Working with Editors: Five Things to Watch Out For

I’m on vacation this week, so I’m bringing you this “classic” from 2010.

One of the most important things you can do as a writer is establish an excellent relationship  with the editors you work with. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. The writer-editor relationship is challenging, difficult to navigate, and fraught with landmines. After all, you’re working with someone whose job it is to tell you what’s wrong with your work (well, not exactly–but you get the picture.)

There are two general “rules” to remember. First, editors generally know what they are doing. That’s why professional writers take their comments seriously. Second, editors, being human, sometimes get things wrong—and, unfortunately, some people call themselves editors without much training or skill.

But how do you know if your editor is right? When you find yourself doubting an editor’s suggestions, how can you make sure it’s not just your bruised ego speaking? There is no clear-cut way to answer these questions. However, there are a few things to look out for–signs that suggest you might want to fire your editor and find someone else.

1. Sarcasm. When a novelist I know gave her work to an editor friend of hers, it came back with comments like, “You’ve got to be kidding” and “Oh, please.” The editor claimed she was trying to toughen my friend up, as if derision were an expected part of the editing process. My advice to the novelist: Dump the editor. There is no room in editing for sarcasm, any more than there is in teaching.

2. Vagueness. Good editing is specific, clear, and meaningful. When you get comments like, “This doesn’t work,” or “This seems a bit too much” you are getting nothing.

3. Idiosyncracies. I’ve heard of editors who hate semicolons. I know one who crosses out every adverb ending in “ly.” When I was in graduate school I had a teacher who told virtually every student she had that they used the word “and” too often. This isn’t editing: It’s imposing your personal peeves on the world. Ignore them, and find an editor who knows the difference.

4. Negativity. “Although there is much merit in your novel,” began the response I received from one editor. This was followed by twenty pages that included not a single positive comment. The problem wasn’t that this hurt (which it did), but that it was only half of the editor’s job. Writers don’t only need to know what fails: They also need to know what works. Recognizing your work’s strengths is as important as identifying its flaws. A good editor knows this.

5. Lack of respect for your desires and perceptions. No matter how experienced an editor may be, he or she is working for you. You have hired this person and are paying for their services. I once hired an editor to do what we both agreed would be general content editing. I didn’t need close line edits, I told her, because my manuscript had already been through numerous revisions with the help of other editors. I felt I needed one last overall reading from a good editor before I sent it out, but not the kind of close line editing you need when you have a rough manuscript. This was clear beween us before the editor started. But as she read my novel, this editor decided I was wrong. She went through the entire novel carefully editing every lline–a process that took far, far longer than the general editing I’d requested and, since she was charging by the hour, she sent me a bill hundreds of dollars more than her estimate. This was not only unprofessional, but disrespectful–and unethical.

Watching out for these problems will not provide you complete protection from unscrupulous or unskilled editors. But it can help you avoid some of the worst abuses. A writer’s relationship with her editors is one of her most valuable assets. Being careful about whom you hire and paying attention to potential pitfalls can help you use that asset well.