Something I’ve learned as an editor is to try to only take editing breaks when I reach a new chapter or section. This is because if I stop in a random place, I may forget small details about what’s happening in a particular scene. Here’s an example.
A scene in a manuscript I’m currently editing describes the characters walking through a forest. The narration states that the characters glimpse the tower they’ve been searching for. Several paragraphs of dialogue follow, but soon after there’s another line in the narration stating that the tower finally comes into view. This is a problem because it was already established that our characters caught a glimpse of the tower before they began talking to one another.
If I would have taken an editing break between these two mentions of the tower, I might have forgotten that the tower was already seen by the characters. This is less likely to happen when a new chapter or section begins because it’s very common for some time to have elapsed between such breaks in the story.
Being a remote editor offers a lot of flexibility in work schedules. People can obviously take breaks whenever they want (or when life demands it), but it’s worth keeping in mind that stepping away from an edit in the middle of a scene could cause you to forget small details about what’s going on. If I do step away from my PC in the middle of a scene, I try to go back several paragraphs or even a whole page when I return, properly reconstructing the scene in my mind.
Timothy