Authors of Erotic Romance

Sharon is another great Loose Id writer from England who has a variety of writing experiences under her belt. She posted this as a series on her blog recently and kindly granted me permission to repost it here. It will also be duplicated as a static post in the Advice for new Authors section.

Editors: Demons or Angels?
(c)2007, Sharon Maria Bidwell

Well, the short answer is a little of both. The more definitive answer is rather more complicated.

A friend of mine once made me laugh when he asked ‘How do I get myself an editor?’ My reply was that you don’t. Certainly, you can go out and hire editing services, but I knew this wasn’t what my friend meant. At the time, when I referred to ‘my editor’ in conversation, I was talking about the person in charge of whatever magazine most recently accepted a short work of mine. In this context, I have often said that editors do not edit, or that it is not their sole function in life.

An editor’s job can vary depending on the type of publication. In the world of magazines and small press, it may be entirely the responsibility of one person as to what work to select for publication. In this regard, an editor is ‘editor of the magazine’ and not a writer’s work. In many ways, you may as well call the editor of such publications ‘the publisher’, as all final decisions rest on that one person’s judgment. This person will say yes or no. If a story narrowly missed the mark and the editor has time, the writer may receive a rejection with a short or full explanation as to why. Actually, this varies depending on house policy and applies to larger press too. My advice to writers is, do consider all comments. You don’t have to accept them but remember, this person has experience in the industry that you don’t have. Let the sting of rejection pass and then consider if there is a valid point. Alternatively, the editor may accept the work and then, and only then, the writer may receive some small suggestions. Generally, though, with smaller works, my experience has been that the writer may hear nothing more until the story appears, or they may receive a layout to check for errors. In either case, the publisher may alter something in the layout and there is usually little if any opportunity to disagree with this. However, smaller publications tend to present work as the writer submitted, checking only for spelling and punctuation. They seldom make story changes and therefore, the writer experiences little to no actual ‘editing’. Due to the turnover rate and cost to profit ratios, they take stories based on individual merit, often as a writer envisioned. They can afford to because there are simply so many writers out there that most publishers receive far more submissions than they can cope with. This is why many have reading periods and close to submissions at other times in the year. All this can make it difficult to achieve recognition but the competition does make an acceptance that much sweeter.

Still, this is both good and bad. Smaller works often appear as the writer intended. However, it also leads the less experienced writer into a false sense of security as they can grow to believe that this is how all publishing companies operate. The larger the publisher, the more involved the process.

Even when looking at larger press, an editor may also be a reader. He or she may be the first person to read submissions and, based on a synopsis and small chapter sample, may decide to see an entire manuscript. If interested, they will then put the story forward for consideration. Yes, I’m sorry to say that when anyone sends off a manuscript addressed to a particular editor, the chances are that person will never read it. Publishers hire ‘readers’ to sift through the numerous manuscripts they receive, of which statistics state more than half go into the ‘slush’ (rejection) pile immediately. This can be due to many reasons. It’s amazing how many publishers still state that they simply receive the wrong type of manuscript. There is no point sending a horror story to a romance publisher, but you’d be surprised how many people still do so. Then there are those who haven’t bothered to do their homework and submit a poorly presented document_ I remember reading about one editor who said a manuscript arrived in one of those jiffy bags filled with pieces of fluff. In moments, this mess covered her desk, her carpet and her clothes. The entire contents stunk of cigarettes and had coffee stains on most of the pages. She gave the manuscript as much consideration as the author had done and promptly binned it, regardless of what magical story the pages might have contained.

Another error many would-be authors make is that they don’t read a publishers’ guidelines. The chances are that most publishers will not want to receive an entire manuscript in the first instance. Most decisions are made within the first few pages and if the author bothers to research, they’ll quickly discover that most publishers and agents ask for a synopsis and something like the first three chapters. If the story hasn’t gripped them by then, they won’t be interested in reading on. If they’re interested, they’ll be in touch. Any author that sends out entire manuscripts in the first instance, unless instructed otherwise, is wasting money.

As to the editing process, this comes later. A larger publisher will have a team of editors, often people working from home and even editing in their ‘spare’ time, just as the writer writes when not attending the day-job. Their time is just as stretched, maybe more so as they will take care of more than one writer. Of course, if a writer is lucky enough to get in the door of an extremely large publishing house, maybe for their editor this is a full-time job, but even then their time will be limited and a novel is liable to go through several rounds of edits and several hands before it reaches publication.

Truly, no one is there to edit a writer’s work other than the author. Why should they be? Simply put, do not send something out if you feel it needs additional work. Don’t panic because the chances are you will believe it is complete and your publisher will tell you otherwise no matter how long you laboured over your book, but try to make it as complete as possible. For writers who really need such services, they are available – for a fee – or there are writing circles and forums. If you’ve got someone you trust who can check it for errors than that’s wonderful, but if you’re asking someone to read your book ask them to consider various questions while they do, such as did the story make sense? Did they get lost at any point? Did they get bored? Does the story have high and low points, fast and slow? All books need such variations but not to the point where your reader finds the reading process tortuous. It’s no good getting your best friend to read your book just to have them pat you on the back and tell you that they loved it. The serious writer needs serious feedback. The writer needs someone who will be honest and needs to learn how to deal with such comments because an editor will do all those things. To anyone not prepared for that, they’re in for a shock and the delight of receiving that acceptance letter and contract will quickly fade.

I’ve been lucky. I’m used to my publisher telling me what changes they want prior to signing the contract. I don’t mean I receive a round of edits but I do receive some indication of what they think needs adding to a story or taking out, (but not all publishers do this). I then have a choice to sign the contract, or not, or to negotiate. Yes, folks. You can negotiate any contract. For the new writer the urge is to sign but a contract is subject to ‘fair and reasonable’ negotiation. If a publisher tells you otherwise, I would be wary. I won’t get into contracts here but writers do be aware of what rights you are signing away and for how long. If you’re happy and all is signed, then you’ll sit back and wait that first round of edits and here is where the writer discovers if they’ve landed a demon or angel.

What constitutes a demon, or ‘poor’ editor? Understandably, opinions will vary so I can only state mine. For me, a demon is an editor who changes whole paragraphs and puts in their own sentences. Thankfully, I’ve not come across this often but it does happen. I can’t work like that. I can’t hear ‘my voice’ for the words the editor has put into my manuscript, and experience has taught me to say so. An editor is only one person in a publishing house and most companies will listen if the writer has a genuine grievance. Polite but honest can work wonders.

A good editor is one who points out weak points, who suggests an additional scene but doesn’t actually tell you exactly how to write it. In one of my books, my editor suggested I used a third character a bit more. She suggested I use him to guide one of my main characters towards realising his feelings and my final scene was definitely along the lines of her suggestions, but took a different direction that I thought was more honest and fit their behaviour. It’s a scene I now know well and love.

How many rounds of edits a book goes through depends on the author and the story, but you can say that a book is subject to what I call ‘the story round’ with scenes added, removed, or altered, or not. I’m pleased to say I’ve also submitted work that required little if any of these things. This may take more than one round of editing. The book then goes through a tighter edit of tidying sentences and punctuation. Small story points are brought to light, where an editor maybe doesn’t believe a character would say a certain word for instance. As things reach a conclusion, the edits become even tighter where both the editor and writer should try to present as tidy a manuscript as possible to the line-editing department. Line edits will perform a much tighter inspection. They will correct spelling and punctuation (though the writer should try to get these as accurate as possible), missed typos, and may even make a story suggestion if they spot anything that doesn’t quite make sense. Then it comes back for a quick look to the editor and author before it goes to the proofreaders who prepare the document for publication. The book will go through an even closer inspection and should return to the main editor and author one last time before considered complete.

The demons and angels you meet along this route are numerous. You see, the writer has to learn to take a deep breath and listen to another person’s opinion. They have to learn to loosen their grip. The book is still the author’s baby but it’s edging out into the world and it’s a painful separation. At first, all this can feel rather as if it’s merely an exercise in interference. Worse, it can feel as though the publisher doesn’t have the same vision for the book as the writer did. There’s no denying that a good editor is wonderful and they make your work better. They spot errors a writer simply cannot see even if they’ve read the manuscript a hundred times (and some writers do this and more). Good editors can be subtle. They may make small alterations that have you gasping in disbelief and wondering how you didn’t notice something so obvious. Good editors are the people you learn from, and writers want to invite such people to come live with them.

The worse demons for me materialise as small imps. I can almost visualise them, pinching you and then running away, casting an innocent glance over their shoulder as though to say they’re not in the least guilty. I’m talking about house-style and personal preference. The problem is that as well as all the rules of grammar and punctuation that a writer has to remember, every publisher will have a house-style. In addition to this, editors will allow something of their personal preference to influence. House-style and personal preference can alter layout. It can control whether an author may use a colon or the emdash, whether the emdash is a long dash or presented with two small hyphens — or whether an editor will allow them at all. House-style and personal preference will dictate if there’s a space before an ellipsis… or not, whether sentences become fragmented, whether you get to use an exclamation mark instead of a question mark. These things even dictate the number of commas that appear and where. Yes, I’ve had a publisher remove commas that I know another would want. Therefore, the writer receives many edits that make them want to pull their hair because they aren’t ‘writer errors’. They’ve mainly occurred because of house-style and personal preference, which not only vary from publishing house to publishing house, but from editor to editor, down through line editors and proofreaders.

I’m not saying a writer doesn’t have some say in these things. They do. They can reject changes but not all. Most contracts will state that the author agrees to present the publisher with an acceptable manuscript within a certain timeframe and if they cannot do this, the contract is void. Even when you reject a change, don’t be surprised if it creeps back in. If you have a specific reason for arguing against a change, an angel of an editor will listen to your argument. If they don’t agree they may consider a compromise. If they believe you have the right to insist, the angel will stand by your side to do battle against the publisher, but the demon will ignore you and put the change in anyway, often without even commenting on it. If the writer doesn’t get to see a final proof of the work (and not all publishers provide this) something the writer dislikes, or an error, can slip through without the writer’s awareness.

The main problem with this is that most readers don’t know, or care (why should they?) what process the writer goes through. An error in a book does reflect on the publisher but the dimmest light shines first on the writer. This is why I dislike the tone of many negative reviews. Like good and bad editors, there are good and bad reviewers and it doesn’t matter if the person is a professional reviewer or a member of the public stating their opinion. Love or loathe a book, the work has already passed several people’s estimation before it ever reached a reader and therefore, the onus should not rest solely on the writer. I tend to think of my work as 95% the author’s input and the rest down to chance depending on what angels or demons manifest along the way. Praise where it’s due, but to criticise the author is to criticise an entire team that believed the story met all the standards they required. Writers do the best they can to meet those requirements. The rest we leave to those imps of house-style and personal preference.

Sharon Maria Bidwell
aonia – where the muses live
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