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Should I or shouldn't I?


vwl

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I answered a call from a GA author (to be kept anonymous) to edit a story chapter. Later, I found that the story had already been posted on GA, so my editing job was really a polishing job, and the story did need polishing.

With so many authors out there with stories in raw form, I don't feel redoing a story is the best use of my editing skills, unless it is as superb a story as Thirty Two Faces.

Should I stop the editing offer now, should I wait until this story is finished and not do-over another uploaded story -- that is wait for an original, or should I ignore the fact that the story has already been published? The author, from what I've read, is good.

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You might ask him why he didn't tell you that the story was already in the posting stage. Honesty is the best policy between writers and editors, even when the editors tell us things we don't wish to hear.

This working partnership can be a very close relationship, but both sides have to be open with each other. So, ask him, and get a dialogue going.

C

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It is heartening that the urge to fix something that is flawed appears to lie behind this request. There's an old tradition in the theatre of calling in a script doctor after a few preview shows in Philadelphia or Boston reveal the need.

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  • 1 month later...

I find raw editing is much less appealing than polishing. In the first instance it's as if you are the basic landscaper, with backhoe and shovel, trying to make something nice from near chaos, and in the second It's like you are a bonsai specialist, tweaking what is already well formed.

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I post at GA but I'm not one of their featured authors.

They want the virgin EVERY time.

I can see that with their anthologies but I've got loyalties here.

_________________

I think I am the guilty one that jumped the gun here with Redemption.

The reason it turned out that way is I botched the delayed publication date thing at GA.

You have to set it both at the story level and the chapter level.

Once it was out there- people started commenting on it and I didn't want to pull it.

I wasn't really trying to pull a fast one.

I was actually pulling a fumbling, bumbling and stumbling one.

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Wait- what? crap. Oct. 6th.

Wuzzn't me.

I confess to being constantly and consistently confuzzeled. And probably guilty too.

LOL... if there's a pooch, I'll screw it.

Not that I'm into pooches...

If there's a figurative pooch I'll figuratively screw it.

Sigh...

*Quit while you're behind idiot.*

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Unfortunately there are authors out there that will post a story at GA without having in checked first. It's ususually when they start getting feedback from readers who mention to them that they need an editor. I"ve done this in the past myself, tho it ususually happened before the story was complete. It also lead to a more work of thier new stuff.

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OMG, TalonRider, did you do that deliberately, to show what it looks like when a paragraph needs editing? If so, masterfully done.

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My statement didn't come out quite right. What I meant was that I was contacted by authors looking for an editor after they had started posting a story. One example would be Nickolas James. We did a clean up of the earlier chapters which helped me get up to speed with future chapters. As he started working on new stories, he sent them to me as well.

When I was the running the Editor/Beta Reader Program at GA, I had several authors contact me for help in looking for an editor due to comments left in reviews.

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When I was running the Editor/Beta Reader Program at GA, I had several authors contact me for help in looking for an editor due to comments left in reviews.

Meaning they didn't realize they had a problem until readers pointed it out. "It's never too late", as the saying goes.

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