“And when He comes, He will guide you into all truth…” (John 16:13)
A publisher once sent me a book to review for unknown reasons. The writer at one time had belonged to a church I had pastored, so maybe that was it. (Later, I was to learn that publishers ask authors to give them a list of people they want to review their book and comment. So, clearly, it was the writer’s idea.)
My review was not what they had wanted. I said, “He had a great idea. He makes some excellent points. But he desperately needed an editor.”
They never replied and never again asked me to review anything.
An editor can be a writer’s best friend. It is not politeness that prompts authors to praise their editor in the preface of their books. A good editor can cut through the verbiage, point out flaws in reasoning, find inaccuracies, and question claims. A good editor can spot a weakness in the plot and suggest a dozen ways to make the book better.
Most of us who try to write and then self-publish (which is what we are doing on the internet) serve as our own editors.
The result is often embarrassingly bad. I will read something from this blog written weeks earlier and spot typos or awkward sentences (the result of my attempts at self-editing, when I tried to cut out excess verbiage or redundancies by combining sentences and made a mess of it).
I read those and think, “I wrote that? Man, I need an editor. Or a wife.” (Please smile.)