[portions of this post were originally published as a guest blog for donnacookauthor.com in 2014. Check out Donna’s award-winning fantasy novel, The Gift of the Phoenix http://donnacookauthor.com/book/gift-of-the-phoenix/ ]
I had just finished the manuscript for book number four. After going over it several times, I was feeling pretty darn good about my work. My best one yet, I thought. I’ve got this novel-writing thing down. I turned it over to my editor, thinking she’d probably have very little to say about it and that it should be a breeze to revise. Sure.
Well, you know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? She very nicely pointed out what was good about my draft … before detailing the quite obvious (in hindsight) ways in which it was flawed. I had my work cut out for me … again.
That humbling experience taught me that even when you think you are mastering the art of storytelling, you most likely still have a long way to go. For example, in an earlier book I’d had problems with consistent character motivation, but I felt I’d done a much better job this time around. I had done better: my characters’ goals, motivations and conflicts were clear and remained constant throughout the story. However, I’d fallen down in the “show don’t tell” category. Writing in a long form like the novel can be somewhat like spinning plates in the circus: you’ve got to keep your eye on all of them because if you don’t, they’ll all come crashing down.
Image via wikipedia.org
The thing is, if you’re going to crash, you want to do it before your work is published. That’s why having an editor as part of your writing process is so important. Editors can dissect your manuscript on many levels, from Big Picture all the way down to individual lines and words. The most important editing advice, in my opinion, is structural. Structural editors can help you in the following ways:
- They can affirm what’s good about what you’ve written. Good editors can articulate what’s working in your story. They can take on the persona of the reader (and not just any reader, but readers of your type of writing) and give you honest praise, which is just as important as honest criticism. After all, you’ve no doubt been working your butt off, and it’s good to know you aren’t insane for thinking something’s good that isn’t!
- They can expose weaknesses that you were aware of but were deluding yourself about. You know, those “iffy” plot points or characters that you hoped no one but you would notice.
- They can point out problems that you openly admit to in your work but weren’t able to solve; what’s more, they can offer suggestions as to how to fix them because they understand the mechanics of good story structure.
- They can challenge you by bringing up issues you never even saw, like the scenario with my manuscript that I described above. If you trust your editor’s judgment, it forces you to at least consider that he or she might be right. I consider it the equivalent of leaving your manuscript in a drawer for six months and then bringing it out again with your own fresh eyes. It’s amazing how much your perspective can change by doing that. An editor can be those fresh eyes for you in much less time!
- Finally, an editor can be a sounding board against which you can examine a concept, character, plot thread, theme, etc. to see how important it is to you. You may very well find, even after getting honest, competent feedback, that you still want to take your story in the same direction it was before. You may simply agree to disagree. That’s useful, too, because it means you were able to put your ideas to the test and determine just how committed to them you are.
Here’s the worst thing about a good, professional editor: they aren’t cheap. If you are traditionally published, you know that part of your lower royalty rate is because of those up-front editorial costs. If you are Indie-published, you may not even have room in your budget for a professional editor to review your work. Thanks to digital and POD publishing, physical book production is the least of your worries; it’s editing and proofreading that will put the real dent in your budget.
Because editing isn’t tangible, many cost-conscious writers try to get around it, thinking a friend or a critique group can do the same thing. They can’t, and it’s asking too much of them, anyway. If they are writers, their priority should be their own work, and if they are simply readers, then chances are they won’t have the skills and insight necessary to thoroughly and effectively analyze your work. Many writers use what are called “beta readers” (usually people who are well versed in your genre and know what good writing is) to read completed drafts and offer constructive criticism. Beta readers are great for giving you overall feedback (e.g. “I thought the beginning was slow,” “I liked the way you treated such and such,” “I feel the pacing is off,” “I hated your main character”). But beta readers don’t get into the weeds like editors do. For that reason, still other writers use both beta readers and an editor. To me that seems like the best of all possible worlds.
Now, if I’ve convinced you that you need an editor, but you still can’t afford one, you could take on a part time job to pay for one (yeah right) or maybe use a crowd-funding source (e.g. Kickstarter) to raise the money.
Or, you could look for an extraordinary person who:
- Reads a ton, preferably in your genre or field of writing
- Has an excellent sense of what works and what doesn’t
- Is willing to be totally honest with you (but kind)
- Understands that you’re asking for advice, not a rewrite
- Is able to put a lot of time and energy into helping you.
If you find a person like that, my advice would be to keep them happy. Very happy. Thank them profusely in your acknowledgments and perhaps feed them on occasion. They are truly worth their weight in, well, you know the cliché.
One more thought about editors: when traditional publishing was the norm, if a writer showed promise, but was “rough around the edges,” he or she would work with an editor, extensively, before one word got published. With few exceptions, those literary giants, whose work we consider classic, didn’t just show up one day with brilliant manuscripts in hand. They were helped along the path to greatness by editors. Wouldn’t you want your work to reflect that same degree of excellence?
What’s your take on the editing process? Do you think it’s necessary? How about a workable system with beta readers? I’d love to hear from you.
