After An Edit

What happens after someone is edited?

Whenever I send an edit letter, I brace myself. You might be surprised to learn that the hardest part of editing a manuscript for me as that editor is…waiting to hear the writer’s reaction to my thoughts. No matter what a writer suspects is wrong with their manuscript, most are hoping I’ll say, “This is perfect! Move on. I see nothing that can be improved.”

Spoiler alert: I have never said that.

Here’s the thing: your manuscript can be good. It can be very good. But I’m reading to make sure it has commercial appeal. That is almost impossible for any writer to do on their own, especially in the current very tough marketplace. Plus, everything is subjective anyway. Every person you ask to read your manuscript will have notes and their notes will be different than anyone else’s notes and notes from a professional editor like me will be the most encompassing and truth telling of all.

I tell authors to brace themselves. And I brace myself for their reaction.

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I recently received the kind of response I dream of…

“There are so many excellent questions and creative ideas in here. My goal is your goal, which is to take this to the next level, and thanks to your insights I couldn't be more excited to jump back into it.”

But I don’t expect that and I certainly don’t always get it. In fact, one client I worked with wrote me right back and said, “You clearly don’t know how to work with a beginning author.” I didn’t take it personally. Two years later he came back to me and said he finally was able to hear what I was saying, made the changes I suggested, and landed an agent. Another client also had to work through his feelings (but not for as long as the previous author!) and ended up hanging a “What would Kristen do?” sign near his computer that he still refers to several books later.

Being edited is hard. That’s why I always tell my clients to give themselves the time and space to react and to grieve and then we can start the (even harder!) work of revising, which can also send authors on a downward spiral.

If any part of this crazy-making writing business was easy, everyone would write a book instead of just talking about it.

Have you been edited by a professional editor like me? Please share your experience in the comments. And stay tuned for a future post on how to deal with notes from an editor once you get them.

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