Smart Writers Seek Smart Editors for Their Best Work

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I want to talk about this issue of self-editing and the necessity of hiring a professional editor. Yes, I know! I have already touched on these topics at least twice in my blog, but honest to gosh, the writers’ pages on social media are still awash with writers fretting over how they can’t afford to hire a pro editor for their manuscripts. I always give them the same polite advice: if you don’t have the money right now to pay a professional editor, wait until you do.

That’s great advice, but it is unappreciated. Some bad advice I see offered includes:

“If you’re smart enough to write a book, you’re smart enough to edit it.”

“Just use lots of beta readers and let them catch the typos and mistakes.”

“Grammarly and spell checkers are all you need.”

Let a Pro Editor Read Your Work

I’ll stop here, because my head is starting to pound. Now look, I’m not saying that self-editing, beta readers, and automated grammar and spelling programs are bad. They’re great. Writers should self-edit, find beta readers, and use the latest writing-assistance technologies. But these are not replacements for experienced human editors.

And it’s tough to be in a profession where people are often telling you that you charge too much for what you do or “Your work could be done just as well by my next-door neighbor Charlie who reads a lot and my Aunt Margaret who was a substitute school teacher for 10 years.”

Even Editors Get the Blues

Everyone who writes needs editors and proofreaders. Editors and proofreaders need editors and proofreaders. I will give you a real-life, personal example I should be ashamed to share.

I sent an email to a small business in my town last week, noting that it creates training manuals and policy and procedure handbooks for its clients. When my career started, I did that work, I tell them. I’m an experienced writer, editor, and proofreader, I tell them. I crafted a compelling case for them to consider me for freelance writing, editing, and training. I read through it three times, tweaked it a bit each time, read it one final time, and clicked SEND. Immediately after I did, I stared at it as if for the first time and saw this:

My resume is attached but here some highlights that might interest you.

Holy s**t. Are you kidding me? Do you see it? I left out the word “are” after “here.” Each time I had re-read it before sending, I swear that word was there. Well, it was there—in my mind.

And that’s what happens with self-editing. You see what you think you wrote, not what you actually wrote.

I debated how to handle it and decided to acknowledge my faux pas in a follow-up email. I went for a humble, self-effacing approach and hoped I would get points for noticing the mistake and having the courage to point it out.

Face it, I’ll never hear from them. And I probably shouldn’t. I didn’t follow one of my own pieces of advice: step away from what you’ve written for a day or an hour or even a few minutes and come back to it with fresh eyes.

You Need an Editor? Hey, That's What I Am.

Like any area of business, editors have best practices and standard pricing. I can assure you, my rates are comfortably in line with other editors doing the same kind of editing and with the same amount of experience. I’m not the most expensive and I’m not the least. So it pains me when someone tells me that I get too much money for what I do, the implication being, editing and proofing are skills that can be done just as well by the average man or woman who can read and write.

Low water pressure, high water pressure, leaky pipes, clogged shower or toilet drains, and corroded pipes—these are the most common reasons people call a plumber. The cost of a plumber ranges from $175 to $450 for a typical job, with the average cost per hour ranging from $45 to $200. We have all complained about the cost of hiring plumbers. Yet we hire them anyway. Why? Because they can do something we can’t do that needs to be done.

I submit that editors are the plumbers of the written word. I might even have a bumper sticker made:

Clean the clogged pipes of your manuscript. Hire an editor.

I like it. What do you think?

Coping with Critique and Criticism: Part 2

Editors and writers are teammates.

In Coping with Critique and Criticism: Part 1, I revealed the painful truth—many self-published writers also self-edit. And self-editing has distinct limitations.

My greatest concern about this self-editing trend is not that editors like me won’t have any work before too long. Editing professionals will always be a hot commodity. Instead, my fear is that self-editing is creating a plethora of so-called published authors who have never subjected their writing to the scrutiny of a professional editor. And, should the time come that they are asked to do so by a publisher or editor-in-chief, they aren’t going to handle it well.

There are two ways to toughen your writer’s skin: one is by hiring an editor like me (please, do), but another way to learn to receive criticism well is by joining a writing group whose purpose is to offer critique to one another.

Fun fact: Someone who critiques the writing of another is referred to as a critter or crit. Yeah. Really.

So, if you are reading this and you have never had your writing critiqued, I would like to offer some guidelines, dare I say rules of conduct, to make the experience productive and relatively painless.

How to Receive Critique in Groups

If you have been writing and self-editing for a long time, accepting criticism of your writing can be tough. Remember this—it is the work that is being critiqued, not you. You must separate yourself from the work. Some will find this challenging, especially if they have been told for years by family and friends that they are great writers.

It’s hard to not take criticism personally. Let’s examine how to do it gracefully.

• If you show up to a group meeting expecting to hear applause and accolades for your work, you might be in for an embarrassing disappointment. The time has come to let your work experience scrutiny. By learning to differentiate helpful criticism from nonsense, you will grow as a writer. But you must be willing to let others put your work under their microscopes.

• Prepare yourself for negative comments. Think through how to receive less-than-stellar remarks about your writing. Remember, it is not about you, it’s about your work. Critique groups will always have their fair share of jerks who see only what they don’t like. Don’t fall into their trap.

• Don’t get angry or defensive, which is easier said than done. Remember, these are just the critters’ opinions. Take them for what they’re worth to you. More often than not, you will hear comments that are valid and helpful. Don’t let the sound of negativity drown out constructive criticism.

• You do not have to accept every piece of advice or make every suggested change. Your work will always be your work. If criticism seems to lean toward altering your tone and a bulk of your wording, you might be at risk for losing your writer’s voice. Accept the remarks politely and move on.

How to Work With an Editor

Since I am an editor, I assure you that all editors are perfect and they never say or do anything that is inappropriate, in error, or hurtful. And pigs can fly.

The fact is, editors are human. We are as flawed as any other human. Some are OK, some great, and some stink.

As with accepting criticism from a group, be open-minded when working with an editor and acknowledge that you might actually have something to learn. A good editor is a partner in the creation of your work.

What should you expect from an editor? Here are general guidelines. Follow them if you are asked to be a critter of the work of another writer. Treat other writers as you wish to be treated.

• If a passage doesn’t make sense to an editor, he or she should talk with the writer about it. Clarification stops the editor from spending time reworking a passage while guessing what the writer meant.

• The editor’s critique should be worded in a constructive—not accusatory—manner.

• An editor’s comments should never personally attack the writer, never belittle, and never, ever take an adversarial position.

• An editor should not indiscriminately rewrite large chunks of material. An editor who takes it upon him- or herself to do major rewrites has wandered from editing into ghostwriting. Do not let an overly zealous editor steal your voice.

Speaking for myself, as I said in my second blog article in May 2018, I ask that you receive my comments and suggestions in the spirit of fostering teamwork and allow my editing skills to complement your writing skills. Trust is a requirement of the editor-author relationship. You must trust that I want your work to be of outstanding quality and I will perform my services in your best interests.

I’ll end by quoting the wildly successful author George R. R. Martin, who said this when he was addressing an audience at CoastCon II in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1979:

A good editor tries to figure out what the writer was trying to do, and helps him or her do it better, rather than trying to change them into something else entirely. A good editor doesn’t insist or make changes without permission. Ultimately, a writer lives or dies by his words, and he must always have the last word if his work is to retain its integrity.

In addition to my business Strike The Write Tone, I am a contract editor, writing coach, and ghostwriter for The Cheerful Word of Hendersonville, NC.

Coping with Critique and Criticism: Part 1

Are you thin-skinned?

As an editor, my job is to evaluate a piece of writing (be it an essay or a full-length book) for structure, thoroughness, organization, and PUGS (punctuation, word usage, grammar, syntax). But I also have a responsibility that I take just as seriously—to guide, advise, and, in some cases, mentor a writer. That is not an obligation, it is my choice.

What I have found is that some writers accept criticism well. And some do not. This latter group makes my job harder. But it makes my responsibility painful.

Self-published Writers Bypass Editors

I’m going to let you in on a little secret; the world of professional editing is being rocked by a surge in self-edited, self-published books. On editing forums (yes, we have those) editors lament this undeniable fact: people write, self-edit, and self-publish without ever letting a professional editor lay eyes on the work. With all due respect, this has resulted in a glut of books of questionable quality available for online purchase. And Amazon, the undisputed giant of online book sales, does not care whether the books that writers self-publish are fair, good, or stink to high heaven. It’s all the same to Amazon, which makes money whether your book sells 100,000 copies or none at all.

But I’m not going to debate the Amazon model, because, let’s face it, Jeff Bezos is doing pretty well and doesn’t want my opinion.

Skipping the Editor Due to Cost

I am in several writers’ groups on Facebook. These folks, many of whom have no training or education in writing and have never published anything, are constantly debating the necessity of hiring a professional editor. My brain nearly explodes every time dozens of people chime in about how “you are perfectly capable of editing your own work.” Or this question, which is common, “I’m finished writing, but I can’t afford to hire an editor. What should I do?” This question is answered with a barrage of bad advice like “You don’t need to hire an editor. Just ask friends to be beta readers and let them catch errors.” Should I cry or punch the wall? Decisions, decisions.

Here’s where I want to go with this discussion. It’s a change in direction and I don’t want to lose you. I want to focus on the issue I alluded to at the beginning of this article: self-editing creates writers who have thin skins.

They are happy, even proud, of what they’ve written, but have never subjected their work to the scrutiny of the eyes of a trained, professional editor. I am foolish enough to try to inject reason into some of these groups by making the comment “You don’t know what you don’t know.” You know? Your ability to edit your own work is limited by your knowledge, or lack thereof, of the rules of skillful writing. You could make the same grammatical mistakes over and over and not know it. No amount of self-editing is going to fix that. And your beta readers might not know any more than you do.

It is impossible for me, personally and professionally, to understand the attitude that doing everything you can do to make your work as close to perfect as it can be is unnecessary.

If a writer can’t afford to hire a professional editor, then this might not be the right time to publish.

Shop around. Just because one editor quoted you $1000 to edit your manuscript doesn’t mean that it is a reasonable quote or your only option. Investigate. Negotiate.

Writing Cannot Improve Without Critique

So, what I’ve done here is explore the “I can do it myself” and the “I can’t afford an editor right now” excuses. But I think there might be more to it. Some writers, even those who have already self-published, have never, even once, had a professional writer or editor read their work. They are content feeling they’ve cranked out a really good book; after all, their parents and friends love it. And this absence of listening to and accepting criticism is, in the long run, a barrier to ever improving as a writer. Ever. Your writing cannot improve if you do not allow more knowledgeable eyes to review it. Learning to accept and assimilate criticism for the betterment of your writing is crucial to becoming the finest writer you can be. There is no growth without objective scrutiny.

In Part 2, I will explore the many ways a writer can find helpful free writing critique. Learn from others and thicken your skin.