As much as I love my job, the most difficult part of this the fact that I have to tell people their babies are ugly. I can be gentle about it and say it kindly, but people are coming to me to tell them what’s wrong with what they’re working on. Knowing how to do this is a specific skill I’ve cultivated over my sixteen years in the industry, and it’s one I am always looking to improve on.
Being autistic also makes this a challenge because my nature is to be very direct, and I have had to intentionally learn how to soften the blow for people. It’s not that I’m mean, but my style as an editor tends to be very much, “here’s what’s wrong; here’s how we fix it.” I also don’t tend to waffle around the bush with how I do things. My editorial letters aren’t unkind (I actually put them through Goblin.Tools to check them for tone often), but I am nothing if not very clear about the state of things.
It’s really hard, though, because I also know how those letters feel. I am an author, myself, and have had many people over the years provide me in-depth and sometimes challenging critiques. They’re not fun to receive. While I favor direct communication about what I do well or do badly (again, that’s the ‘tism), I also know how painful those things can be because I have RSD (rejection-sensitive dysphoria). It can feel terrible to be told that something you are really passionate about isn’t working.
On the other hand, I have also had those conversations with clients who went back, took my advice, and returned to me excited and with manuscripts that are a million times better than they were. Sometimes the process of shedding the dead wood can be daunting and painful, but it yields a dramatically better end product, and the author usually knows it.
That’s the thing about this job. I might have to be the person telling folks that their work needs, well, work, but it’s less about cutting people off at the knees and more about smelting their manuscript like ore. My job is to pull out the impurities and leave them with something shining. The smelting process involves a lot of fire and heat and is a challenging, difficult thing to go through, but the end result is having a product that is far better and stronger than what you started with.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway. Every time I craft one of those emails, I spend several hours on it, ask advice of other editors if I feel I need it, put it through things like Goblin.Tools (though I omit client data when I do to preserve their work’s integrity) and then sleep on it. These letters are things that I spend a long time on. I also happen to know a lot of us editors are similar. We hate writing those letters because we don’t want to hurt people. Not to mention that all of us have horror stories of people who exploded on us after those letters were sent.
I guess my point in this week’s post is that none of us editors are sitting around twirling our mustaches, excited about the prospect of upsetting our clients. When we have to write emails telling people that their works are really in need of serious help, we hate it. That’s because editors are human beings like anyone else. We aren’t some kind of mysterious beings cloaked in shadows. I mean, I am definitely several gremlins in a trench coat, but that’s me. And those gremlins are all soft-hearted squishy things who just want to make people smile.
When you’re on the receiving end of that kind of critique, it’s easy to feel like we are picking on you as an author. It’s a valid feeling, and I know exactly what it’s like. However, on the other side of the coin, I promise you that sending these kinds of letters and doing this kind of work does keep us up at night. I’ve lain awake nights, staring at the ceiling, fretting over how a client will respond to an email or even gotten up to re-edit an email I was planning to send in the morning. Most of us are like that.
As challenging as it is to receive editorial feedback, giving it is just as hard. When you are receiving your letters from us professionals, keep in mind that we are doing this to help. Our whole hearts are invested in our clients and in helping you all succeed. We do this job because it’s a passion. One does not become an editor without that drive, and we aren’t trying to do you harm. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Another element of what we are doing when we give this feedback is protecting you from the public. What I mean by that is that the public is going to be ruthless. Reviews are not gentle things, and when people pay for a book that isn’t good, they will let people know that. If you think hearing from an editor that things aren’t great is painful, wait until a reviewer tears your book down.
Editors are trained to keep an eye out for things like that, that will damage your career. When we point out things like ableism, sexism, racism, and other such things in books, it’s not because we are trying to force our views onto you, either. It’s because we are trying to prevent you from being eaten alive by others. It’s a very real thing that you will face if put a book out with those things in it, and we are hoping to spare you from having your book and your personal reputation destroyed.
So, as difficult as all of our feedback can be to receive, I hope I’ve been helpful in giving understanding about why we do what we do and also that we are doing this explicitly because our job is to help and protect you. We aren’t scheming or cackling over your pain. We are instead acting as a shield between you and the public when we deliver this news.
Being The Bearer Of Bad News