Here is a tale of two editors, three books, and ten years. It is all about the weird, problematic relationship between writer and editor, and about how editors can make or break a book. It’s also about me: About how I learned to hear my own voice.
Tale # 1. It is the year 1999 and my first novel, a kind of spooky southern gothic story, has just been accepted by the first agent I sent it to. I know how unusual that is, and I’m all aglow with my sensational good fortune. The agent is so enamored of my book that she offers to pay for it to be professionally edited before she shops it to publishers. “She’s doing what?” asks my teacher Christopher Noel (author of In the Unlikely Event of a Water Landing and Frail House). “That’s unheard of!” Merrily, I hire an editor and send her my book.
Several months later, I’m sitting in a sweltering apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, waiting for my furniture to arrive and my new teaching job to start. I am perched on a stack of boxes reading my manuscript, horrified at what my editor wants me to change. Huge sections of plot. Entire characters. A whole second narrator. We’re talking wholesale devastation here, like someone just dropped an atomic bomb on my fictional world.
Still, I do it. I wreak havoc on my work, and pay my editor handsomely for the destruction. After all, she’s an editor. I’m a first-time novelist with quite a bit of nonfiction published but no track record in fiction at all. So, even if something inside of me is screaming no no no no the whole way, I do everything she suggests. It takes months.
In January, I send the manuscript back to my agent. An evil little voice inside me says, Won’t it be dreadful if the agent decides she doesn’t like the new version? I tell the voice to stop being so negative. Three days later, my agent emails saying, of course, that she’s dropping the work. “The original was so much more interesting,” she says.
Tale # 2. It is 2004. My first novel, now having been rejected by 76 agents, is residing on an external hard drive that hasn’t been touched for months. But my second novel—a longer, more complex work—is finished. It’s been read by Chris Noel, who actually used the word “brilliant.” It’s been read by another of my teachers, Ellen Lesser (author of The Other Woman and The Blue Streak), who said it was “powerful and moving.” Both of them had me make substantial changes. All of the changes felt right.
But I’m still sure I need to hire an editor before I shop it around. And who do I hire? Yep: the same editor as before. Now, I know what you’re saying: “Why would you hire an editor for your second novel after she’d totally screwed up your first?” So let me explain. I did it for a simple, clear-cut reason: I’m an idiot.
The editor listens to my requests and gives me an estimate. I tell her the novel has gone through numerous edits. It doesn’t need sweeping changes, just some refinement.
Three months later, she sends my manuscript back, charges me $1,000 more than her estimate, and informs me that I was wrong: the book did need wholesale revision. She sends along a twenty-page document reviewing my book without a single positive word. Not one.
I’m aghast—until a wise friend says to me, “Wasn’t that the same editor who lost you an agent?” And at that, I pick up the twenty-page review and dump it in the trash.
Tale # 3. It’s now 2007. I’ve been working for years on a nonfiction manuscript about the relationship between spirituality and the writing process. I’m struggling with writing a proposal for it. I’ve never written a book proposal before and, despite reading several books on the topic, I’m unclear about how to make it sound not lame. You’d think by this time, I’d never go near another editor, but I’m desperate. Only this time, I stumble upon the amazing and wonderful Kyra Ryan.
Kyra and I work for a year on the book that will become Writing as a Sacred Path. We send hundreds of emails. We spend hours on the phone. We don’t always agree—sometimes we go around and around for weeks about something she wants me to change. But, from the very beginning, I realize something about Kyra and me: She gets my work. She knows what I ‘m trying to do. She sees into the heart of my book and helps me get it beating. I can say without hesitation that, without her, Writing as a Sacred Path would never have been published.
So there you have it. Two editors, three books, ten years, and a world of difference. Take these tales with you, if you wish. They may come in handy.