker might have to delay or reassign other projects in order to complete their tasks on time. That, in turn, can cause problems for the proofreader, typesetter, and everyone else who follows, which can then impact the planned publication date and any preorders.
7. Editors need to be collaborative and professional
You can’t always switch on creativity, and we acknowledge that producing a manuscript requires artistry and talent.
Our best editors work closely with our writers, helping them meet deadlines and navigate the inevitable challenges of putting together a full-length novel.
A great editor considers collaboration the most valuable tool in the creative arsenal. And they work to support the writer to build a professional product that will bring joy, amusement, and intrigue to our readers.
Because without great editors and writers, Relay Publishing can’t meet our readers’ high expectations.
Relay Publishing is looking for you.
Are you an editor with the qualities we’ve described in this article? We currently have a range of exciting and challenging roles for professional editors with an eye for detail and a passion for a great story.
We offer support, training, and detailed documentation to help onboard new editorial staff. So, you’re never on your own.
Check out our recruitment pages, and if you find a role that’s a good fit, we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for reading.