The Dragon’s Breath #19
17 July 2003
The Making of an Editor
By Mike Johnstone
"It is believed that his true form is that of a 15-foot tall black salad." ("Slaad Lord: Lord of Entropy," The Tome of Horrors, Necromancer Games, page 234.)
Yep. That was me.
I am directly responsible for d20 gamers everywhere laughing at images of preparing for an epic battle with forks, wooden spoons, salt and pepper shakers, and perhaps a sprinkle of paprika or a pinch of bacon bits.
Well, maybe I overexaggerate a tad. Still, the evidence of my fallibility is there for all to see, and lo! I must accept the consequences.
When I started editing for Fiery Dragon three years ago, I can’t say that I necessarily expected it to be "easy." At the time, though, I simply could not have predicted just how much "real" editing involves. Yeah, in those days, I flew on adrenalin and not a small amount of bravado (being and English Literature major ’n all). Split infinitives? Sentence fragments? Dangling participles? Pronoun/antecedent disagreements? Sure, I got ya covered! Oh my, does editing RPG books ever involve a lot more than fixing typos and grammatical problems ….
Let me give you a quick idea of what an editor of d20 supplements generally must do on a project. (And no, the following is not a thinly disguised plea for your sympathy. Honest.)
- Correct typos and grammatical issues
- Assess matters of structure and flow; ensure clarity of language and presentation
- Ensure consistency throughout — in terminology, spellings, phrases, styles, formats, and so on
- Check stat blocks and rules mechanics for correctness
- Observe d20 conventions (i.e., skill and feat names are capitalized, etc.)
- Consider a project as a whole and query the developer regarding issues that need clarification or ways to enhance the product (editing sometimes shades into minor design and/or development work, too)
- Follow a publisher’s house style and guidelines
- Meet your deadline!
When I flew on adrenaline and bravado in those early days, I lacked a full appreciation of parsing an editor’s duties this way — in a sense, I lacked a certain kind of control over the process of editing, relying instead on my instincts to steer a project to a safe landing. Well, as many of us know, instincts will get you only so far; we still require practice, technique, and knowledge to make the most of whatever innate talents we own. After I saw enough of my misses and gaffes criticized and displayed in various on-line forums, I realized that I needed to change how I went about editing. In short: I needed to learn how to be an Editor.
I suspect that quite a few editors, copyeditors, and proofreaders in the RPG industry are "untrained," in that they do not hold certificates, degrees, or diplomas in editing, nor do they likely maintain memberships in editors’ organizations or groups. Considering that the RPG industry began and effectively continues as people creating games for friends, we should not be surprised that many editors are one of those friends — probably someone good with words and possessing a relatively keen eye for detail, just not professionally trained as an editor. I mean, I got started this way.
Today, I also suspect that the really good editors in the RPG industry, even if "untrained," take their craft very seriously. And I do mean craft. Despite its at times mechanical nature, editing is an art. Like an art, it takes time to master … or at least to acquire some competence. That list of tasks I provided above gives only the what of editing; the how presents something of a different beast, involving all the behind-the-scenes stuff that really comprises the craft of editing. Knowing that you must ensure consistency is important, but learning the tricks for how to do so will get you there. Thus, for help I turned to books and other resources about the art of editing.
Here’s a bit of a paradox: the craft of editing takes time to master so that it goes almost unnoticed in a finished product. In The Fine Art of Copyediting, Elsie Myers Stainton writes, "Selflessness and anonymity are standard qualities for copyeditors; in the vineyard they are the laborers whose names will not be on the wine bottle" (pg. 4). In RPG books, of course, the editor appears right there in the credits. Still, if no one comments on the editing, that likely means they encountered so few issues as to make the matter inconsequential. For every typo or rules mistake that gets noticed and called out, however, I will bet that the editor caught and corrected another eight or ten, which is why I hold a lot of sympathy for WotC editors, who face the firing squads more frequently and more publicly than most of us. Actually editing a project gives you an appreciation of how or why things slip under the radar even after a third editing pass. The goal is to reduce the frequency and significance of such misses, which occurs through practice, training, and various techniques to keep the editor on top of everything. All that craft, though, happens out of view — in the fields under the hot, hazy sun, long before the finished product reaches the consumer’s hands.
Being an editor fosters a healthy sense of humility, if not a smidgen of gun shyness. Now that I understand more the skills of editing instead of relying on instinct, I think that I am a better editor than one year ago. I still dream of the perfect, error-free product and strive to achieve it each time, but I know, in the end, that something will elude my delete key. At least now I can rely on a bit of perspective about editing as a craft and find ways to improve.
I just know that one morning I’m going to wake up with the salad lord standing over me, come to make me pay for dooming him to a fate of mockery ….
Next Week: Well, now that we’re back on track, make sure to return in a week’s time to see what one of the guys has written. Another Top 10 list? More philosophical musing upon the RPG industry? The possibilities are limitless!
To discuss this and other articles, come to the Dragon's Breath forum on our message board!
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