FOR EDITORS, PROOFREADERS AND WRITERS

​Should you edit or proofread pornography? What if it’s erotica? Is there even a difference?
Does sexually explicit written material deserve to be edited? What is it exactly, and what is it not? And if you want to edit it, how do you make yourself visible to its authors?

Perhaps you have strict criteria for the types or subgenres of pornography or erotica that you’ll edit. In that case, how can you communicate these to potential clients?

Here’s my take. And it is only my take. Some of my colleagues won’t touch the stuff with a bargepole. And those who will? Well, everyone has their individual boundaries.

If only there were a universally accepted definition of pornography. There isn’t, alas. What you consider porn may not be what I consider porn. Or one of us might think a written work is more erotic than pornographic. Others might not even bother making a distinction.

And that’s the first thing any editor needs to recognize. The term ‘pornography’ is loaded with subjectivism and preconceptions, many of them heteronormative, so what you’re expecting and what actually ends up in your editing studio could be two very different things.

‘Pornography is notoriously difficult to define, and overburdened with assumptions concerning – at the very least – gender, sexuality, power, globalization, desire, affect, and labour,’ say Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee.

Oxford offers the following broad definition: ‘Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement.’

And broad it is. Too broad, in my opinion, because it doesn’t exclude materials with descriptions or displays of non-consenting performers and minors, which are illegal.
What we can say is that definitions are contested – in society, in the courts, and in academic literature.

​That makes it difficult for the editor who’s asked, ‘Do you copyedit pornography?’ because even if you think you don’t, others might think you do because they have different opinions on what constitutes porn.
​
So what do we do? I think custom guidelines are the answer, particularly if you decide to publicize the fact that you’re happy to edit sexually explicit material. Before we discuss these, let’s consider erotica.

If there is a difference, it’s unlikely that the lines of distinction so clearly drawn in your own head will be shared by everyone else you consult on the matter.

Echoing Sullivan and McKee, Leon F Seltzer notes the degree to which ‘the criteria used for distinguishing between the erotic and pornographic [are] … steeped in personal moral, aesthetic, and religious values’.

And he goes on to say that the erotic ‘doesn’t appeal exclusively to our senses or carnal appetites. It also engages our aesthetic sense.’

Tracy Cooper-Posey’s distinction draws specifically on novel-craft: erotica isn’t ‘only about sex, unlike its gutter-cousin, pornography. At its purest, the new erotic novel is a brilliantly-written story with super-nova sex that compliments the caliber of the writing, and is fundamental to the plot and characters. In other words, if you remove the sex, the story can’t be told.’

And so it may be that if you, the editor, decide a manuscript’s sexually explicit content contains enough celebration of the human form and is written to a high enough standard, or has a good enough plot, then it’s erotica. If not, it’s porn.

It seems to me that getting bogged down in the definitions will get us nowhere fast. The terminology is as tangled as that used to describe editorial services (well, maybe not that bad!).

If the author’s struggling to write well, but is trying to create erotica, who am I to say it’s porn? And if it’s just sex that aims for nothing but titillation, but it’s written beautifully, artfully, does that mean it’s no longer porn?
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If your decision is down to the art-versus-smut argument, one thing’s for sure: you’re going to need to see a sample. And if you want to work on only certain types of material, you’ll do well to create some guidelines.

Guidelines don’t just help you and the writer decide whether you’re a good fit. They’re also a great way of demonstrating your engagement with the subject and your willingness to have a conversation with a nervous or embarrassed author.

What should you include? There’s no one way of going about this; include whatever’s important to you and what you want the author to know. Here are just a few ideas:
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• Your personal definitions of pornography, erotica, and romantic fiction (or other genres and subgenres), with an acknowledgement that the author’s might differ.
• An explanation of what kinds of materials don’t constitute pornography (e.g. law-enforcement agencies, social services agencies and criminologists don’t use the term ‘child pornography’ but rather ‘child-abuse materials’).
• A summary of the laws in your jurisdiction regarding sexually explicit material.
• The genres and subgenres you’re comfortable editing, and those you’d rather not.
• Your approach to depictions of adult sexual violence and to what degree you’d feel comfortable editing this.
• How you identify (re sexuality, gender, faith, race, ethnicity, etc.) and to what degree you’d feel confident editing material in which the characters identify differently.
• Clarification that you’re comfortable with profanity.

‘Even filth needs editing,’ said my colleague Louise Bolotin when she wrote about the issue on my blog back in 2012, and I agree.

The porn and erotica writers for whom I’ve worked are as committed to their writing as any crime fiction, thriller or literary fiction author.

A client recently told me, ‘I love my writing and with your help I hope it can lead to something else. If we don’t dream, then we don’t create. I’m proud of my stories but this is a whole new world for me, and like anybody who writes, there’s insecurity.’

What was I dealing with? Not plot, no. Seltzer’s and Cooper-Posey’s definitions chimed here. But my client needed a lot of help with punctuation to make the narrative readable. He’d omitted all speech marks, so the dialogue was invisible. There were repetition and syntax problems. But the writing was strong – imaginative, funny, clever, sexy – ​and in this book at least, I think he had a great turn of phrase (almost poetic at times). The pace was good, the language potent, and the sex appropriately disgraceful. All in all, I think he did an excellent job!

Even so, prior to editing, the book wasn’t publishable because it didn’t conform to recognizable standards of spelling, punctuation and grammar. The reader would have struggled to enjoy the story because they’d have been pulled out of it with every missing full point and speech mark.
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And that’s my job (and yours) – to help the author help the reader. So, yes, I think pornography and erotica are absolutely worthy of being edited.

We know there’s a market for pornography and erotica. There are readers with an appetite for these genres, and writers ready to feed it. Those writers need editors to make those stories as good as they can be.

If you’re comfortable working on adult material, then you’d do well to make this clear because there seems to be a dearth of professional editors advertising the fact.

When it comes to advertising in editorial directories, you'll likely have the least competition if ​you're prepared to edit porn and erotica

If pornography and erotica are genres you want to edit or proofread, approach the issue as you would any other subject specialism.

The political science professor will be drawn to editors and proofreaders who make it explicit that they welcome this type of work, have experience of editing the subject matter, and provide resources and guidance that demonstrates that expertise.

Pornography and erotica authors are no different. And so:
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• If you have some relevant works in your existing portfolio, make sure they’re part of your visible portfolio (website, directory entries for example).
• Look at the description of your website in the search engines. Make sure it's complete and contains keywords that you want to be found for.
• Create resources and articles that help solve authors’ problems. For example, some authors might struggle with biology, others with repetition, yet others with clarity. Some might benefit from advice on how to approach an editor without fear or embarrassment. Are there useful writing resources about pornography and erotica writing that you might curate? All this content tells the author that you’re engaged and willing to discuss the subject.
• Publishing those resources on your website will make you more visible in the search engines, especially when they’re talked about, recommended, shared and linked to.

Some editors are keen to take on the work but anxious that it might reflect badly on them. Does being public about your willingness to edit pornography and erotica damage your reputation?

I don’t believe so. Pornography and erotica are recognized genres. As long as we present our willingness to edit them with the same professionalism as we’d approach politics or philosophy, science fiction or romance, I see no problem.

Just make sure that you're committed to marketing your editorial businesses, and that you're focusing on the value we can bring to the table.

That’s what clients concentrate on, not the things that are of no interest to them. A thriller writer will care that you work on thrillers, not that you also copyedit erotica and historical fiction.

Editors aren’t the only Nervous Nellies. Some of the writers who’ve contacted me about editing porn and erotica are anxious too. The emails usually started with something on the lines of ‘I feel a little embarrassed about this but …’ or ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking but …’

Again, guidelines and resources can help to reassure an author before they send the email.

If you’re happy to edit porn and erotica, go for it. If you aren't, that's fine too. As independent business owners we can choose what material we want to work on and what we don’t.

Wanting to edit a particular genre isn’t enough. Make sure your willingness to edit porn and erotica is visible – on your website and in the editorial directories you advertise in. If you don’t say it, you won’t be heard.

• Leon F Seltzer, ‘What Distinguishes Erotica from Pornography?’, Psychology Today.
• Louise Bolotin, ‘Editing Adult Material’, The Parlour.
• Rebecca Sullivan and Alan McKee’s Pornography is an accessible and highly readable exploration of the subject through an academic lens.
• Tracy Cooper-Posey, ‘An End to Euphemisms: Is Erotica Right for You?’, Tracy Cooper-Posey | Stories Rule.

Louise Harnby is a line editor, copyeditor and proofreader who specializes in working with crime, mystery, suspense and thriller writers.
She is an Advanced Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP) and co-hosts The Editing Podcast.

• Get in touch: Louise Harnby | Crime Fiction & Thriller Editor
• Connect: X @LouiseHarnby, Facebook and LinkedIn
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• Discover: Resources for authors and editors

Working with adult material (pornography and erotica) is clearly not for everyone, and it can occasionally be challenging, but it requires the same care and thought as anything else on the editor’s work pile.

​My guest this time is editor and journalist Louise Bolotin. Here, she offers an editor’s guide to sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, with a bit of blasphemy thrown in for good measure. Over to Louise ...

What’s your first thought when an author offers you work that is quite clearly what’s usually described as 'adult material'?

Do you think, 'Eww, how disgusting!' and reply with a 'Thanks, but no thanks'? Or do you, like me, say yes because, you know, it’s just work and there’ll be a nice cheque at the end of it?

Hovering around as I do on professional forums, on the rare occasions the topic comes up it’s clear that most editors fall into the 'no way!' camp. ​

Working on anything explicitly sexual is always going to be a personal choice, although there’s a world of difference between editing a sex guide aimed at teens, with info on STIs and using condoms correctly, and hardcore or even medium-core erotica, the latter being the kind of material I’m most likely to work on in the genre. I’ve yet to be offered any Mills and Boon titles.  

I’ve often found that when I’ve been approached to take on projects, it’s been accompanied with an apology and a warning of the content, particularly from large, well-known publishing houses.

Most memorably, an email I received offering work came complete with a chain of internal emails below the line, suggesting that the project should probably be given to a man as it was potentially offensive.

​Heaven forfend that a woman should edit anything explicit because we all know how difficult it is to buy smelling salts these days! I assured the project manager that I’m neither prudish nor easily offended and the manuscript was duly sent to me.

Editing strong language doesn’t bother me at all. I cut my career teeth as a journalist and newsrooms are renowned for their high swear word count – you won’t survive if you can’t cope with your editor telling you several times a day to 'get your fucking act tofuckinggether or get your fucking P45 on the fucking way out'.

However, there’s more to editing explicit work than not fainting at any effing and blinding in print.

​Material needs to be handled sensitively, whether it’s fiction or factual – this is someone’s work, after all, and it’s essential to put personal feelings aside. All the usual editing decisions need to be made – clarity, consistency, cutting and queries, plus creating style sheets for those trickier spellings.  

I worked five years as a freelance copy-editor and commissioner for the fetish magazine Skin Two, aimed at people into rubber sex and clothing. While the photo spreads tend towards the erotic and daring, most of the feature articles are distinctly intellectual in tone rather than sexy – during my stint we ran serious articles on everything from censorship and depictions of non-mainstream sex in mainstream film to the subversion of Nazi symbolism for erotic enjoyment and the works of illustrative authors such as Alan Moore.

These features were usually between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length and on a par with anything you’d find in a dedicated arts magazine. 

Flicking through back issues, it was clear my first task would be to create a style book suitable for such a distinctive magazine. I recall lengthy discussions with the editor about whether to opt for 'perv' rather than 'perve' or 'pervert' – our readership, chiefly A, B and C1, liked to call themselves thus with a knowing and cheeky nod to the more tabloid usage of such words.

The style guide needed to reflect both their intelligence and their community’s own home-grown terminology. Putting it together was an interesting crash course in the culture of a distinct sexual minority. 

Perhaps the most memorable title I worked on was Jack the Ripper’s Secret Confession, one book in a long line of theories on the true identity of the UK’s first known serial killer. I’ve worked on several Ripper books and as an avid reader of crime fiction I’m used to gore.

This particular book theorised that the Ripper was a wealthy Victorian gentleman known only as Walter, a rapist who was obsessed with prostitutes and knives. His deeply explicit diaries were published in the same year as the Ripper began his spree.

Fewer than 20 copies were printed, they were banned for obscenity and the few surviving editions even today remain locked in the British Library’s famous 'closed cupboard', where scholars need to apply for permission to study them. 

The diaries are, of course, out of copyright so the book authors were free to quote as much of them as they wished to stand up their theory – and quote they did. Whole chapters often consisted of fifty per cent or even more of passages from Walter’s pornographic journal.

Every sexual encounter of his was described in explicit four-letter word detail. I quickly became desensitised to the repetitive use of 'fuck', 'cunt', 'cock', 'minge' and more on almost every page.

The temptation when this occurs is to glaze over the explicit passages and focus on the author’s own words. A bad mistake, as even so-called filth needs editing.

I made an editorial decision to leave all spellings in the original (and being Victorian, they varied a fair bit from the standard spellings of today) as long as they were understandable, but to edit the punctuation rigorously for clarity.

Walter didn’t care much for commas or speech marks, you see, and some of his passages required extensive scrutiny to figure out what on earth he was saying. 

These were highly challenging issues for a book that not only needed to be accessible for the modern reader and ensure the authors’ edited work was of sufficient merit as any other Ripperology title but also paid tribute, bizarre as it might seem, to the diaries the book had inspired.

I was secretly rather chuffed when one of the authors emailed me after publication to thank me and let me know that the Los Angeles Times had described it as a 'hyperventilating noxious stew wallowing in depravity' and called for it to be banned.

At least it was a well-edited noxious stew ...

In truth, I found an earlier manuscript I worked on, about Jack the Ripper and other notorious serial killers throughout history, much harder.

There was little sexually explicit material but a very graphic description of what one murderer had done with his victims’ body parts burned my eyeballs and gave me sleepless nights for some time after.

Sometimes you edit stuff you’d rather not know about, but like the intrepid blokes who clean our sewers it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. With pride for doing a job well done. And, frankly, my trauma must have paled in comparison to that of the police officers who had to deal with that. 

More recently I copy-edited a debut novel from a youngish author – a blackly comic yet highly literary tale about the Norwegian heavy metal music scene, rippled through with wall-to-wall blasphemy and explicit sex scenes that were nasty, brutish and (thankfully!) short.

Having begun my career as a rock journalist, this project was one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever been offered but, like the others, it came with a warning – about the blasphemy in this case.

I’m an atheist so I was able to approach this with no misgivings but I completely understand that an editor with a faith, of any sort, might find this difficult material. The explicit sex I took in my stride but dealing with the religious issues, which were as much about Satanism as Christianity, needed a lot of care to ensure that the novel rang true while avoiding causing offence unnecessarily.

I did a huge amount of fact-checking on the internet – mainly on the Christian issues plus the heavy metal genre – as well as coming up with a style sheet that provided consistency on religious and other central themes. ​

My take on editing adult material is that it really shouldn’t be beyond any experienced copy-editor worth their salt although I can understand that some will feel it’s not for them because of their personal beliefs, as is their right.

Such work needs the same meticulous attention to detail as any other. For those new to the industry it could be as good a way to gain experience as any, particularly as there seems to be a dearth among us who are willing to tackle the more challenging manuscripts. 

Ian Dury sang 'sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll, is all my brain and body needs' – I like to think they are an important sector in the manuscripts I edit, too. 

Copyright 2012 Louise Bolotin