I do a little line and copy editing for friends now and then, and I must admit, it’s something I actually find fun. Maybe it’s the academic in me, but I love snipping away at a manuscript, honing and sharpening, inserting the strong verb or perfect descriptor, shaping and fine-tuning it into the tightest prose possible. I firmly believe that every writer, no matter the level of expertise or years doing it, needs an independent eye to stand back and view the work objectively, as you can readily tell the ones who go it alone. I can’t tell you the authors I no longer read because their bestseller stature affords them a no-edit clause in their contracts. More often than not, their writing is hardly the sharply written prose it used to be, but instead rambling, wordy and often enough, just plain boring. I can think of one best-selling romance author whose books I used to buy as soon as they came out, no back-cover reading necessary. The last one I tried to finish three times, but it was so redundant and rambling every attempt ended with me hurling it against the wall. It sat on my shelf for two years before I finally gave up and donated it to the local high school’s book drive. I’ll probably never buy her again. Which is a shame, because she’s a great storyteller and with some editing, her books could’ve been wonderful again. The point of this is, of course, everyone needs an editor, as much as our writing ego bucks against it. If you’ve been writing for years and think you don’t, dahling, think again.
Case in point, this friend of mine whose short story I was giving a read-through this past weekend before she submitted it to her agent. A publisher was interested, but only if she lengthened it to novella. She had written it a few years back, before she won some awards and published three novels. She was pretty satisfied how the rewrite turned out, but she was still short in word count, so she asked me if I could suggest places where she might lengthen it. I said sure, offering to also give it a line-edit while I was at it. Since she’s a pretty experienced writer, I thought I’d have it done in a snap.
I was wrong.
By page four, each screen was so covered in edits and Track Changes suggestions I gave up. If I didn’t she’d either hate me or think I was trying to rewrite her book. Which I honestly wasn’t, as the plot was tight, and what was going on in the first scene piqued my interest. But it was so static, so removed, so telling and not showing it read like a laundry list and was, quite frankly, dull. The thing was it didn’t have to be, as this writer knows how to write it better, and has proved over and over she could do it. The thing was, she was working on an old manuscript, and quite methodically, allowed the logic of her less seasoned way of writing stand in the first scene, logic from before she had the benefit of an editor to draw out the more descriptive writer inside her. But as any experienced novelist knows, if you don’t make the first scene pop, you’re never going to get the reader – or the editor – to the next. And hers just wasn’t happening. To prove my point even further, I skipped ahead to a scene she had just added, which clipped along and sizzled with the passion I had long expected from her. But being so close to the work, she couldn’t see it. And understandably hit the roof when my wall-to-wall edits smacked her in the face.
Seeing that, it’s really easy to feel crushed, to declare yourself a terrible writer, to sink to the depths of suckidom. To swear up and down and four ways to Tuesday you’ll never write again. Period. But that’s such a copout, when really all you have to do is do the work. Writers think they write for their readers, but surprise! In the beginning, you’re really writing for your editor, as without that third eye, chances are, you’re never going to be good enough to get it out to your audience. We think we’re all fabulous because we have this scenario playing out in 3D in our heads and don’t realize what we leave out, because our brains are compensating for the omissions. But it takes an experienced editor to visualize those nuances and draw them out from the writer, making our work more complete and in the end, what we all want–salable.
Now get to work.
Trudy
