I was just wondering, how much editing does an editor do? Is it just grammatical changes and little bits of consistantcy here and there or does an editor ever rewrite small (or not so small) sections of your novel? I just wondered for major changes does the editor tell you the gist of what to change it to or do they ever actually write it for you?

Hugely variable, I'd say. If it needs a lot of work the first stage will be 'structural editing' which generally involves the editor telling you either orally or on a sheet or two of paper, what is wrong with the book and what it needs - where the plot needs changing, how the characters need to be fleshed out more or altered in some way, which scenes need cutting or beefing up, etc, etc. You go away and do this yourself, but I imagine most editors would be happy for there to be some dialogue about the process, if you felt stuck or wanted a better handle on what they were after. If necessary, I guess there might be a further stage of structural tweaking if your first rewrite didn't pass muster.

Once the thing is more or less in shape, the next stage is 'line editing' - and if no structural changes were needed this may actually be the first stage. This is where the editor will actually mark up the manuscript - or give you notes which are specific to page and para - telling you things that need to be tidied up, expanded, or cut... Little sections which aren't quite working. I'd be surprised if the editor ever actually suggested a wording, or wrote in stuff themselves, though. That would be a bit much!

Then the final stage, of course, is 'copy editing' - done not be the editor but by a specialist copy editor (either in house or sub-contracted) who does a very hands on job on the minutiae - a mixture of proof reading to iron out typos and bad grammar and punctuation, putting it into house style as necessary, and little things spotting continuity errors, words that are repeated/overused, inconsistencies in style or events, factual things that need checking, etc...

Everybody gets at least copy edited, but how much of the previous stages happens is enormously variable, depending on the book and also the policy and time resources of the publishers.

Rosy

It depends, but I wouldn't expect an editor to be writing sections of my novel for me. My editor makes suggestions, like 'it would be good to know more about what this character looks like' in the margin, or 'would she be more shocked at this news?' or something. She has always said that suggestions are just that, and if I don't agree I don't have to make the changes. However, I am sure it varies with different books, editors, authors.

Rosy's summed it up very well. Your name's on the book, so you should never accept changes you're not happy with (though we all compromise sometimes). Most editors aren't writers, though they might suggest some possible ways of tackling a structural problem, if only as a way of illustrating the problem, or alternative words in a line edit or copy edit, again, more by way of illuminating the problem than because they want their word in there.

Emma