Thursday, November 10, 2011

What an Editor Does


I'm sometimes asked about the role an editor plays once a book is written. I get the feeling that the question-behind-the-question is, "Did you get into any interesting screaming matches with your editor?"

My answer never fails to disappoint, since I agreed with virtually all the changes suggested by my editor, the wonderful Liz Van Hoose of Viking. (By the way, she always had the sensitivity and class to refer to her edits as "suggestions.")

Anyway, this morning I came across a blog post this morning that does a great job of answering the question around the editor's role. Find it here:

What an Editor Does, by Steven Harper - Penguin Community Blog post

What's your question or observation about the author-editor relationship?