How to make the most of editorial collaborations
Earlier this year, as part of my editing course at RMIT University, I worked with a photoimaging student (Catherine) to produce her final project. Together we created a narrative photobook documenting the work of a social enterprise café in Melbourne’s northeast. We’re both incredibly proud of the end result which we worked so hard to achieve.
I’ve been editing for a while, as a student and professionally, but my experience is largely in educational publications. As a ‘words person’ in this field, I work mainly with other editors as well as writers and academic researchers. The photobook project was a great opportunity to work collaboratively with a creative artist.
I’m going to share some of the lessons I learned along the way, in the hope that they might help other fledgling editors seeking to collaborate on editorial projects, creative or otherwise.
1. Keep a record of discussions with your collaborator/s
Can you remember everything you talk about? I can’t! Catherine and I had many discussions, both face to face and over the phone, where we discussed the project’s direction and made editorial decisions.
After each conversation, I jotted down the main points of the discussion in my notebook. In particular, I made notes on:
- Progress
- Decisions
- Queries which I needed to follow up on.
This exercise helped to jog my memory when I sat down to edit. It also acted as a prompt before our next meeting. I chose to combine this with a timesheet, which would be a useful working practice for a paid job.
Happily, Catherine and I had a great working relationship, but if you have a difficult relationship with a client, having a record of your conversations can help to back you up should issues arise later.
2. Keep a style sheet
Style sheets are, in my opinion, grossly underrated. I’ve worked on projects where my colleagues didn’t see the need for them, meaning that at copy editing stage I ended up constantly asking questions about punctuation, capitalisation and spelling of unusual words. Having a working style sheet would have saved me so much time.
A style sheet is a simple document containing repeated words, phrases and terms, as well as style and punctuation decisions.
Not only is it a great tool to work with whilst you are editing, it helps when you are sharing your work with others. During proofreading, I was able to pass my style sheet to other editors in my class along with my page proofs, which allowed them to follow the agreed style for Catherine’s and my photobook.
Grammar Girl provides an excellent tutorial on how to make a style sheet.
3. Have someone else proofread your work
I’ve always prided myself on my attention to detail. In school reports I was frequently described as ‘conscientious’. As a grownup, feedback from colleagues and managers often includes the words ‘detailed’ and ‘obsessive’. (I choose to take all of these terms as compliments). So when I’m proofreading work written by others, I’m meticulous.
But the reality is that we often miss our own errors. I saw two final proofs of our photobook and, as well as missing a couple of punctuation errors, the café name was styled differently in a number of places. Thankfully, classmate-proofreaders spotted these issues and I was able to fix them before going to print.
Proofreading is the final check before the text goes to print. It includes grammar, syntax, punctuation, character and paragraph spacing, page layout and more. It’s pretty critical. Often there isn’t time to have someone else proofread your work. But if there is, use it.
If not, you might find this article by Lu Sexton on proofreading your own work helpful.
4. Be open to learning about other creative processes (and increase your skillset as a result)
This project was a great opportunity to work closely with a photographer and learn more about the processes involved in her work. Catherine was generous with her time and we spent hours in the studio sifting through photos and working on captions.
I discovered that there were multiple layers of narrative in our book. It was simple in its purpose: to tell readers about a day in the life of a café. But its story was threaded together by the individual narratives of the café’s staff, volunteers, customers and furnishings (yes, even the chairs had a story to tell). Each image was loaded with history and meaning.
I learned about how Catherine chose her shots and set them up, how she decided which photos made the cut, and how she considered photo spreads on the page. I learned that some dark space is alright, that the reader’s eye will be drawn to text before image, and that food doesn’t photograph well in black and white.
All of these things will, I hope, make me a better editor.
Collaborative projects are very common in the publishing world. Professional editors will find themselves working with a range of contributors including writers, illustrators, indexers, photographers, archivists, designers and subject matter experts … the list is endless.
As I have learned, being open-minded, using your professional editing tools and communicating clearly go a long way towards a rewarding working relationship and a successful publication.
Be flexible and be prepared to build up your skillset. In today’s market, you might find that having the agility to work across a variety of publication platforms makes you more employable.
And be willing to learn and exchange ideas. I learned a lot about photography, and I’m sure that Catherine will never look at a dash in the same way again.
Images courtesy of Catherine Bakker, 2017
