How long to edit?

[justplaincraig]

I know this isn't a paid position and people are editing out of an interested to help people. How long does it take to edit a story? I gave mine to someone a week ago.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm a professional copyeditor/proofreader, and I usually count on about 1000 words per hour. The volunteer editing I've done here on Lit was closer to 500 words per hour, though.

It's also exhausting work: 4 to 6 hours a day leaves me drained.

 

[Todger65]

I know this isn't a paid position and people are editing out of an interested to help people. How long does it take to edit a story? I gave mine to someone a week ago.

The short answer is ‘how long is a piece of string’.

We are all different in how we work, I only have around one hour a day to edit, sometimes more, but the key is, I make that clear before I take a story on, and I do give updates, especially on long stories.

 

[friendlyoldman]

Longest time my editor needed was about 2 weeks. Shortest was about 2 hours. (My stories are 2000-3000 words.) I never ask him to hurry up. The story is here forever, so I don't mind waiting. Quality is more important than speed.

 

[Comentarista82]

I know this isn't a paid position and people are editing out of an interested to help people. How long does it take to edit a story? I gave mine to someone a week ago.

It really depends on the piece length and quality of the writing. I had someone's piece that was nearly 12k with bad grammar and punctuation; it required at least 9 hours over 3 days. While I streamlined it quite well, I felt fried after each session.

If you're sharing it as a google doc, you can check to see where they're at, if you keep yourself as the owner and the editor is in suggesting mode. That's what I recommend going forward if you want to see the progress.

 

[WizardWhitebeard]

Rule of thumb: about as long as it takes to write the story. Have you kept track of the number of your hours?