Handling Editing With Grace

Writing a book can be hard work. Then you polish it: more hard work. Then there’s the hard work of finding a publisher and getting a contract. Ah, at last you can rest from your travails, right? Nope! Lots more hard work ahead, I’m afraid.

Be wary of any publishing house that takes your book to print without doing an editing pass themselves. Even if you paid for editing from another service. Each publisher will likely have their own style preferences that require an editing pass. In addition, they employ editors whose job is to (gasp) edit your book to make it the best it can be (in their opinion, which the house values as evidenced by employment). Beyond the standards of grammar and punctuation, each editor will have their own approach to polishing dialog, point of view, character and plot arcs, and narrative. No book is perfect. Ever. Even after it’s published.

Handling this editing can be emotionally difficult. It can feel like criticism, and sometimes not even like constructive criticism. Your book may have already been critiqued by your writing friends. You may have already paid for professional editing. And yet here is your baby, all marked up with comments and suggestions. You may wonder if you have made a mistake in choosing to work with this publisher.

Don’t interpret edits as a personal commentary on your story, your writing, or you as a person. The editor is simply attempting to improve your book according to their experience and their understanding of what will work in the market. Yes, perhaps editors could occasionally phrase their comments more tactfully. Just keep reminding yourself that edits are not meant as a personal attack, and that encouragement is not necessarily the primary purpose of the editor – that’s mostly the job of your friends, family, and agent.

So if receiving edits makes you feel depressed, try these three steps.

• Take a step back. When you first receive the feedback from your editor, take a deep breath and a quick look to see how extensive the work will be. Then close the file and step away for at least 24 hours.
• When you do return to work and start dealing with the edits, try to detach yourself a bit. Edit as if you are working on someone else’s book. When you feel the emotions getting high again, take a break until you can detach.
• Remember that wording suggestions are just that – suggestions. You are not likely required to simply accept the words that the editor has inserted/deleted. If you don’t like the exact changes the editor made, figure out what the editor is trying to achieve and then fix the problem in your own way. If it’s not obvious why the editor made changes, definitely ask what they were looking for. You may thus learn how to improve your writing, but you will definitely learn more about what the editor likes and does not like.