What Being an Editor for 2+ Years Has Taught Me About Writing
Editing isn’t just about correcting spelling and grammar
Introduction
I was more patient as an editor than I could ever be as a writer.
It was 2022, and I was editing articles in full swing. I joined a fairly new publication and started editing the submissions it received. Because the publication was new, it didn’t receive a ton of submissions.
But at the same time, there was a lot to edit. The writers were new, and they were unfamiliar with the formatting standards. There were also a lot of grammatical and styling mistakes because they wouldn’t run their text through spell checkers, I guess.
I sometimes wanted to yell at them through my PC screen. “Can’t you correct this spelling? These many red lines freak me out, you smarty-pants,” I wanted to scream as soon as I opened their stories for editing.
In the end, I made peace with the fact that it’s going to be more or less the same. As the publication grew, we started to reject the submissions that had a significant amount of errors. I had also started my own publication where I was the sole editor, so time crunch became a real thing.
This made me patient. We made sure to attach a note and give feedback to the writers whose stories we rejected. It was a lot of work for no pay. Yes, I never made any money editing pieces on Medium. No one ever did.
I kept editing pieces because I grew fond of doing it. I would encounter stories of varied genres, writing styles and backgrounds. It was a delight to help them get published.
3 lessons I learnt from being an editor
- It’s not just about correcting the spelling and grammar. There is so much more to edit apiece than that. It helped me immensely in my own write-ups as well. I learnt how a story should feel, be it fiction, non-fiction, or poetry.
- You should learn to value different writing styles and not impose your preconceived notions on any of those. Some articles had short paragraphs, while others had long ones. Some included far too many links than I’d deem fit, while others refrained from adding links even where it was necessary. Some wrote first-person narrative articles, while others made it look like a research paper. I learnt to view it all independently. Every style is unique.
- Don’t keep writers in the dark; give feedback. When I started as an editor, I refrained from giving any feedback. Then one day, one of the articles that I had submitted to one of the most popular publications on Medium got rejected. However, the editor was kind enough to give me feedback by attaching a private note to my article. I learnt a lesson. I started giving feedback on any article I said no to in the publication process.
Digital writing: how’s it different from other forms
Here comes the juicy part: digital writing. Some call it writing on the Internet. You write here, not hoping to publish a book or get published in some magazine. You mainly write to get read on the Internet itself, digitally.
The major difference between digital writing and other forms of writing is the ‘reading habits.’ You read a book with a different intent. But on the Internet, your readers are not invested enough to come back searching for you. Well, that’s the case most of the time.
Here are some common practices used in digital writing:
- crispy sentences
- short paragraphs
- quick takeaways
- skim-worthy formatting style
- self-explanatory headings and sub-heads
The pointers stand in contrast when we talk about other forms of writing, be it non-fiction writing, novels, magazines, or any other print or digital books.
As an editor, I have observed that the articles that follow the above pointers tend to perform much better than an otherwise written article. The read time and engagement numbers spike exponentially.
Takeaway: To efficiently cater to the needs of a digital-first reader, you have to keep the above pointers in mind.
If you loved reading this, you can also check out White Space, a must-read Substack newsletter for digital writers and freelancers.
