When It's Done

It's Wordy Wednesday, and that means...
time for some reflections from the editor's desk!

Today we'll talk about the editing process and how it differs from revision.

Every writer knows about editing. It's that thing that happens after you're finished toiling over your prose, getting it all to hold together. Sometimes, it's ninety percent of the work. If you're unpublished, then you might go over your manuscript time and time and time again, perfecting it before submission.

But that's not editing.

After getting published, an author is disabused of many fallacies about the book production process, and this is one of them. All that time you spent obsessing over your work? Well, it has a different name: revision.

As a writer, you don't do any editing. Now, granted, you can pretend to edit, but you're going to miss all sorts of things. I am an editor and an author, and while I catch many things I can anticipate my editor might, I'm still missing a key ingredient - the thing that differentiates editing from revision - namely, the objectivity only a third party professional can add.

Editing is done by the editor, the author responds to his or her editor's suggestions, and the editing process becomes a partnership between the two. That's the goal. Sometimes it takes a few bumps to discover this ideal, though.

If you've had one or more books published, you might be able relate to this common first experience. It's been six months since you signed the contract. You waited and waited, built your platform; you've probably moved onto a new manuscript. Then, you get your manuscript back, full of red font - in line changes, comments, questions, suggestions for revision. It's hard to look at that and switch out of "writer mode". After all, you will be doing some rewriting, per your editor's requests. But then you start swimming in all those comments, and never mind responding to them - your eye catches an unmarked paragraph and suddenly you're sweating.

"What was I thinking?" Geesh! Let's do this editor a favor and revise the whole thing!

You get through it all, adding in monologues, touching up dialogue tags, tweaking some descriptive paragraphs that somehow your editor missed. That scene you never felt belonged? Well, you finally took it out, and now everything flows wonderfully. You're proud of your work, and feel like this book is up to your standard, and you expect your editor will be impressed.

What authors might not realize, though, is that this "fix-it syndrome" is every editor's worst nightmare. When we go over your manuscript, line by line, we weigh everything that needs editorial consideration, then send you the manuscript so you can respond accordingly. That paragraph we left unmarked? It was because it didn't need changing. But, since you have changed it, this means we have to edit yet new material, which is simply not fair. When you submit your manuscript, we assess it based on what's there, not based on what could be there. Granted, things will niggle, and it is totally fine to change them - after a friendly email to your editor for some consultation, of course!

To modify Da Vinci's famous saying, "A story is never finished - it is abandoned." You, the author, must decide when it's time to let your story go, but that time comes before you submit it to your publisher. Revise, revise, revise, then accept that what you're sending out is finished. When it comes time to edit, trust your editor, respond to his or her changes, doing your best as a writer to take your manuscript to that new edge.

As an author, I can sympathize - it's hard restraining that urge to fix all the things you want to, after your manuscript has been sitting for months in the production queue. You've moved on to other projects, discovered new techniques, and might feel like you're looking at an older version of yourself. But that's okay! Readers love to see growth and development in writers. Put that energy into your new project - it will show. Trust that, at the time you submitted your previous manuscript, you made it the best you could.

Happy writing
Happy revising,
and happy editing!


Graeme Brown
Junior editor
http://www.graemebrownart.com/the_pact.html
Twitter: @GraemeBrownWpg