the-history-editor

This page reveals, in part, how passionate our team at the-freelance-editor is about the work we do—for you. Especially if you agree that history is—or should be—more than names and dates, then let’s work together to share real stories of everyday people, places, and events: let’s work on some social history.

Read on, or check out related interests at the-museum-editor.

History has been a passion of mine, personally, since I was old enough to sit around “the grown-up table” at holiday dinners and listen to memories that introduced conversation and involvement to the room, along with smiles, outright guffaws—and an occasional tear (or moment of silence).  At family reunions, I was the kid on the porch with the storytellers or the one on the grass beside the oldtimers under the shade tree. I’ve never outgrown that passion; in fact, it has grown into a continuing interest in learning and teaching history.

“But, that’s not ‘real’ history!”

While my passion and interest in history never waned, I sometimes wondered  why  I was fascinated by it.  After all, I was often made to realize I didn’t have much interest in the scholarly aspects that my teachers, professors, and colleagues called “real” history—they were much more interested in me learning the names of kings and queens, the dates of battles in wars, and the number of people injured in certain disasters and events.

Rather, as I discussed in an old post, The “fiction” in historical fiction; and the why, I was more interested in the part of the story that history books seldom touched on; the part that related why what happened, happened.  In my mind, the “story” in history was—not instead of the facts, the people, the event, or the place but in addition to—the why and the how, the underlying (and frequently socially based) reasons and explanations for what happened.

Editing nonfiction materials: “real” history

To tell the truth, trying to uncover the why and the how actually requires knowing “real” history even more completely. Fortunately, I had good history teachers all through school who made history interesting, even if I did have to learn names, dates, and numbers!  To their credit, my knowledge of American history has enabled me to serve as historical editor and even ghostwriter on several projects over the years. In addition, being in the right places at the right times also occasionally allowed me to work specifically on regional histories (especially histories related to the old Northwest Territory and locations along the mid-Atlantic coast) and on local histories of towns, counties, and parts of states.

While I enjoy editing “real” history for nonfiction works, I’ve also come to focus on two special, historical niches over the years:

• personal history, including family histories and business history, and
• historical fiction.

Interestingly, editing either of these genres allows me to make even more use of my particular interest in history than a purely historical—“real” history, that is—look sometimes can and can result in a deeper, richer look at history. After all, in my opinion, the stories of the why’s and the how’s—combined with the facts, the persons, the events, and the places—help to convey what I prefer to think is real history.

Do you have a piece of history-themed nonfiction (or history-based fiction) that you’d like our team to edit?  Then, let’s work together to pass along the whole picture of what happened . . .

the-history-editor is a division of the-freelance-editor.com, where we work with our clients to help
them say what they want to say to the audience they want to reach.

If you still have questions or concerns after exploring our site  or  if you’re ready to see how we can
work together to reach your goals, contact us—whenever you’re ready.

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the-freelance-editor. 
As a professional freelance
editor (which means my services
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