Being Edited

Hey, Cassidy. My experiece of working with an editor was, like yours, 100% positive. After laboring alone for so long, it's great to work with someone on polishing it into final form--especially someone whose only goal is to make it a better book.

I blabbed about the process on my blog some time back, so if you want the gory details you can read them there. The whole thing was a pleasant surprise to me, because over the years I've heard some horror stories about working with editors; but, at places like writers conferences, it's the horror stories that tend to have the longest shelf life, right?

So, what's the verdict from others about the editing process? A walk to the park, or a sleigh-ride to hell?

Tremendous. Love my editor. She is sort of in the habit of giving an entire list of possible changes, most of them beginning literally with "What if," and then it's my job to go back and plug in the one that might work best. We spoke on the phone eight or ten times in the first couple of weeks, and our discussions were more philosophical than anything.

David I makes a good point: after dealing with the manuscript for so long, it's good to have a fresh eye. (Although, my agent did a ton of stuff with it before it ever got to an editor. Because I lack any semblance of common sense, I need a lot of editing.)

Some of my editors have been wonderful to work with.

Others not so much.

The thing to always keep in mind is that there won't be a banner or sticker on the front of your book announcing who the editor was. It'll be your name out there taking the credit -- or the blame.

So just be sure you agree with the changes you're asked to make.

This is totally off topic, but Cheshire, I am dying to give that kitty a tummy rub!

Showing First Drafts?

A friend is working with an editor who wants to see her first drafts. Is this common? My first drafts are always horrid, and I can't imagine the use in showing them to anyone. It makes me get a little sweaty (not in a good way) to even think of it, but I'm intrigued. Has anyone revealed their first drafts? Was it helpful in any way?

Cassidy said:

David I (over in the "2 weeks after pub date" thread) suggested that someone start a thread about the process of editing a novel under contract with an editor. So here it is. For me, this was a very positive experience. How have others found it? What have you learned from the process or from your editor? What have the challenges been for you?

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I loved working with my editor. He had a great sense of humor and made the whole process fun and painless, even when he was dissing my scenes or characters, although we both agreed my original ending deserved a and I completely rewrote the last two chapters. I think one of the primary challenges when working with an editor was seeing my work through his eyes with all its warts and being willing to apply the CompoundW.
Linnea

Sandra Gail said:

A friend is working with an editor who wants to see her first drafts. Is this common? My first drafts are always horrid, and I can't imagine the use in showing them to anyone. It makes me get a little sweaty (not in a good way) to even think of it, but I'm intrigued. Has anyone revealed their first drafts? Was it helpful in any way?

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Ugh, first drafts? I don't even want to see them again and I've never been asked to show them, thank goodness.
Linnea

Good lord! If an editor saw my first draft of anything, they'd call up the publisher and tell them to run screaming away from me and my novel.

My first drafts are barely coherent...and probably completely incoherent to anyone but me.

I think I have the same problem with my first edits lol. Luckily after the first draft, I do my research and then fill in what I left out before and edit everything from there.

With my second book, the editing process really has helped my writing in a long run so I'd say very positive. Of course, it feels like its taking forever though lol. This process began in May-June and is still going on. My editor said she is going the final edits right now and after I look it over, the owner of the publisher will look it over once to make sure its ok before getting it formatted and all that other stuff.

Having a professional editor who really knows what to look for really does help. They check for over used words, make suggestions for stronger words, and give you ideas to come up with something stronger that you may have chosen initially besides checking for spelling and gramar. The manuscript is gone through with a fine tooth comb to make sure your writing is the best it can be and I really like that.

The original opening to my book was taken out and filled in in other places because there was too much information there too early. That was something else that I liked. She found a stronger opening just a few paragraphs down! It opened my eyes to using information. I was dumping some of the needed information instead of gradually putting it in and it was too early in the story for the reader to know it.

I've learned so much from this experience and it has really improved my initial writing so I am very thankful for it! Now if I can just get my next WIP done so it can be edited and sent out lol. I've stumbled accross a few problem areas as I reached a few areas so now it will take longer than I had hoped to get it written. But that's ok with me. I can research more after I get it all out. That will tell me what I need to learn lol.

Amber

Ummmm, so I don't have a book published but I am going to jump in anyway.

I learned the value of a good editor at my current job. Before that, I was like "Me Mighty Author! My word Law!" But at work I had to please my boss. He is not a great writer, but it turns out he's a fantastic editor in the sense that he is able to convey to me just what he's thinking. The first couple of times I presented him with something I had written and he came back with "Well, could we make it more THIS or more THAT?" I got my hackles all up and felt that I had been insulted. But since it was my JOB I went back and banged it out... and discovered that it was much better! Now we have a back-and-forth relationship, where I'll come up with something and we'll toss it back and forth a few times before I finalize it. The whole process is very enjoyable and I've really recognized how someone else's input, if they are the right person, can be a tremendous help to your work.

IS AN EDITOR YOUR AGENT?

If they are one and the same then my new editor seems very sweet and forgiving. I queried their agency while I was on chapter six of my novel. Their site said it would take about 3 months for a response. So I thought I had time to get a head start. Three months turned months turned out to be 2 WEEKS. That was ok as I had my first 3 chapters ready. She said give her "time for consideration". I thought..well ok, maybe a month or two. NOOO..2 weeks later she wanted a full and I was on chapter 9.
So u can imagine the great rush that ensued. I edited it two times b4 sending it off, but when I read it later it was just riddled with silly mistakes. I had spelling errors, missing words, a secondary character's name changing from Tyrese to Tyson, my main male character walking around "naked from the waist down" - it was a hot mess !!
I was very embarrassed when she pointed these things out to me and asked me if I had trouble putting the manuscript together. of course I did not mention that I had just typed the balance of 80,000 words in a week and a half and most of it was done in a sleep-deprived euphoria - I excused myself by telling her that I was just moving to the USA from the Bahamas and dealing with the government's endless stream of formalities - which is true. She said "Oh no, it's ok. Just make the corrections and send me a new draft."
I feel totally lucky as I have heard of agents rejecting manuscripts for far far less. I still feel ashamed though and will redeem myself by making the next manuscript I turn in FLAWLESS. Am I still on topic here? What the hell is this thread about again?

I've written an article on my experiences:

http://www.spacejock.com.au/WorkingWithAnEditor.html

Spacejock's editor sounds very involved. She goes through the story and discusses what parts don't work and asks for a rewrite of about a third of the book. I can't imagine working with an editor who is this involved. I thought if they liked the story, they would just polish it a bit, perhaps giving a suggestion about making a character's motivation clearer here or there.

To be fair, my current novel (the fourth we've edited together) has seen a lot less editorial input. Basically it came down to speeding up the first 100 pages by trimming excess verbiage, plus a handful of comments on things which didn't work or needed explaining a bit better.

The other thing to note - as mentioned in the article - is that I'd already written the first three books in the series without any editorial input. Therefore, all three suffered from similar problems.

This latest novel was written from scratch after all the work on the first three, so I've known the sort of things to look out for.

That's one place where the article might help - if writers can spot & fix some of the things my editor pointed out in my manuscripts before they start submitting, it could help sharpen things up.

Prawn said:

Spacejock's editor sounds very involved. She goes through the story and discusses what parts don't work and asks for a rewrite of about a third of the book. I can't imagine working with an editor who is this involved. I thought if they liked the story, they would just polish it a bit, perhaps giving a suggestion about making a character's motivation clearer here or there.

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My experience is much like spacejock2's.

First, I did a ton of revision with my agent's help. With my editor, I got about five pages of line edits, and we went over ten or fifteen scenes. Sent it in, she didn't like the ending. Rewrote. Got more line edits. Called me one day, suggested three or four more scenes be edited. Liked the ending, needed to be polished. More line edits. Rewrote the last scene again. Editor called again, we looked at another scene. Finally got the ending right, more line edits...

You get the point. But as I said above, I tend to make the mistakes that only half-wits could make, so that explains a lot of the editing.

But, you know, none of this was painful. I got stuck only once, and she called me that day and gave me some much-needed confidence to pull me out of my rut.

I've loved the process with all the editors I've worked with so far. If they feel the story needs really drastic revision, they won't accept it--so if I'm working with an editor on a story they're about to publish, it's a creative collaboration to make a good story better.

Sandra Gail said:

A friend is working with an editor who wants to see her first drafts. Is this common? My first drafts are always horrid, and I can't imagine the use in showing them to anyone. It makes me get a little sweaty (not in a good way) to even think of it, but I'm intrigued. Has anyone revealed their first drafts? Was it helpful in any way?

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I'm still anxious and waiting for my first round of edits to start, so I have no idea what the process will be like yet, but I can imagine why an editor might want to see a first draft. I cut my final draft from 135,000 words to 105,000. I go back to the first draft at times to mine it for descriptive passages etc. that I cut, but can use in other stories. Much of what I cut was descriptive, back story, and in some cases motivation that I felt had been repetitive.

I suspect an editor might ask to see a first draft to see if there were any such passages that might add something they felt was missing, such as back story to sprinkle here and there, or a bit more description. Anyway just a guess.

With a good editor, the less I enjoyed the process at the time the more I appreciated it afterwards.

With a not so good editor... I learned to be more careful about where I submitted my work.

Judg said:

This is totally off topic, but Cheshire, I am dying to give that kitty a tummy rub!

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Isn't he cute?

That's one reason I never change my avatar. Haven't found another one to top Sleeping Kitty.

Nope, they don't just polish the manuscript, with your approval they improve your work by 100% or more. I just completed my final rounds of edits today. I lost over 4,000 words from the edits but its a better story for it. Things were moved around heavily, motives were made clearer and stronger. More feelings and thoughts have been added. "He said, she said" were removed because it was obvious who was speaking, same with the thoughts, "he thought".

I really never knew the hard work that gets put into the editing process of getting books published and I am so glad I was able to learn from it. Seriously, editing is a much needed process before and after signing the contract. Now that I really know how it works, I can go back and edit my work better before sending it out for review by publishers or agents. The more you can do before it goes out, the less work you have to do afterwards!

Amber

Cassidy said:

Plus she cured me of my addiction to semi-colons (unfortunately we are now editing my next book and I seem to have replaced one addiction with another... this time to ellipses...)

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Ah, yes, writerly tics. We're all essentially OCD. (We writers, that is.) We just focus it well in a place where it is seldom noticed.

I am not officially an editor in the way that you are speaking of, but I am a copyeditor. I would really like to get into editing because I've learned a lot about how to do it from reading miss snark.
Copyediting, of course, is the technical side of things. But there is something that really bugs me: I've noticed A LOT of writers use dashes (these seem to be more academically inclined, but I must say this.). Please refrain from this. It's really annoying and usually unnecessary.
A lot of essays I read have many simple errors, and it seems like the author takes for granted that the publisher has editors. It's incredibly annoying.

Anyway, I'd like to move up on the ladder, of course. I read so many works in my creative writing classes that could do with some serious editing (copy or otherwise).

Do you mean m-dashes or n-dashes? (And do you mean dashes surrounding a part of a sentence - like this -where you'd normally use commas?)

I do use m-dashes in dialogue, where someone is interrupted. I try and avoid n-dashes because they're nearly always used for an authorial aside.