Say thank you! Understanding the role of editors and how they are important during the writing process

What is editing A large number of people confuse editing with copyediting consisting of fixing typos checking grammar and making sure a story follows a publicationrsquos style But itrsquos more than that ldquoA good editor is the difference between a good story and an awardwinning story Without a good editor I donrsquot think thatrsquos possiblerdquo says awardwinning journalist Parth MNThe dictionary defines editing as preparing a piece of writing to be published making sure that it is correct the right length etc ldquoBut if yoursquore a writer you need an editor to poke holes in it Their job is to point out flaws in your writing so that when the story is eventually published it looks better than your original draftrdquo says ParthTo edit is to understand the world of writing with all of its rhythms loopholes structures and possibilities It means knowing when to cut a paragraph when to ask a writer to go deeper and sometimes pushing the writer in the right direction Parth works closely with Peoplersquos Archive of Rural India PARI founding editor P Sainath ldquoBack in 2016 I was covering Marathwada and the agrarian crisis Sainath called me up and asked me to accompany the migrant workers and write a story of their migrationrdquo Parth narrates Even though he was unclear what that would add to his article he ended up squeezing himself onto a tractor with the migrants He spent two days and two nights under the open sky with them as the workers migrated from Maharashtra to Southern Karnataka ldquoI ended up winning the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize in Brussels by the European Commission for this piecerdquo Parth says He ends up applying this lesson to every article that he works on till todayParth MN and Kaashif HajeeThis is why editing is one of the hardest skills to hone and one of the most important processes in publishing Yet it is often one of the least thanked jobs in the roomThe recent upheaval at The Polis Project is a reminder of just that On August 19 the New Yorkbased progressive publication founded by Suchitra Vijayan terminated three fulltime editors They say this came after they raised concerns around editorial independence the work environment and organisational policies The former editors say they were given no prior noticeldquoSuddenly we could not access our mail and servers on that day We had no prior notice and we could not communicate this with the writers we were working withrdquo says Kaashif Hajee one of the former editors at The Polis Project A writer and editor based in London Hajee had worked with the publication for two yearsFollowing the departure of two political editors Vijayan took on the role of political editor Hajee says this raised questions about the division between an organisationrsquos executive and editorial functions ldquoSuchitra herself didnrsquot do any editing work When she got a piece she would offer developmental changes Then the rest of it would fall on her assistant editorsrdquo explains Hajee ldquoIt put disproportionate work on us but also compromised the editorial independence of the organisation Effectively the executive director whorsquos in charge of fundraising and managing peoplersquos salaries was also acting as the political editor So that also creates another issue of governancerdquoParth believes that the loss of an editor is not just the loss of another pair of eyes on a copy It is the loss of a mentor The journalist who has also won the Ramnath Goenka Award says he would rather not write for a publication where AI is the only thing editing his work ldquoI will be mortified if somebody tells me that only AI is going to edit my copyrdquo he says He further argues ldquoThe editor shapes the reporter The new generation of reporters will lose a mentor if there are fewer or no editorsrdquoThe Polis Projectrsquos former editors also wrote in an Instagram post how writers were shocked by the explicit use of AI in the comments and suggestions made by Vijayan Hajee sees a similar problem with AI but from the other side of the editing desk ldquoI would expect that it would offer you extremely superficial ideas about how you can improve the story without making much senserdquo he saysThis is part of a larger devaluation of writing creativity research reporting and intellectual work with AI representing the idea that this work can simply be generated The irony he says is that editing is already a thankless job Editors may spend hours shaping a piece but their names rarely appear on the finished work PARI and Reuters are one of the few platforms that does credit its editorsYet Hajee says there is an ownership that comes with editing ldquoIn a good magazine you feel a sense of ownership over anything that the magazine actually puts outrdquo he says At The Polis Project he says editors were repeatedly told that they were ldquothe heart and soul of the organisationrdquo But that sense of ownership becomes complicated when the work is not valued through pay credit or even job security ldquoEditing is vital It should not be so but it does feel quite thankless Itrsquos not like the money is actually good at allrdquo he says As an editor he questions whether he wants to continue editing when the industry does not value the labour behind itWe reached out to Suchitra Vijayan who did not respond to uslsquoEditors are being sidelinedrsquoAssociate Director of New India Fellowship Nandini Nair talks about the value of an editor at their fellowship programmesThe editors fired from The Polis Project took to Instagram to write about the retaliatory layoffs PicInstagramkaashifhajeeThe value of an editor becomes even clearer when a manuscript moves from an idea to a book At the New India Fellowship NIF every fellowrsquos work is seen by a fulltime inhouse editor before it reaches a publisher Nandini Nair associate director at NIF says editing is treated as being as important as the financial support given to its fellowsldquoWhen a manuscript from an NIF reaches publishers a lot of their work has been done because it has been better edited at a line level and a bigpicture level as wellrdquo she says For a writer she adds the greatest value of an editor may simply be distance This also allows an editor to protect an individual voice ldquoWhen yoursquore writing a book or even an article itrsquos also about retaining your own voice about laying your own stylerdquo she saysShe worries that an overreliance on AI could flatten those differences ldquoA big problem in the industry is that editors are being sidelined The fact that we can say that lsquoOh AI can do this as wellrsquo is an issue You want the human voice You want articles to sound different from each other and you donrsquot want it to be completely uniformrdquo she says ldquoThat personal connect between a writer and editor can be essential to how a book finally emergesrdquolsquoAn editorrsquos skill is also to build rapportrsquoSenior Features Editor of Vogue India Sadaf Shaikh talks about the need for editors to have respect for a writer and build a relationship through thatSadaf ShaikhFor Sadaf Shaikh senior features editor at Vogue India editing rarely means simply receiving a finished draft and passing it up the chain She was recently praised on her editing work for a Vogue article In her five years at the publication she says there are usually several conversations before a story reaches her own editor ldquoI donrsquot think it has ever happened in my fiveyear career where a draft has come in and Irsquove just been like okay fine just immediately pass it on to my editorrdquo she says ldquoThere are almost three rounds of editing between me and the writer before it goes to my editorrdquoSometimes the editing begins even before the first draft ldquoWhat a contributor has pitched is interesting but wersquove already explored various versions of the storyrdquo she explains ldquoSo wersquoll be like okay what if we tweak it a little bitrdquo This is where editing becomes more collaborativePiciStockThat also extends to a publicationrsquos stylesheet Voguersquos global teams develop its Universal Content Guide which is then contextualised for each market ldquoWe standardise and we contextualise them for each marketrdquo she says citing the decision not to italicise Hindi words as an example ldquoWe felt that otherwise we were othering ourselves considering this is Vogue IndiardquoBut perhaps the most important editorial skill Shaikh says cannot be found in a style guide ldquoBeing courteous and having that rapport with a writer should be put down as a skill for an editor to developrdquo she says ldquoFor an editor to have respect for a writer I think that is an admirable skill I have seen stories fall apart because an editor and writer could not get alongrdquo The aim she says is to know the work better without assuming you know the writer better mdash ldquoI know where yoursquore coming from and I want to meet you thererdquo Speaking about ownership in her work her final reward is not a byline ldquoAn editorrsquos sense of fulfilment just comes from a good story on the page And every writer usually credits their editorrdquolsquoAn editor always elevates your writingrsquoNishka Rathi a ghostwriter explains how clients refuse to hire an editor for her workNishka RathiNishka Rathi has ghostwritten eight books while also helping authors with their books Her need for an editor becomes clearest when she gets too close to the person whose story she is telling Her process involves hours of conversations with authors which she records transcribes and revisits to understand not just what they say but how they say it ldquoSome words stick in your head the way the authors speak the way they say certain things Itrsquos like method acting for me in a wayrdquo she saysBut after 4050 hours of conversations and a first draft Rathi says she can begin to think like the author herself That is where an editor provides the distance she can no longer have An editor she explains might tell her ldquoFor your reader just explain this morerdquo or ask her to make something ldquomore conciserdquo or ldquomore emotionalrdquo The intervention can make an idea crisper and the writing more polished ldquoAn editor helps polish it helps make it better defines it betterrdquo she saysSometimes clients do not always see that value Rathi has had clients tell her they do not want to spend on an editor because the manuscript is ldquogood enoughrdquo ldquoIt is good enough because I would never give a bad copyrdquo she concedes ldquoBut I feel an editor will elevate it which they donrsquot understandrdquo She also finds herself explaining to clients that editing does not mean someone simply rewrites their book ldquoThere are different levels to this workrdquo she tries to convince them Sometimes she adds she has had to agree when a client refuses an editor only to later hear complaints about the writing ldquoI was like I told you we need an editor I told you that for a reasonrdquolsquoAn editor is the biggest championrsquoSamarth Menon Managing Editor at Writerrsquos Side says time constraints placed on editors in book publishing industry actually plummets the quality of booksSamarth MenonSamarth Menon managing editor at Writerrsquos Side literary agency brings in the bookpublishing perspective where an editorrsquos relationship with an author can stretch across months or even years He says the editor is not merely a manuscriptrsquos first reader but its ldquobiggest championrdquo At the acquisition stage ldquoif the editor canrsquot justify or understand what the book is about then therersquos nowhere else for the book to gordquo he saysBut as publishing timelines shrink Menon says this process is increasingly under pressure ldquoIrsquove seen a lot of copy editors actually getting the short end of the stickrdquo he says With understaffing and shorter news cycles editors are sometimes expected to turn around manuscripts in days ldquoIn order to hit deadlines the quality of the book is essentially compromisedrdquo Menon says ldquoThatrsquos where you see errors start to creep in Thatrsquos where you see overall just quality of the books go downrdquo