Lately I’ve been falling for those themed free download books and as one might expect I’ve gotten what I’ve paid for. Now don’t get me wrong, some of these free books are excellent, but far too many seem to be first drafts that have never seen an editor and in some cases don’t seem to have been read through even once.

Leaving aside things like white room syndrome, anachronisms and dropped plot threads the lack of a line editor is what truly hobbles these stories. I’ve seen sentences that are clearly missing words. I’ve seen the wrong words such as dappled instead of dabbled. I’ve seen sentences that started with sentence fragments like “en. ” in front of them. In one notable instance I saw the same 4 paragraphs repeated in sequence as a double dip cut and paste error. Sigh.

When I look at these stories I’m so grateful for the line editors in my life. As a retired engineer without any formal training as a writer I know there but for the blessed line editors go I.