by Arthur Vidro, reprinted with permission, Calliope (ISSN 2691-1388)
Sometimes, it’s better to delay or forgo hiring an editor.
You might be a professional-caliber editor and capable of editing your own material.
You might wish to self-publish a small run of a simple book (i.e., a thin pamphlet of your poems to give away to loved ones), and it’s not going to matter how “right” you get it, because nobody will buy it.
You might have a first draft you wish to improve by rewriting on your own, before seeking an editor. If the editor charges by the hour, the better you make your manuscript ahead of time, the less editing will cost.
You might have only the first fifty pages of your novel written. Have you ever written a novel before? Perhaps you’ll never complete one. If you end up not completing the novel, then having the first section edited might be a waste of money.
I’m too poor to turn away business, so yes, I have accepted assignments to edit the beginnings of novels. But I’d rather the writer complete a first draft before consulting me. It’s hard to edit the start of a book without seeing the book as a whole. I prefer to know the book’s destination before deciding if the author has chosen the correct route. In the best of worlds, you’ll let me see the full manuscript even if you only want the first section edited.
Twice I’ve undertaken editing the first fifty pages of a writer’s novel. The writer wanted to perfect the beginning and then send the beginning out in pursuit of an agent (or even a publisher), and upon finding one would then consult me to finish the full-manuscript edit. If no agent (or publisher) bites, the author is spared a bit of the editing expense.
Then there’s temperament. If you’re very thin-skinned and your feelings bruise easily, then perhaps you’re not ready, psychologically, to be edited. A good editor needs to be honest, at times painfully blunt, without being disrespectful. An editor’s role includes criticizing the writing or the writer’s decisions, without criticizing the writer.
Until an editor and author learn to trust each other, the process can be a bit of an awkward dance. Especially in this “advanced” age where author and editor never meet face-to-face.
Often I know nothing about the authors who occasionally find me. How honest, how blunt, can I be? If I hurt their feelings, will they run and never return? Will they give up on the story? Take it to someone who reflexively tells them how great every word they’ve ever written is?
One of my newer clients sent me the start of a novel. I’m not certain if the first draft has been completed. In lieu of the full draft I requested, he sent me a story summary. It was impossible for me to decide if the beginning revealed too much or too little of the murder victim’s activities because I didn’t know (and still don’t know) what the full manuscript looks like.
In chapter three (the final submitted chapter thus far), the detective has breakfast at his regular hangout, then goes with his associate to their so-new-it’s-still-unfurnished office, where a new client quickly enters and, over coffee, explains the case. Then the detective tells his associate it’s late and let’s have dinner, and they head off to discuss the case over their evening meal.
I hesitated to step on the author’s toes, but it’s my job. So I told him I did not buy the passage of time in that scene. I offered him a rewrite where, even though it’s early, the detective and his associate agree to go their separate ways and meet again for dinner later. I went to sleep worried I may have offended a new client. Then overnight (sleep is wonderful that way) a better idea occurred to me. Let the author add a paragraph explaining how the duo spent the rest of the day looking for office furniture, with the types of stores each one championed reflecting their individuality (i.e., Nordstrom vs. Salvation Army). I conveyed the idea.
The author replied with an admission that he, too, had not bought his own passage of time but hadn’t thought of any way to stretch out the time, and so had left the draft as it was, but he agreed to consider my suggestions. I breathed a sigh of relief. Criticism accepted gracefully.
The graceful acceptance of criticism—whether you agree with it or not, whether you act on it or not—is vital to a writer in search of editing.
An editor that’s any good has to risk ruffling a few feathers. And a writer who wants a story to improve has to risk getting a few feathers ruffled.
Arthur Vidro is a freelance editor/proofreader/writer and has sold eight short stories and hundreds of newspaper columns. He may be reached at vidro@myfairpoint.net.
