Hijacking Your Vision

How to know when to trust your editor—and when to trust yourself

A subscriber recently asked me, “How does a writer know if a developmental editor is helping them make their book better or has basically hijacked the project?”

The relationship you have with someone you hire to edit your book can be very weird. You spend months or years writing a book. Then you pay someone a not-insignificant amount of money to crawl inside it and tell you everything they think you should change. And presumably you hired that person because they know things you don’t.

So when your editor tells you to cut a character, change the ending, rethink the structure, or throw out the first fifty pages, when do you trust them? And when do you say: Nope. That’s not my book anymore.

I think this is incredibly important. And there’s something you should know about me before I answer it:

I am not a writer. I don’t have a novel secretly sitting in a drawer. I don’t dream about writing my own book someday. I have absolutely no desire to take your story and turn it into the book I would write. I absolutely don’t want to write your book. I want to help you write yours.

That distinction is basically my entire job.

When I’m editing, I’m not asking, What would I do here? I’m asking: What is this writer trying to do? And what is stopping the book on the page from doing it?

Sometimes the answer is going to make you mad at me.

I might tell you the opening isn’t working. That a character you love isn’t earning their place. That the middle is dragging. That the ending isn’t delivering on the promise the beginning made. Sometimes I’m going to suggest something big. But the goal should always be to move you closer to your book. Not closer to mine.

How do you know the difference?

A good developmental edit can absolutely make you uncomfortable. I always tell my clients to give themselves time to be mad at me. You might need a day to stare angrily at my notes. You may briefly decide I know nothing about books and have somehow faked my entire career. That’s totally okay!!

But eventually, I want you to have the feeling: OH. That’s what I was trying to do.

Not: Well, I guess this is the book my editor wants me to write now.

That second feeling worries me.

The same thing applies when we’re talking about the market.

If your goal is commercial publication, I’m going to tell you when something about your book may make it harder to sell. I don’t think I’m doing my job if I know there’s a fundamental problem between your manuscript and your publishing goals and I just quietly polish around it. But there is a huge difference between:

Here’s what readers and publishers in this genre are going to expect. Here’s where your book isn’t delivering that right now. Let’s figure out how to solve it without losing what makes this book yours.

And:

Nobody wants this. Change it.

My job is to give you information. Explain why something isn’t working for me. Give you options. Help you see the book from a perspective you can’t have because you’ve been living inside it for years.

And then?

You get to decide.

Push back when something feels wrong. Let your editor know why that scene needs to stay. Why that character matters. Why you absolutely do not want the conventional ending.

Sometimes I’ll say, Ohhhh. Okay. Now that I understand what you’re trying to do, let’s find another way to make it work. And sometimes I’ll say, I understand. And I still think we have a problem. That’s editing.

It isn’t obedience. It’s a conversation between someone who knows the book from the inside and someone who has enough experience and distance to see things the writer can’t.

Neither one of us is trying to win. We’re trying to make the book work.

So how do you know if an editor is right for you?

Ask questions before you hand over your manuscript and your money.

Can you show me reviews from writers you’ve worked with?

You want to know what other writers say about the actual experience of working with this person, not just whether they thought their editor was nice.

Can you point me toward published books you’ve worked on?

Go look at them. And you actually don’t want all those books to sound alike. If an editor works on ten books by ten different writers, they should all sound like ten different writers.

What happens after you send me your notes? Do I get a giant editorial letter and a cheerful Good luck!? Or are you available for help? And if so, what kind?

Can you ask questions? Do you have a call? What happens when you’re halfway through the revision and suddenly think you’ve destroyed the entire book? My contracts spell out deliverables and boundaries because contracts need to do that. But I don’t want to hand you a map and abandon you in the forest. I’m in it with you. You still have to do the work. It’s your book. I can’t do the reps for you. But I’m going to be the coach standing there with the water while you do them.

How will you figure out what I want my book to be?

Your editor should know your goals. Traditional publishing? Indie? Are you writing romance? Crime? Something wonderfully weird that doesn’t fit neatly anywhere? What are you unwilling to lose? What do you want the reader to feel? Before I start telling an author how to get somewhere, I need to know where they’re trying to go. But I actually ask all these questions AFTER I read. Because the difference between the conversation the book is having (which I like to find myself, completely blind) and the conversation you’re having about your book is where most of my editing happens.

And finally:

What happens if I disagree with you?

There should be a better answer than I’m the professional. Yes, you are hiring expertise. But you know your book in a way your editor never will. They know things you don’t know. You know things they don’t know. That’s why this works.

And what about a sample edit?

I don’t offer them. And I know writers are often told they should never hire an editor without getting one. I don’t agree, at least not when we’re talking about developmental editing. Because I can’t show you how I developmental edit a novel in four pages. We’re fixing your house. You can show me a crack in the wall on page four and ask me what I’d do about it. But I haven’t walked through the house yet. Maybe that crack is cosmetic. Maybe the foundation shifted. Maybe something that happened 150 pages later is putting pressure on this entire section. Maybe this room shouldn’t even be here.

I need to see the whole house.

That’s what developmental editing is. I don’t want to shake your confidence about the comma missing on page 5. So instead of asking me to prove myself on four pages, look at my track record. Read my client reviews. Look at the published books I’ve worked on. Look at what writers and agents say about working with me. Read what I write about editing. Ask me how I work. And then decide whether I’m someone you trust enough to hand your book to.

Actually, I think that’s the whole thing:

You’re looking for an editor you trust enough to disagree with, but it should always feel like you are both standing on the same side of the manuscript.

Your editor brings the expertise. You bring the vision. And the book belongs to you. Always.

Warmly,

P.S. I think of Inside an Editor’s Brain like PBS. I don’t want anyone to miss Sesame Street because they can’t pay, and I don’t want a writer to miss good editorial advice because they can’t pay me. The good stuff will always stay free. But this newsletter does take a lot of my time, so if you read regularly and can upgrade to paid, I would be incredibly grateful. I’ll keep adding little bonuses for paid subscribers too. And if you can’t? Please keep reading, commenting, and sharing. You are absolutely always welcome here. The only thing I care about is that you never stop writing or believing in your dreams!!