lessons learned from working with an editor

First of all, here is the post

I have now written my second ever guest post. In exchange for a piece about the afterlife on cafephilos, I got the opportunity to have someone else edit my work. I think this is important for my development as a writer and look forward to working with many more editors. To those that have already reached out, don’t worry, I have a list and content will be coming your way soon.

I would like to reflect on what I have learnt from having someone edit one of my posts and share what I have learnt.

Keep paragraphs short, as people tend to glaze over when reading a wall of text, especially as there is so much content to choose from.

here is an example of what I had.

‘Especially when I was younger, I thought the idea of an afterlife was a great idea. I guess because it was sold to me on the proviso that you get what you want in heaven. As someone, who at the time thought of school as a chore, It seemed like being able to do what I wanted was a small price to pay for all the hoops that would need to be jumped through. As usual, with age comes wisdom, and that wisdom has given me doubts about how good eternal bliss would be, and ask a few questions as to the practicalities of such a location.’

After editing.

‘When I was younger, I thought an afterlife was a great idea. I was told that you get what you want in heaven. I guess that’s what sold me on it. It seemed like being able to do whatever I wanted to do was a small price to pay for all the hoops that I would need to jump through.

But as usual, with age came wisdom, and wisdom has given me doubts about how good eternal bliss would be. I nowadays ask a few questions about the practicalities of such a location.’

Be concise.

With the aid of a human editor, the wheat was separated from the chaff. My sentences were overly wordy. Why say something you can say in two words in ten words. I had already read this, but seeing it in the flesh really hit the idea home. Why must I always learn the hard way?

In a few weeks, I may post the original, so you can see for yourselves the difference between my work and mine and Paul’s work.

Final thoughts, and advice to people who want to write guest posts.

Depending on whom you’re writing for, the more freedom you will get to write in your own voice. When writing for cafephilos, my copy kept the essence of its original character, which is a delight. However, when working with the British Nutrition Foundation, there was a lot more editing as they had a very strict style that they wanted to present. Eventually, it became to have to keep editing and I became sick of the article, I let them do what they want with it.

So, the take-home message is to know who you’re writing for, this may save you some time. When deciding to do a guest post, take the writing style of the publication into consideration and decide if you can be bothered to conform!

I will leave you with one last thing, do you think this line was cut after the edit?

 

‘Of course not, that is why Christmas was outlawed in the year 2020 when it was considered too degrading of moral fibre. Okay, enough with the pretentious meta-textual self-aware shit.’

find out here