Erik Larson Quotes

Like all editors, I assume, I'm a reactor.

It's funny because you know the novel process: you get the drafts, you get the galley, and then you get the galley proofs. You have opportunities to change things all along. But the further along in the process you go, the more careful you have to be in making those changes, and the smaller the changes have to be.

Every book has mistakes in them, every one. There's never been a book published without mistakes.

A very good editor is almost a collaborator.

The life of an editor is not a glamorous one. You're a fixer; you make things better.

Sometimes I can spend as long revising a manuscript as I spent writing it in the first place.

I tend to overwrite; I need a good editor.

I always read the translator's draft all the way through - a very laborious business.

I'm constantly revising. Once the book is written and typed, I go through the entire draft again.

What helps change bad writing into mediocre writing is editing. Editing is in bad shape in print journalism, and is in virtually nonexistent shape in online journalism.

I'm a fierce editor! I don't edit out things that I began by saying, usually. The editing is on the micro level - a comma here, a word there.

Though I revise constantly as I write, I will usually revise much of the work again after I've reached the ending.

I should mention something that nobody ever thinks about, but proofreading takes a lot of time. After you write something, there are these proofs that keep coming, and there's this panicky feeling that 'This is me and I must make it better.'

I always market research my books before I hand them in by showing them to five or six close friends who I trust to be honest with me, so they are very heavily re-written already.

I have a problem with blogs - all the best writers benefit from edits.

If you re-read your work, you can find on re-reading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by re-reading and editing.

I was now ordered to have my writings copied, and put into the printer's hand.

Often something comes in from which you can see that the person is good, the book may not be perfect as it is, and the person doesn't want to do a re-write. That's something we do almost nothing of.

My self-editing process is intense.

After my husband spell-checks one of my manuscripts, my editor says, 'It's been Normanized.'

I always read what I write out loud, and I did that long before any radio thing. My editor finds that unusual.

I always rewrite each day up to the point where I stopped. When it is all finished, naturally you go over it. You get another chance to correct and rewrite when someone else types it, and you see it clean in type. The last chance is in the proofs. You're grateful for these different chances.

I read what I write over and over and make corrections and improvements, until I reach the conclusion that the material deserves to stand on its own.

Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.

And the most important thing you can do is learn to edit yourself. And then go back and rewrite.