REVIEWS & ARTICLES April 2025
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The Art of Editing Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Poetic Prose
A brief essay by Claude.ai
Dear Writers,
At our last event on APRIL 2, 2025, Mark Waldman and Sean Colletti shared their expertise on how to personally edit poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and how a professional editor will transform your writing for publication in a small press or at one of New York’s “Big 5” publishing houses. Each form of literature requires a different skill and sensitivity towards a writer’s needs, and when it comes to nonfiction writing, the editing can be brutal. Understanding these unspoken “rules” will strengthen your own writing and give you the skills to help edit the work of others.
Editing is not a one-size-fits-all process, and each literary form demands a distinct approach, focusing on different elements to achieve excellence. This essay is a general summary created by Claude.ai with tweaking from Mark and Sean.
Nonfiction Editing: Ensuring Accuracy and Clarity
Nonfiction editing prioritizes factual integrity and logical structure. Key focus areas include:
- Accuracy: Verifying factual claims and proper sourcing
- Logical progression: Ensuring arguments build coherently toward conclusions
- Clarity: Making complex concepts accessible to the intended audience
- Citations: Confirming proper attribution of ideas and consistent formatting
Nonfiction writers frequently assume too much reader knowledge, rely on inadequate sources, organize information inconsistently, or overuse jargon. The editor’s role is to challenge unsupported assertions while respecting the author’s expertise and helping organize complex information for maximum comprehension. Authors must be willing to “kill their darlings” – to eliminate their favorite sections and chapters, which are often highly personal – when the parts veer from the purpose and context of the book.
Poetry Editing: Distilling Language to Its Essence
Poetry editing attends to the concentrated, multidimensional nature of verse. Critical considerations include:
- Sound and musicality: Evaluating rhythm, meter, and sonic devices
- Compression: Helping achieve maximum impact with minimal language
- Lineation: Examining how line breaks and spacing affect meaning and pacing
- Ambiguity: Distinguishing between productive ambiguity and mere confusion
Poetry editors need specialized knowledge of poetic forms and traditions while navigating greater subjectivity than prose editing. Common poetry weaknesses include overreliance on abstractions, forced rhyme, clichéd imagery, over-explanation, and inconsistent voice.
Common Mistakes in Poetry and Editing Solutions
Overreliance on Abstractions Many poets default to abstract concepts (“love,” “freedom,” “despair”) rather than concrete imagery. Editors should encourage specific, sensory details that evoke these concepts instead.
Forced Rhyme or Meter When poets prioritize formal elements over natural language, the result often feels contrived. Editors can suggest where to relax formal constraints for greater impact or help find more natural alternatives.
Clichéd Imagery and Expression Poetry often suffers from overused metaphors and phrases. Editors should highlight these moments and encourage more original, precise expressions of the poet’s experience.
Explaining Too Much Many poets undermine their work by over-explaining or stating their themes directly. Editors should identify where readers can draw their own conclusions from well-crafted imagery.
Inconsistency in Voice or Style Poems sometimes shift unexpectedly between tones or styles. Editors must determine whether such shifts serve the poem’s purpose or distract from it.
Specialized Approaches: Poetic Prose vs. Unstructured Verse
These hybrid forms require further specialized editing approaches:
Poetic Prose balances narrative structures with poetic techniques:
- You’re balancing prosaic elements (complete sentences, paragraphs, narrative flow) with poetic techniques
- Rhythm needs to feel natural within complete sentences rather than line breaks
- Editing must preserve lyrical qualities without disrupting readability
- Figurative language should enhance rather than obstruct meaning
- The editor must ensure poetic elements don’t overwhelm the prose’s primary function
Unstructured Poetic Verse uses spatial and linguistic freedom:
- Line breaks and white space create meaning rather than grammatical structures
- Conventional grammar rules can be intentionally subverted
- Word placement carries heightened significance
- Fragmentation often replaces traditional transitions
When editing poetic prose, you’re helping the author maintain the delicate balance between evocative language and narrative clarity. The poetic elements should enhance the prose without causing readers to stumble.
With unstructured verse, you’re more focused on how individual words and spaces create resonance. The editor’s role becomes more about questioning the effectiveness of each choice rather than applying conventional rules.
Poetic prose often requires more restraint in editing—knowing when to preserve a lyrical passage despite it breaking some prose conventions. Conversely, unstructured verse may require more active questioning about whether each linguistic choice achieves its intended effect without relying on traditional structures to guide readers.
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