Choosing an Editor - It’s Not a One-Size-Fits-All Kinda Thing

There are a number of things to consider when choosing an editor, and I'll go through a few of them here, but the thing to remember is that all editors are different, just as all writers and manuscripts are different. Whilst you should be looking for a professional with the right credentials or background, you also need to find one that you can work with. After all, if you can't tolerate the briefest exchange with a person and don't trust a word that comes out of their mouth (or pen), you're not likely to create a written masterpiece with them, no matter how many qualifications and recommendations they have under their belt. So, while you're checking their social media profiles, consider whether or not you're going to like them enough to work with them. Consider whether or not they're likely to be the right fit for you. 

And remember, you're not buying a take-out pizza from them; it's not a ten-minute wait, two-minute exchange, instant gratification kind of transaction. You're starting a journey with them. If you don't travel well together, the journey will be an uncomfortable one; in fact, you may never reach your destination. So, keep this in mind when you're perusing each editor's wares.

Look for an Editor Who Works on Books Like Yours

There's no point in finding the most accomplished editor who ever existed, then sending off your science fiction novel, only to receive a response informing you that Mr Such-and-Such only edits cookery books. Look for an editor who works with your kind of book. Better still, find one who reads your kind of book too. It might sound odd, but not all editors read a lot (just as - and this is a fact that never ceases to amaze me - not all writers read a lot). If you have a horror novel that needs editing, look for an editor who reads the right kind of horror novels. Find out if they have a Goodreads profile, then go through their bookshelves. Check their social media accounts to see if they discuss their reading habits. Bookish people tend to post online about bookish things. Take me, for example; I'm all over the Internet... a veritable open book.

Look for Relevant Experience

Experience is good, but it has to be relevant. When an editor tells you they've enjoyed thirty years in the business, dig a little. 'Did you always edit romance novels?' you ask them. 'Well, in all honesty, no. I began doing that last Tuesday,' they reply. 'I used to edit books about gardening, and before that I worked for a scientific journal.' In the same way that no writer can write every kind of book, no editor can edit every kind. 

Understand Your Own Requirements

Familiarise yourself with the various types of editing and choose the one that's right for you. You may need a proofreader to go through a finished manuscript to check for typos and punctuation errors just prior to publication. Alternatively, you may need a developmental editor to help with the plot, character development, dialogue, and to check for consistency. Some editors offer one service, while others offer multiple services, and it's best to make sure you understand exactly what is included in the service you choose before going ahead. 

Some editors are more expensive than others, and the amount you pay will depend on the specific project; work within your budget. If hiring the editor you like most will leave you destitute, keep on looking until you find one you can afford. And some editors are booked up for months in advance. There's no point hiring an editor who can't begin work on your project for six months if you need it to be completed in a fortnight. Be honest and realistic about your requirements and expectations from the outset, and make sure that you and your editor are on the same page before commencing work.

Ask for a Sample

Most editors will offer a sample of their work to help you evaluate whether or not they are the right fit for you. Some may suggest sending you a sample from a previous editing job. The better option would be for them to produce a sample edit of your work: you send them a page or two from your project, and they edit it and return it to you. That way, you'll be able to gauge whether or not you like their editing style. Do their comments make you want to grab your pen (or laptop) and get right down to work on revisions without delay, or do they make you feel like rushing off to hide in a cupboard until you're ninety? If it's the latter, go back to your editor list and try out the next one on it.

Without wishing to make the process sound too mysterious, and beyond the understanding of all but the odd mystic who lives atop a snow-covered mountain, there is a certain, indefinable something that exists between a writer and editor when the mix is just right. You'll feel it in your bones (or your water) when you meet the right editor, as will he or she. They will get what you're trying to achieve, and you will recognise that fact.

One last thing before I go. The editing process can be a lengthy one - it depends on the project and how far you've already gone with it - and it can involve a lot of work, but it should also be an extremely rewarding experience. So, what are you waiting for. Go out there and find yourself an editor!

First Sentences Are Doors to Worlds - Why Opening Lines Matter

You’re in a bookshop. Let’s make it a secondhand bookshop; they’re quieter, smaller and more friendly. And they smell good. You have time on your hands - enough that you don’t need to rush - and you’re looking for a novel to read. How will you choose it? I’m going to assume that you won’t read the entire first chapter of every book you pick up; you have time but probably not an entire week. Will you read the publisher’s blurb? Probably. Let’s assume that you’ve done that. What now?

Assuming that you’re a sane, respectable reader - not one of those people who actually reads the final page before the rest of the novel - you’ll read the first lines of the first chapter. As Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her essay The Fisherwoman’s Daughter, ‘first sentences are doors to worlds.’ That’s where you begin to lose yourself, where the magic begins… or not. If it’s the latter, there are plenty more books on those wonderfully sagging wooden shelves to capture your imagination.

So, consider this: those opening lines are your chance, possibly the only one you’ll ever have, to hook your own reader. Why would you use them to describe the weather, map out a route to your main character’s local shops or comment on the state of her underwear drawer (unless these things play a vital - and I really mean vital - part in the storyline)? And, though I’m talking primarily about writing fiction here, the same goes for non-fiction, business writing, and so on. You have a limited amount of time to capture your audience’s attention, so why waste it and risk losing your reader forever? Readers can be unforgiving; they have only so much time, and life’s too short to spend it reading uninspiring, uninteresting or bad writing.

Your opening paragraph should tell your audience everything they need to know in order to make one important decision: to read or not to read. It should set the scene, draw the reader in, make tantalising promises (that you keep) about what’s to come, and leave them wanting - nay, needing - to know what happens next. Consider the opening paragraph of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House:

‘No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.’

We all have different tastes in fiction, but that, to my mind, is the finest opening paragraph ever written (it is also a masterclass in how to use a semicolon, but that’s a topic for another day). That paragraph leaves you in no doubt about the kind of book you’re reading or the kind of main protagonist you’re dealing with. It tells you everything you need to know about Hill House and what you’ll encounter within its upright walls, and by the time you’ve finished reading it - just three (wonderfully punctuated, beautifully constructed) sentences in - you’ve already been tipped off-balance. Three sentences and Jackson’s got you; ‘not sane’ Hill House, and whatever walks alone there, has got you. There’s no escape, so you’ll just have to buy the book and read on. 

It’s up to those first lines to persuade a reader that it’s worth reading past them. So, how do you write an opening paragraph that’s persuasive enough to do that? Here are a few suggestions:

Create Intrigue

It is important to make your reader curious. You can present them with vital information in a way that sets their brain cogs grinding and gets them asking meaningful questions. Consider the first sentence of A Christmas Carol: 

‘Marley was dead: to begin with.’ 

Charles Dickens doesn’t even need first lines; he manages to grab your attention with just six words and an intriguing colon. One short sentence sets the tone for the entire book and presents us with information that’s vital to our understanding of everything that comes afterwards. At the same time, it raises more questions than it answers. And death is usually the end of things, so to place it at the beginning of everything is intriguing in itself. How could anyone not be intrigued? How could anyone not have questions? Now imagine if these had been the opening lines:

‘It was a cold, wet Tuesday, and more rain was predicted for the coming week. The sky was grey, and there had been no sunshine for several days. There was ice on the ground, and the pathways were slippy underfoot. And Marley was dead.’

Marley’s still dead. I’m still telling the reader that he’s dead. But I’m also making it clear that the weather forecast and state of the roads are of more significance. The opening paragraph is the place to showcase everything that’s unique, engaging, intriguing and wonderful about your book. There should be nothing tedious, trivial or mundane - nothing commonplace - about it. It’s highly unlikely that your reader is looking for commonplace.

Create a Sense of Unease

So, your reader is curious. How about making them feel uneasy too? That’s what John Wyndam does at the beginning of The Day of the Triffids:

‘When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.’

What’s wrong? Why is it wrong? If, as I do, you remember the almost silent Sundays of yesteryear, you’ll remember the eeriness of empty streets, shuttered shopfronts and car-free roads. What on earth could ever make a Wednesday feel like that? Whatever it is, it can’t be good. There’s tension there straight away; there’s mystery through uncertainty. It’s the lure of bewilderment. I’m unsettled; aren’t you?

Take a look at the opening line of George Orwell’s 1984: 

‘It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.’ 

That’s an opening sentence that you can’t just set aside and forget. It’s too disorientating to be ignored. In what sort of world does a clock strike the unluckiest of numbers? You know right off the mark that Orwell’s world isn’t quite the world you’re used to… the one you’re familiar with and comfortable in. You’re unsettled; you’re uneasy. And so you should be.

Be Bold or Shocking

You can knock your reader off-kilter a little (or a lot) by making a bold or shocking statement, as Michael Cox does in The Meaning of Night:

‘After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.’

Who in his right mind introduces himself as the sort of person who can kill a man and then go off for a plate of seafood? Is he not in his right mind? Can he possibly be telling the truth? What did the red-haired man do to deserve being killed? Should we dislike the narrator? Were there mitigating circumstances? You’re shocked and confused, you have questions - for example, is the narrator reliable? - and you’re hooked.

Be Concise

You’re not going to get ten pages to set the scene and hook your reader. You’ll get a paragraph; you may get two if your reader is feeling generous. So, be brief but comprehensive (remembering that comprehensive and wordy are not the same thing). Tell them what they need to know in as few well-chosen words as possible. As Voltaire once said, ‘The secret of being boring is to say everything.’

Read Other Writers

To improve your writing, you need to read a lot. To improve your first lines, you need to read a lot of first lines. Go to your own bookshelves, pick up your favourite writers’ books and read their opening lines. A lot of publishers and writers offer sample pages of their work online; usually you get to read the first few pages at least. You don’t have to read the whole book; focus on the first paragraph. What works? What doesn’t work? Why does it work? Why doesn’t it work? Keep notes.

Be Your Reader

It’s difficult to be objective when reading your own work. You’ll never be able to approach it in exactly the same way as your reader. But you can take a break from what you’ve written, do your best to distance yourself from your work and make an attempt at seeing it with fresh eyes. Close the file and leave it be for a fortnight, or tuck the manuscript away in a drawer if you’re a lover of pen and paper, and give yourself time to forget. Then return to it as a reader. Read nothing but your opening lines. And I mean read; I don’t mean edit or proofread. Then ask yourself this: if you’d picked your book up in a bookshop, and all you had to go on was that first paragraph, would you want to read what happens next? If the answer is no, or even a don’t know, then it’s unlikely that a complete stranger, who isn’t as attached to your work as you are, would want to bother either.

As I said before, the opening paragraph is the place to showcase everything that’s wonderful and unique about your story and hook your readers. It’s the place where readers begin to lose themselves, where the magic begins, but it’s also the place where readers are lost, sometimes forever. So, make every word of those opening lines count and give your readers reason to keep on reading!