The Parable of the Unchanged Manuscript: How to Demoralize Your Editor in One Easy Lesson

Originally published in Read Play Edit on 23 May 2011

Some weeks ago I got a manuscript back from an author. It was already “late” due to the author’s professional activities, although both the publisher and I, the editor on the project, were aware that we’d be compressing the schedule. Because the manuscript was in such excellent shape when it came to me, I’d gone ahead and copyedited it, knowing I’d have a short, short window to clean up the book and return it to the publisher by the already extended due date. I had a plan, and I was working it. (Don’t try this at home, kids; I’m a professional.)

Famous last words.

The manuscript arrived at 8:30pm of the day it was due. Eagerly, I opened the file—and within seconds found myself considering the least painful method by which to kill myself.

You see, the author (who has published multiple books and thus been through the editorial process before) failed to use track changes to make additions (and/or deletions) to the manuscript. (Yes, I’d also discussed this procedure with said author. In detail.) Now I had no way of knowing what changes had been made, or where, and would have to read the entire manuscript again.

Naturally, I did what any good editor does in this situation: I cried. Then I asked my Facebook friends about the above-mentioned methods for a painless suicide. It was suggested to me that I use Word’s “compare documents” function (which won’t actually kill you, I hasten to point out); when I tried that, nothing happened. (What I should have done, of course, is return the file to the author and request one with track changes turned on. However, for various political reasons, I did not. When I’m less stressed about this, I’ll call the author and we’ll have a laugh about it. Emphasis on laugh.)

But here’s what I want you to learn from this tale of woe: when you’ve begun working with your editor, no changes should be made by either party without using track changes. You are sharing one manuscript between you, and each of you must be able to see what the other is doing. (Yes, you might forget sometimes—for a chapter, maybe. No prob.) Failure to turn on track changes for a whole manuscript is unprofessional and it’s disrespectful.

Also, it’s very easy. Go to Review toolbar on your document. Now click on the “track changes” button. Done.

What If You Don’t Like My Book?

Previously published in Read Play Edit on 24 August 2015

“You talk a lot about books you’ve read that you liked (or didn’t like). But how about books you’ve edited? Do you have to like a book to edit it?” An author friend of mine asked me this question not too long ago. “I’m just curious about how you do that. How do you set aside your personal feelings if you realize the book isn’t appealing to you?”

It’s an interesting question, and I can see why it would concern an author.

The short answer is: No, of course I don’t have to like it. I’m a professional, and I enjoy the mechanics of the work. I take pride in the quality of the work I deliver. I enjoy, also, teaching and encouraging writers, coaxing something wonderful out of a manuscript that may not be so wonderful at first glance. There’s been more than one manuscript cross my desk that I wasn’t crazy about when I started, but that then redeemed itself in one way or another.

In fact, you might get a better (more thorough) edit from me if I don’t love it so much.

I often get work from a publisher who publishes current event–type books, often those that espouse viewpoints from the opposite side of the political fence from me. And that’s precisely why I get the work: the managing editor knows me well, knows my political leanings. She also knows that I take my work very seriously. She hires me, she’s told me, to keep her authors “honest,” to make sure they’re not just spouting hot air but are backing up their claims with facts and research from good, unbiased sources.

I don’t have to like the content or purpose of these books to do good work.

Another managing editor admitted over lunch one day that he sends me the novels he knows are going to need a lot of work. He sends me “the hard ones.” I groaned, because I’d been suspecting as much for months. Why? I asked. Why, why, why? “Because you’re thorough,” he said. “I know you’ll get the most out of it. You’ll find the good.”

Frankly if a managing editor is describing an upcoming edit as “hard,” that usually means the manuscript has some issues; it isn’t great yet. Ergo, I won’t like it very much. But I will work very hard to find the good. Regardless of the novel’s story or structure, there are plenty of “marks” an editor wants a manuscript to hit, and we can work on those things, whether or not I find the story or content appealing.

Furthermore, I will learn a lot from it. I learn from every manuscript I work on, for real. But working on books I didn’t much like has taught me a lot, for example, about how to talk to creatives. It has taught me to recognize good ideas, good words, good lines when I see them in the middle of something less-than-good. It has taught me how to make the most of these things. It has taught me a lot about human nature. It has taught me a lot about myself.

I Have My Standards

I came across the following material in my Facebook Memories from this month in 2019 and had, well, a moment. I’d been freelance editing professionally for fifteen years at that point, and had worked in corporate publishing before that for some years. It’s something I’m good at.

By this point, I’d learned a lot. One thing I knew for sure is this: there are plenty of people out there who call themselves editors and charge less than I do. But you get what you pay for, friends. Another thing I knew is an editor who can fit you in right now isn’t much in demand. Take that for what you will. And a person who is shopping around, “interviewing” various editors until she finds the cheapest one (or the soonest available) … well, she can take me off her list. OK, that was three things.

I don’t know where this woman got my name. But it’s a smallish industry, Christian publishing; we all know each other or have heard of each other. I’m a member of a couple professional groups—she might have gotten my name there. Regardless, this is what happened as I recounted it on Facebook.

• • •

Author contacts me through my website and asks me for a free sample edit.

I tell her that my providing a sample has never, ever* led to paying work, so I’ve found it’s not a productive use of my time.

She asks if she could use my First Pages** service, which she’d seen on my website.

I say sure; quote her a price. [Back then: $325.]

She says she’s not willing to pay what I’ve quoted, then dangles the information that she’s getting samples from other editors.

I am unmoved.

Then she says: Perhaps I could send her someone else’s edit that I did so she could see my work.

I say, verbatim, No, that would be unethical. Good luck to you. Have a nice day.

She says: Well, another editor did it.

I ponder telling her that there are copyright issues at stake, that no author would want a draft of their critiqued work being looked at by a stranger, that (repeating) it would be so utterly unprofessional and unethical that I can’t even think about it without breaking into a cold sweat, and that I just. will. not.

Then I decide to delete her emails instead.

Y’all, I just can’t even.

• • •

In retrospect, I suspect this woman just didn’t know what the “process” looks like, and maybe she didn’t want to sound ignorant by asking that. (How does it work, this editing thing?) Or maybe she didn’t have the word to even know what to ask. Audition is not the word. Four years later I can’t even remember her name.

* Truth. Never. Actually, my even having a website has never led to paying work either.
** You send me an editorial synopsis and your first couple chapters, up to 5K words.