On the first day of university, we were asked what role we wanted in Publishing. We were asked to raise our hands if we wanted to go into Editorial – hands in the class shot up, but not mine…

One of the most important things Smashbear has taught me is that I’m not as bad at editorial work as I initially thought. This is because I didn’t understand what the role of an editor actually is. Before the placement, I thought editorial work was a lot of grammar and sentence correcting, which is not my strongest suit. As someone with dyslexia, writing perfect sentences and using the correct grammar is a struggle – which you might spot in this blog.

As a Horror fan, Smashbear Publishing attracted me by their focus on Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Sci-fi and Horror publications. I was not disappointed with the choice of doing this placement. After having an initial meeting to discuss the structure of the placement, I was excited (well maybe not initially for the editorial tasks).

The editorial placement journey started with us having training on house style, content reading and proofreading. Some of which, such as content reading, I have not done before. The placement provider was very friendly and relaxed, and they themself mentioned that they were not the best at grammar and tense editing, which made me feel a lot more comfortable.

Our first task was a house style test. We had to score 100% which made me nervous. I made notes and studied the style guide, and ultimately the quiz was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Most of the questions were very straightforward. But I had to take my time on two of them, where we were given three sentences and had to point out three things that needed to be changed. Some were easy, but I think I spent around 10 minutes trying to find the last change on one of them – to my surprise I eventually found it. And ultimately, I passed! Learning about House Styles raised my confidence in proofreading because I realized there was a set structure I could follow and refer back to.

The task that changed my mind most about editing was our workshop on manuscripts. There were five manuscripts and after 10 minutes of editing the one we were on; we would feedback with any notes and then move onto the next one that the person before us previously edited. Once again, this put me out of my comfort zone, which was a good thing. Even though it did take me a bit longer than the others to read through and edit, I still had plenty to feedback on and I proved to myself that I had something valuable to add to this discussion. This made me a lot more confident in my skills, even if they are not as developed as I would like them to be.

So, the moral of this story is that editing is about more than just proofreading. But, proofreading, like any skill, can always be improved with practice. In my new Luath placement, I am responsible for editing a whole manuscript by myself. This would have been daunting and felt impossible without the learning and support I received from Smashbear.

I have learned that my dyslexia does not make me a bad editor. If I was asked again if I would like to go into editing, I wouldn’t mind putting my hand up.