Editing, or, A Hard Lesson Learnt

A dear friend recently asked if I was at all interested in reading, and providing some thoughts, on her completed manuscript.  It’s the first in a generational family saga that she’s been working on for several years, and she has completed further books in her series. I’d previously read small excerpts and thought they were great. 

But, what an undertaking, that I hadn’t really thought through, other than doing a favour for a friend. 

When I was sent the hefty 600 page, 185,000 word document, there was some hefty momentary panic.  What have I done? What did my friend (we’ll call her Jane) really want from me in the way of ‘my thoughts’ on her book?  And if it was truly terrible work, what could I say? 

But I gave it my all, and after several weeks of reading and then thinking on what I’d read, provided Jane with my edits. A bit of copy and line editing, spotlighting story structure and dialogue clunks, highlighting sections with a suggestion of a ‘rephrase’ or a ‘revise’.  And at the end, a few paragraphs on the story itself, what I loved about the characters and their journeys, what I felt could be worked on a bit more, where the story lagged. And a recommendation that the word count be reduced, as hard as I knew that would be. With trepidation I sent all this back, and waited anxiously for a response. A week went by.  Then two.  Had I deeply offended dear Jane?  Had I taken too long and she wasn’t really interested in my opinion any longer?  Had I completely misinterpreted her, ‘would you be interested in reading this’ to actually mean, ‘by all means, get the red pen and scratch all over my beautiful words’?  

‘by all means, get the red pen and scratch all over my beautiful words’  

But, dear reader, she did respond, first with an apology, some of her emails weren’t syncing and my email hadn’t been seen.  And secondly, with gratitude for the obvious time and effort I’d put into the manuscript, she agreed to most of my suggestions and the word count cull has begun.  

It made me think, if the roles were reversed, what would I want and need to hear from my friends and fellow writers? And what can I learn about editing, both from this experience and from those brave souls that have gone before? 

Some Lessons I Learnt

• As hard as it can be, it is best to be honest. Frame your words so they’re not brutal, but it is kinder to be truthful.
  
• Find out exactly what type of editing is being asked of you.  This was my biggest mistake.
  
• Be realistic with a timeframe for your response, both to yourself and to the writer. It takes longer than you think.

What surprised me most about all the above, was the second lesson, and the many and varied types of editing services you can provide. 

Does the writer want you to read their work, and give a sentence or two on what you thought of their story? Or a more in-depth analysis on structure, narrative drive, character development?  Or, do they want you to check whether the commas or full stops are in the right place, and that you haven’t mixed up Robert and Bob and Richard and Dick, and called Robert by his nickname Bobby every third page. 

Over at dailywritingtips.com I found a useful bit of advice on Critiquing versus Editing:

‘It’s helpful to have others read our work and comment on structure, story line, believability … Critiques should be honest in pointing out plot weaknesses, omissions, and other flaws, but they shouldn’t attempt to recast the author’s work according to the reader’s vision’.

So, did Jane want me to take a look at her manuscript as a fellow writer, or as a fellow reader? And had I just become an alpha reader or a beta reader, terms I’d heard loosely before but was never sure on the difference.  A blog post by Leigh Pierce on IngramSpark provides the perfect explanation of the difference, and adds these sentiments worthy of repeating here,‘…it’s something I truly believe all writers need. We make each other better … so choose people who lift you up and make you and your writing better.’

‘so choose people who lift you up and make you and your writing better.’

Leigh Pierce

Would I do this again?  I’m not sure.  But what I do know for certain, is to establish right at the start what type of editing is being asked of me, or if I’m to be an alpha or beta reader, a copy editor, or all of the above.  And gosh, do I appreciate that it takes courage and bravery to give your hard fought words on the page to another, for them to pick at it, pull on those loose threads, and return it, a little broken, a little (or a lot) marked up. Your editor or reader has also invested a good chunk of their time on it, so be respectful of that. I learnt some valuable lessons about editing, but also the writing process itself on this project, and you know what, yes, I think I’d do it again.  

And in the meantime, I’ll be back to the self-edits of my own manuscript, and my dear friend Jane, once she is comfortable with the final word count, is off to prospective agents and publishers.  Wish us both luck! 

n.b. purely coincidentally, as I was taking a snack break from writing this blog post, an episode from the wonderful Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn podcast rolled in, with Tiffany Yates Martin, having a great discussion on Intuitive Editing – listen here.

Bedside reading:Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat Pray Love fame. A beautifully simple guide which is definitely helping with my creative mojo struggles right now.

What’s on Audible:Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone, by Diana Gabaldon. All 49 and a half glorious hours of it.

What’s on Podcast:Ctrl Alt Delete with Emma Gannon – today’s podcast guest is Delia Ephron. Need I say more?