Here’s a post at Writer Unboxed: Choosing an Editor
I’m uncomfortable with suggesting that aspiring authors pay a professional editor because, judging from people who link to their newly published books on Quora and ask how to improve sales, a lot of early efforts are really terrible. Paying a professional editor to critique a really terrible book would be a waste of the author’s money and actually pretty much a waste of the editor’s time as well.
I’m kind of reluctant to point at specific books, but I don’t want to say “really terrible” and leave that judgment just sitting there either. I want to make it clear what I mean by that.
So … look. Here is the description copied from a book’s product page at Amazon. This is a self-published book, as I think will be clear. This illustrates what I’m thinking of because this is a real book (300 pages) published by an actual aspiring (if young) author. It’s not 30 pages long or AI generated or anything. It’s an actual book. Here’s the description:
Ash gray smoke fills the air with loud explosions of bombs everywhere, and lets just say it’s not what Aleksander DePru has imagined his sixteen year old life to be like. Aside from the world in a war, Alek has still been haunted by the way his father has died and left him to lead the army for America.
With everything at stake, Alek and his best friend and co-commander Cyra Angelique, are sent on a doomed mission by the Emperor to form an alliance for America and capture a girl back.
As they fly to another planet, questions and fate loom in their heads. But things get more interesting when the Russians enter the picture, and a dangerous game of acting lies in their futures.
But worse, a plot from the past will threaten everything and so Alek must do everything in his power to guarantee his family will be safe and so will be his life.
When secrets unravel, Alek and Cyra have to create a new plan. A plan that considers the past, will create a good future, and will question their loyalty, duty, and responsibility to the throne.
Will this mission succeed? Or will it end like how it’s destined to end; in failure? With choices every step of the way, taking one false step will lead Alek and his team to a place of no return.
What would a professional editor do with a book written by this author? Serve as a writing teacher to teach basic punctuation? Is that what an editor, generally speaking, wants to do? Guide the author through every sentence, teaching the author how to keep track of pronouns? Ask how it is possible that a sixteen-year-old is leading an army and encourage the author to rethink the plot?
Would you, or anyone, suggest that this young author should spend thousands of dollars to have a professional editor go over this book with her?
I wouldn’t. I would strongly, strongly suggest (and in fact did suggest) that this author take the time to learn basic grammar and punctuation on her own, perhaps by working with an English teacher at her school, for free, to correct every single sentence in this book, with the teacher scaffolding until the author is able to correct the rest of the sentences on her own. Then I would suggest that the author set this book aside and write something else. I suspect the above book is unsalvageable. I strongly suspect that an editor willing to take this author’s money would be acting very nearly like a scammer, or at best as a very expensive writing tutor.
There are lots and lots of authors like the above. I really am curious: what would you say to this person if she wanted to hire you to edit this book? Either as a developmental editor or a line editor or both? Wouldn’t you turn them down? Or at least suggest that what they need is an English tutor before they even think of hiring an editor?
I think it makes MUCH more sense to suggest to aspiring authors that they get with a critique partner or something like that and see how that goes, and that they hire an editor ONLY if they decide, for real, that their book is pretty good — publishable as it stands, in fact. Beta readers and editors are helpful at THAT point, not before.
So, back to the linked post. What does this person at Writer Unboxed say?
In Kathryn Craft’s WU post for May 9 (“To Diagnose or to Characterize?”), David Corbett makes the following comment:
“Having been in reading/writing groups early in my career, and having counseled students who’ve received curious feedback from other group members, I’ve come to realize that you have to be able to discern valid criticism from that which is something other than valid.”
These words registered with me. In part because of problems I met up with in a writers’ group, I have become a strong advocate for writers submitting their work to professional editors. It costs money, but in my view it’s money well spent. This assumes the writer takes pains to learn all she can before choosing an editor. But an editor and writer form a two-member writers’ group, so knowing how to “discern valid criticism” is no less important.
And you see that this does say the author had better have “taken pains to learn all she can,” which basically suggests the same thing I just said, that if the author isn’t ready to work with an editor, they really shouldn’t.
But this post does make a good point, because I honestly don’t think a writer’s group is the same thing as a critique partner at all, far less the same thing as an English tutor. I, as a dyed-in-the-wool hermit, do not join groups, basically, ever. (Well, hardly ever.) I’ve never been a member of a writer’s group, I’ve never even contemplated joining a writer’s group, but I have heard about writer’s groups, and I bet you have too.
The 4 Hidden Dangers of Writing Groups
Writer Groups – More Harm Than Good?
Ten signs your writing group is bad for you
And so forth and so on. The author of the linked post seems to have come down on the side of “writer’s groups are bad for writers,” and I think this is highly justifiable, although actually I do know of at least one writer’s group that appears to be beneficial and supportive. But authors certainly need to be somewhat cautious with writer’s groups and also probably ready to step away. And very definitely ready to ignore criticism that does not suit their work.
The rest of the linked post is about choosing an editor once you’ve decided to work with an editor, and yes, that seems important. It’s an eight-point post.
#1 — Check the editor’s own writing. Points #3 and #4 are basically the same as #1.
#2 — Ask for a sample edit. That sounds crucial to me.
#5 — Be sure you’re clear on the differences between copy editing, line editing, and developmental editing. This goes with #6, which is basically understand what you’re paying for.
#7 — Ask previous clients for their opinion. That seems like it might be a lot of trouble, but I guess it’s not a bad idea.
#8 — Remember that you are the final arbiter. This means, basically, does the editor seem sympatico?
This all sounds reasonable to me. I would also suggest:
#9 — Find an editor who is a genuine fan of your genre, preferably of your subgenre
and
#10 — Find an editor who prefers the “tone” you prefer; eg, on a spectrum of grimdark to positive, where do they land? Same place as your book, more or less? Because it’s hard to believe an editor can do their best work if they loathe your book.
This is reminding me of beta reading a book for another author earlier this year and saying to myself (and eventually to her) that the book featured stunningly beautiful description which I just loved, but that I feared I might not be the best reader if the protagonist is impulsive, none too bright, unable to articulate her principles because she doesn’t really have any, and also by the way I absolutely can’t stand betrayal as an important plot element.
What I wanted this author to do was rewrite the book entirely. I did not, of course, say that. What I said was, “Would it be possible to justify this thing here a little better?” and “If this protagonist thinks she follows this guiding principle, should she perhaps feel worse about it after she doesn’t?” and so on. But I also thought: how could we better make sure that a beta reader is well suited to a book?
I don’t know that it’s possible, because it’s not practical to list all the things you hate in a book vs all the things you admire. But how about this: list ten keywords that make you likely to pick up a book and read the first page, and ten keywords that make you unlikely to do so. Five, at least.
For me: the chances I’ll look at the first page go way up if the description contains the words: friendship, trust, integrity, loyalty, lyrical.
The chances I’ll look at the first page go down a fair bit if the description contains the words: impulsive, angst, doomed, obsessive.
The changes I’ll look at the first page go way, way down if the description contains the words: betrayal, treacherous, tortured romance, ruined, humiliated.
There you go. Now you know you shouldn’t ask me to beta read if your book can be accurately summarized this way: “Beautifully told with lyrical prose, a lovely but impulsive and dimwitted protagonist falls into an obsessive love affair, but her heart is ripped out when she discovers her lover is utterly treacherous and in fact is actually and irredeemably evil. Can she save any vestige of the love she thought she had? No, but maybe she can settle for an actually decent person once she she has no choice because, despite everything she can do to save him, her evil lover is finally, after doing quite a bit of harm, killed.”
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I did an Editing minor in university and decided against editing as a career solely because I didn’t want to work on the terrible sample novels we had as class assignments. (Then I went to law school and worked on legal journal articles and some of those were worse—) Much, much more fun as a beta reader to help a good work become better than to help a rotten work become… more grammatical, at best.
Just for fun I ran the book description through MS Word’s grammar check. Even after I checked everything in the grammar check options, it found only one problem. Which tells us you can’t rely on those as a quality as far as fiction writing goes. I CAN, however, imagine trying to tell the writer that their writing needs work and them arguing that it’s grammatically perfect. Maybe it is (my classes on such are long enough ago I won’t argue too hard), but it isn’t well done as fiction, or even a blurb.
What I’ve observed while hanging out and working in bookstores, and reading about the business and all, is that most writers have a learning curve of figuring out how to judge their own work, or take criticism and understand when it applies and when to ignore it.. And anyone who thinks the book of the above description is publishable hasn’t climbed that curve yet. And probably won’t listen if you try to tell them.
My advice is for the writer to read better fiction in whatever genres interests them, even before trying to find a critique partner. That blurb reads like it is written by someone who only writes and reads on the social medias where extremely casual and sloppy style are expected. (I can’t actually name any, as I don’t use them, but I see this sort of writing from people who have in author’s notes or webpages: contact me on X, Y, Z and AA social media platforms.
And try to find a critique partner who reads the same stuff and also outside of your genre or with a taste for the older stuff in your genre, to catch your errors of imagination, like assuming no one’s written a novel with FTL before you.
If you care about quality and selling to people other than your family.
Elaine, I definitely agree that this and other aspiring authors at this level ought to be reading better fiction, and reading it with a critical awareness of sentences and grammar.
I’m having a hard time believing any grammar checker could possibly say this was okay. I guess grammar checkers are even worse than I thought, and my opinion was already rock-bottom.
Mary Beth, ugh. If I hung out a shingle as an editor, I guess it would include something like, “Will only edit books I genuinely like and would pay money to read, period.”
This was 35+ years ago, so a very different publishing environment, but I participated for a while in a writer’s group that was very helpful. We started as students in a romance novel writing class at the community college. The instructor was a published author who was both a good writer and a good teacher. And at the end of the semester about 6 of us wanted to continue, so we spun off a critique group. By then we knew each other and each other’s work at least a little and we had common ground from the class on what was important. It made for a good group. A couple of the members sold books to mainstream publishers.
I moved a year or two after that and never did find a group I liked again. That was mostly pre-personal-email so I couldn’t continue with them from a distance. And then between family needs and work I gave up on the writing.
Putt knot yore trussed inn spiel chequers.
The problem is that you need a certain level of competence at punctuation to tell how bad you are.
Hmm, I have strong opinions on this. It’s true that paying for a one-and-done dev edit is too expensive and usually not very helpful to the writer. It’s also true that it’s difficult to find a good writers’ group. However, in both cases, I think if a writer is looking for that kind of help or community, they have a lot of options. But since a good fit is going to vary on a case by case basis, it can take time and effort to find the right one.
A critique partner is great, if they find someone whose opinion they trust and who can give feedback without overstepping. Your suggestions #9 and #10 are crucial, and I’ve heard that’s an area where writers’ groups tend to fall apart— each member likes or writes something different and gives advice accordingly, instead of considering the writer’s intent, genre, and audience. Plus what Elaine said about the learning curve.
Book rec: I’ve heard good things about Joni Cole’s Toxic Feedback, which is about distinguishing good feedback from bad, and also giving good feedback.
Re: OP’s #1— I’m an editor, and I don’t write, except in comments like these (and emails, I suppose). I don’t think that’s enough for a newbie writer to judge my writing. But I would offer a sample edit to anyone who was interested. That’s for me as well as for the writer. If I’m not the right editor for the book, or if the book is not ready for editing, I’ll say so and refer someone or something else if appropriate. I don’t want to edit a book I wouldn’t read in the first place.
That was an interesting book description, hehe. I’m surprised that there’s a book where the FMC actually loves an evil guy. Sounds like someone who likes to play with genre tropes/concepts such as ‘what if’ rather than someone who genuinely wanted to write about a doomed obsessive romance, IMO. Generally, as a fan of obsessive love who nevertheless values trust and loyalty in character relationships, I know from experience that most good writers who’re into obsessive ‘dark’ love just like see sad/suffering angsty (usually male) characters transform into their best selves through love. Actual doom and tragedy is very rare in romance/fantasy romance as a genre hese days.
I do relate to deep frustration with dim-witted characters, through impulsivity probably depends on other factors as the whether it’s sympathetic or not. If the character is well-meaning but just impulsive and easily angered or easily drawn into stupid stunts… especially in YA, it’s believable and even inevitable. If you’re writing about a 30/40 year old career-person, it’s different. And impulsivity in *romance* seems also different (like, marrying after 3 days just seems trite and low stakes, and being with a married man for lust is impulsive but also very rare in romance).
I’m probably not into obsessive love as much as I was when younger, so I dunno if I’d be a well-suited editor there. I think I understand it well enough even if no longer prefer it. I don’t necessarily need someone whose opinion I trust to be on my exact wavelength as long as they understand me. Some people just… don’t understand things they don’t approve of. But I’m especially interested in the opinion of people who don’t necessarily feel attached to my style/type of writing and would offer a totally new and even harsh perspective, as long as they really saw my intent. This just takes a certain kind of intelligence, in my experience. But I’d also want a wavelength-sharing beta reader, of course. This is why I’d hesitate to have only one beta reader/editor.
OtterB, that sounds like an ideal way to form exactly the right kind of useful writer’s group.
Mary Catelli, that’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect in action right there. I even sort of think grammar or something related was one of the domains featured in the original Dunning-Kruger paper.
Mona, yes, it’s exactly like people on Quora answering questions about rabies based on rabies risk in THEIR OWN country, not in the questioner’s country; or giving advice about dogs based on THEIR OWN dog, not the questioner’s dog, and on and on. I do try to clearly distinguish between “good” and “what I like,” though I probably make mistakes there at times. I think I would be looking for the exact statement: “I don’t want to edit a book I wouldn’t read for pleasure” as a major factor in choosing an editor — and for the editor choosing to edit my book.
Reena, this was a self-published book, which it really had to be, because how would you market that, right? You can’t call it romance AT ALL because the redemption arc is almost completely absent, the betrayal was complete, the guy was in fact totally evil and vicious and just playing the female protagonist, and OMG it is not remotely a romance. But it sure looks like romance on the outside.
One of my specific problems with this protagonist was (a) not just impulsive, and (b) not just rather dim-witted, but also (c) she said over and over that her principles were very important to her, but she never, not once, acted like they were. When challenged to do so, she couldn’t articulate her principles, just list them, which came across as not understanding them at all herself. And, just, ugh, this was just not a protagonist I could ever, ever like.