I’m sometimes asked by writers, “What is your editing process?” As I think about the question, it occurs to me that, I believe, editing someone else's work is easier than editing my own. And it's not because I don't have a stake in the other author's work. Actually, I do. I want to help the author make the manuscript the best book it can be. I want the writer to understand why I mark or change things so he’ll be able to catch his mistakes on his own next time. I want to hold the published book in my hand and be excited about its publication. It's easier because, basically, I didn't write it. When I start reading, I have no idea what will happen as the story evolves. I have no clue what the finale will be. I don't know the characters or their backgrounds or their relationships. Therefore, lots of things that would slip by the author stand out to me. I catch them -- or hopefully I catch the majority of them. I have to have quiet -- no music, no distractions...

We all know how frustrating, infuriating, depressing, demoralizing (did I miss any?) it is to pick up a document for the "final edit" and find silly things - the first sentence is missing a verb, the protagonist's name is misspelled on page 2, throughout the document the word "vile" appears when you meant "vial". At my latest critique group meeting, we exchanged ideas on different ways to view writing passages to identify all the items that need editing - the first or second time through, rather than waiting for the seventh round. This discussion was not about the long list items different authors read for during the editing process (everything from spelling errors to logic flaws), but rather the physical techniques used to get different views of the written word. Can you guess how many different techniques we identified? Here they are: Print the document and read it on paper Read it out loud Ask someone else to read it to you Have a software program r...