Editing Tips For Beginners
As well as studying, I’ve been working as an editor for almost a year. This is long enough to have taught me that each editing job is different, and each comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities for professional growth. Editing a photobook is a different experience to editing a novel or a journal article, and one I approached for the first time with the assessment for Advanced Editing.
By this stage of the course, students will have received a lot of fantastic general instruction about editing. I’m going to use this chance to speak to this project specifically, with the aim of giving future students the benefit of my experience. Below are my four top tips for successfully editing a photobook.
1. Collaborate with your classmates
Editing can be a lonely business at times, but for this assessment you are given time in class to work on your photobook alongside your fellow students. Use this time well! If you’re struggling with a specific issue, there’s a good chance someone else in the class is as well. They might have some tips, or perspective to offer that you weren’t able to come up with alone. Alternatively you might have advice that could make someone else’s experience smoother.
2. Back yourself
Editing an art book was daunting for me because I don’t consider myself as anything resembling an art aficionado. But following step one (above) gave me some great perspective. A fellow classmate pointed out that if all the photos in the book were removed, the captions should still form a coherent narrative. So don’t worry if you don’t know a thing about art, you know narrative, and you can employ that knowledge to serve the vision of the photographer you are working with.
That being said, if you’re flicking through the draft, and see three or four photos that are exactly the same, or one that seems oddly placed in relation to the narrative, don’t be afraid to let your photographer know. Like all creatives, they will have a hard time killing their darlings, and your outsider viewpoint might help them to see that although a photo may be artistically brilliant, it isn’t quite right for the book.
3. Adjust your expectations
You will likely go into this project with some expectations of how it will run. Perhaps you’d like to meet once a week for intense sessions of brainstorming, go with your photographer on photo shoots and text long into the night about editorial direction. Hold up. This is group work, and your photographer might have some very different ideas about your role.
The first contact is critical. Set some expectations around both of your roles. Ask questions about their process — will they be sending you a completed draft? Or groups of pages as they have them? Come up with a timeline — when will you do the structural edit, copy edit and proofread? Do they understand that each of those takes time? How often will you meet face-to-face? Is email easier?
The fact that this is an assessment adds an extra level of stress for some people. They are keen to be as involved as possible in the process, and might get paired with a photographer who sends in work at the last minute. This is the point where you again need to adjust your expectations. You do the best you can with what you have. If the first time you see a draft is the day before the book is due, then a structural, or even in-depth copy edit, is likely off the table. In that case you do the best proofread you can and be proud of your work.
4. Acknowledge the struggle of the author, but value your time as well.
This project skates a line between professional editing job and university assessment, which can lead to some unique challenges. No one is getting paid, it’s potentially one of many assignments that you are working on, and neither you nor the photographer are really ‘in charge’ of the project.
It’s important to exercise empathy and compassion, while simultaneously ensuring your time is being respected. Many of the photographers won’t have been edited before, and may think your job is as simple as checking for spelling mistakes, the night before the book is due. This can sometimes result in missed deadlines, or a lack of communication about what stage the book is at. If you photographer misses a meeting, try to remember how stressful it can be for everyone at assessment time, and cut them some slack. If, however, they are continually missing deadlines, you are well within your rights to remind them that you are providing a valuable skill and deserve to have your time and role respected.
