Editing Quotes

“Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.) Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.) Lose control. Don’t think. Don’t get logical. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)”
― Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

“Learn to enjoy this tidying process. I don't like to write; I like to have written. But I love to rewrite. I especially like to cut: to press the DELETE key and see an unnecessary word or phrase or sentence vanish into the electricity. I like to replace a humdrum word with one that has more precision or color. I like to strengthen the transition between one sentence and another. I like to rephrase a drab sentence to give it a more pleasing rhythm or a more graceful musical line. With every small refinement I feel that I'm coming nearer to where I would like to arrive, and when I finally get there I know it was the rewriting, not the writing, that wont the game.”
― William Zinsser, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“You can edit what you write. Why not edit what you say? If it hurts somebody, you can still offer an apology or withdraw your statements”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“Editing is a kind of creative activity where, in a perfect world, an author and an editor find that elusive oneness to understand each other intuitively.”
― Sahara Sanders

“Be a good editor. The Universe needs more good editors, God knows.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Letters

“​​"We edit your words, your writing, your sentences and paragraphs... but never your voice." ”
― Rogena Mitchell-Jones

“…[A] copyeditor must read the document letter by letter, word by word, with excruciating care and attentiveness. In many ways, being a copyeditor is like sitting for an English exam that never ends: At any moment, your knowledge of spelling, grammar, punctuation, usage, syntax, and diction is being tested.”
― Amy Einsohn, The Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, with Exercises and Answer Keys

“Writing is a bitch. It's an itch that I love to scratch.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, ACross Tic

“Writing is like riding a bike. Once you gain momentum, the hills are easier. Editing, however, requires a motor and some horsepower.”
― Gina McKnight, The Blackberry Patch

“One of the hardest things for a writer to do is delete words.”
― Alessandra Torre

“Further editing deepens a story.”
― A.D. Posey

“When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story...Your stuff starts out being just for you...but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right, as right as you can...it belongs to anyone who wants to read it, or criticise it.”
― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

“AMELIA: .....thank you for understanding that I have no perception of time when I pick a release date.”
― Amelia Hutchins, Playing with Monsters

“KA: What is your basic process working with a writer?

LB: I read a manuscript very quickly first, then I sit down the second time and start reading very carefully and do the detail work, the minute hammering on every page. At this point, I know where the story goes so I’m looking for holes. I’m looking for anything that doesn’t add up. The best way to edit is to live entirely in the world as much as you can. Before I had a child I would edit ten hours on Friday ten hours on Saturday and ten hours on Sunday (obviously I had no hobbies or any nee to go outdoors). You knew everything about the book. You were in tune with every character. You have the voice in your head. Then the author gets a hugely marked up manuscript with all these little scribbles. I’m asking them every question that occurs to me. I give them as much time as they want to sit and digest it. Again, this is one of the reasons I like working far in advance. I have time with the manuscript and they have time with the manuscript. I’m happy to let them work in peace and quiet.

Then we go back and forth as long as is helpful to them. They do the revision and it lands on my desk again. I read it again beginning to end. I assume it doesn’t need a line edit at that point, although I tend to read with a pencil in my hand. There could be one big thing still sticking in your craw that didn’t get fixed, so you just roll up your sleeves…”
― Lee Boudreaux

“Editing is the essence of writing!”
― Tarang Sinha

“Why isn't the manuscript ready? Because every book is more work than anyone intended. If authors and editors knew, or acknowledged, how much work was ahead, fewer contracts would be signed. Each book, before the contract, is beautiful to contemplate. By the middle of the writing, the book has become, for the author, a hate object. For the editor, in the middle of editing, it has become a two-ton concrete necklace. However, both author and editor will recover the gleam in their eyes when the work is completed, and see the book as the masterwork it really is.”
― Samuel S. Vaughan, Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do

“Love how editing makes you more confident with your book ...but also makes you want to set it on fire at the same time.”
― Kira Hawke

“I write, “Jane came into the room and sat down on the blue couch,” read that, wince, cross out “came into the room” and “down” and “blue” (Why does she have to come into the room? Can someone sit UP on a couch? Why do we care if it’s blue?) and the sentence becomes “Jane sat on the couch – ” and suddenly, it’s better (Hemingwayesque, even!), although … why is it meaningful for Jane to sit on a couch? Do we really need that? And soon we have arrived, simply, at “Jane”, which at least doesn’t suck, and has the virtue of brevity.”
― George Saunders

“You are an author! You will be a published author. Take pride in that, and present only your best work. Then, continue to improve, so your best gets even better.”
― Courage Knight, Do-It-Yourself Editing: A Guide For The Ebook Author

“To The Critics

Suicide has made more than one mediocre author glorious before he's able to achieve that sobering "second edition" making his a suicide that waits until it's justified. But I've taken more precautions against to Suicide which is to survive in the face of failure. Success is mostly editing, that's what makes things nice. To edit is the other great Power; thus this novel started at age 30, continued at 50 and its 73, has finally achieve supremacy: a person of Good Taste as the third author and as a result the editor of all three. In the end I'll be the author of a letter to the critics a sort of "open letter" but for the living: suicide is not something you can edit out.”
― Macedonio Fernández

“What importance should be given to details, in developing a subject?--

Remorselessly sacrifice everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude, and effect.

Accentuate everything that sets the main idea in relief, so that the impression be colourful, picturesque. It's sufficient that the rest be in its proper place, but in half-tone. That is what gives to style, as to painting, unity, perspective, and effect.

- Constantin Georges Romain Héger, teacher to Charlotte Brontë”
― Claire Harman

“You only have one chance to make a great first impression. You make that first impression with a great cover, an intriguing synopsis, and professional editing. Let my inner editor polish your ​manuscript ​the 'write' way.”
― Rogena Mitchell-Jones

“Put your manuscript down, I'd recommend at least two months. Six would be ideal. You really need to get away from it long enough to change your mindset. Unless you have a photographic memory, this technique will work. You'll transform into the one thing you crave feedback from: a reader.”
― A.J. Flowers, A Guide to Writing Your First Novel

“C'est neuf pour moi, et très déroutant, lui ai-je dit. En voyant tes annotations sur mes feuillets, j'ai eu le sentiment de perdre un peu de maîtrise sur mon texte, de liberté, de subir une espèce de... censure. Une censure de ce que je suis au plus profond de moi, tu comprends ? Je l'ai vécu comme une intrusion en moi.”
― Laurent Bettoni

“First of all, please, please, don´t go publish until you are one hundred percent sure you are doing a great job, the best that you may deliver. For in this publishing media it´s easy to get it all wrong when you are just starting. Secondly, find a good editor, or at least a second opinion. You know, four eyes read better than two. You will regret later on for not having a good editor to go through your writing, or having a great artist to do the best cover for your book. Because if there is something I learned during these years in the publishing market it is to never ever underestimate the power of good editing. And my third piece will be to advice about a good image: the saying “never judge a book by its cover” was created by a lazy author who didn´t give much thought of what really works in the marketing of both fiction and nonfiction.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, How to Make a Book

“If someone doesn't understand the importance of sensitivity readers, chances are they may need them the most...”
― Kira Hawke

“If you treat editing like you're making an abridged version of your book, it can help determine what's vital vs what can be cut.”
― Kira Hawke

“How, then, to proceed? My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with ‘P’ on this side (‘Positive’) and ‘N’ on this side (‘Negative’). I try to read what I’ve written uninflectedly, the way a first-time reader might (‘without hope and without despair’). Where’s the needle? Accept the result without whining. Then edit, so as to move the needle into the ‘P’ zone. Enact a repetitive, obsessive, iterative application of preference: watch the needle, adjust the prose, watch the needle, adjust the prose (rinse, lather, repeat), through (sometimes) hundreds of drafts. Like a cruiseship slowly turning, the story will start to alter course via those thousands of incremental adjustments.”
― George Sanders

“If I’m asking what kind of ‘return’ I should be expecting on the sacrifices I’m making, I have in that question revealed the need to ‘return’ that question to wherever I found it and have the word ‘return’ edited out of it.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Editing with Style. Editing for Style. ​Refining our Style while Keeping your Voice.
​Where EXCELLENCE Takes PRECEDENCE. Where we focus on the Art of Editing.™​”
― Rogena Mitchell-Jones