I’m reading a book that went through a competent editor that cares about spelling, semantics, style, tone and a type of depth. I can tell it’s a human editor from a certain craft school, and also that this editor has been at their job for at least a decade. I can tell the author of the book has also been at their job for a decade or longer, churning out book after book. And I can tell that because despite the impeccable grammar and prose, the book has no soul.

Wait, I phrased that wrong. The story is a mashup of commercial themes and the plot would be 3 out of 5, or maybe a 5 out of 5 for young people who haven’t yet had time to read thousands of books. But then the grammar is that of a sixty years-old person who would rather spend more time at the garden but who has excellent dominion of their craft and needs the few bucks to do groceries. Their exhaustive practice takes the whole work one notch down.