Real-Life Communication
Good communication skills are important in two very specific ways
for book editors. Book editors need to be able to communicate with their clients,
and they need to be able to help their clients -- the book writers -- communicate
through their writing.
You're editing a book from a first-time author.
It's a book about the solar system and is written for a younger audience,
so it needs to be very clear and simple. Here are a couple lines from the
book that you need to make clearer. You then need to tell the author why you've
done what you've done to their writing.
The original lines are as
follows:
The third planet from the Sun is the planet known
as Earth. It follows Venus, which follows Mercury. These three, along with
the fourth, Mars, are the four planets before the gas giants.
How
do you change them to make them clearer? And how do you explain this to the
writer?
"Much of an editor's job is about managing relationships and
trying to keep disparate camps -- authors, editors, agents -- happy, or at
very least informed," says Ben Schafer. He is the executive editor for a New
York publishing company.
"Relationships with literary agents are
important and take years to cultivate. One only learns this by doing it, and
also one never stops learning. No matter how long you've been doing it, some
relationships go better than others, just like life."
"An author is
trying to communicate with his or her readers, and I'm trying to help that
author do so effectively," adds Carol Gaskin, who owns her own editing company
in Florida. "So I need to be able to interact in a constructive manner both
with my clients and with that person's prospective audience."