How An Editor Can Kill Your Content

You may not consider yourself a writer, but let’s face it: all of us who have started anything online have probably at some point written content of some sort. Some of you may have written articles, stories or even digital books, and some of you may even be professional writers. Regardless of your experience, we can all agree on one thing: that feeling that you get at the end of the writing process is awesome. That sigh of relief and accomplishment comes all too soon though, and before we know it, we’re faced with that all too familiar question: “Should I get an editor?”

That’s a hard question to answer. Some of us believe we’re good enough writers that we don’t need one, others have no confidence at all, while still others just don’t think an editor is that important. After all, no one ever sat down and “taught” us how to write…how do we know if we’re actually doing it right? What if we’re doing it wrong?

I’m going to set some things straight here so that you are never faced with the indecisiveness or wonder that comes with a self-made content-creator. The internet makes it extremely easy for anyone to become a writer and get their content seen, but it seems that the fear that they may be doing it wrong stops most people from doing it.

My Experience

I personally never really thought I needed an editor. I figured my content was good enough, and I could just hit spell check and be done with it. As more and more people started reading what I put out though, I started to play around with the idea. After all, I wanted my content to be the best it could be…was I missing out on something?

I kept writing articles week by week, but the idea would not stop aggravating me in my head. There had to be a reason why editors are such a major part of writing…So I finally decided to give it a try.

Well, I had written a few articles that I was really proud of, and I decided to jump in on the action and see what I was missing. I looked around a bit for a medium priced editor…I wanted someone with decent experience, but I also wanted to make sure I wasn’t being charged an arm and a leg. I found someone that had been an editor for a newspaper for 15 years for a decent price, so I was set.

I gave it a go, sent the person my content, and left it in the back of my mind.

When the content got back to me, all I can say is that I have never been more disappointed in my life.

Nothing was spelled incorrectly beforehand (thanks to spell check), but what the editor decided to do was to remove every reference of any personality at all lurking within the pages. Reading what got back to me sounded so incredibly boring that I would have rather read upside down while listening to fingernails on a chalkboard.

Now I don’t know what the process is for writing a newspaper article or an actual publisher-approved book, but I am certain that any written work shouldn’t read like a monotone robot at an old folk’s home.

So was this a one-off experience? I’m not sure. I’ll be trying this again soon to see if I just picked up the bad apple, but I have a feeling that what the world accepts as “proper” just isn’t the same as the creative vision I have inside my head.

Should I use an editor?

When it comes to blogging, or content for said blog, I do not recommend an editor. Blogs are read by the masses mostly because of the personality behind them. Editors have a habit of removing you from your writing. That makes it “proper” yes, but it doesn’t make it likable.

A book is different, and depending on who you ask, you’ll get different responses. But when it comes to writing online, write with personality, and forget the rules your English teacher taught you. Do you see what I did there? I started a sentence with “But” on purpose.

That doesn’t mean that you should just sit down, write, and click “publish” though. First and foremost, I recommend using spell check (actually hitting the button and going through the entire document, not just right-clicking on the word underlined in red), and letting a friend or family member read over it and have them tell you what they think.

I also recommend sleeping on it, and reading your piece again the next day before you publish it. I’ve read some of my own stuff a day later and was really surprised about the way I had written certain things.

So, can an editor kill your content? Yes. Will they? Not necessarily.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that we are all at different levels. I can’t tell you personally if you need an editor, because I haven’t seen an example of your writing. For me though, I think I’ll stray away from having an editor rip the soul out of my work, but hey, some of you may need that.

I tend to like my creative side, and maybe I’m a little too infatuated with own creations, but so what? When I write, i want it to be me on the page talking, I don’t want someone to rearrange my words to the way that they do things.

One last tip: use Microsoft word or another word-processor to write your content, and then copy it into your Wordpress (or another CMS) window. I’ve noticed that my copy of Microsoft Word 2010 is much better at catching misspellings and different word meanings (like are and our, or there and they’re) which I tend to mix up sometimes.

So what do you guys think? Have you ever had an experience with an editor? Was it positive or negative?

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