Self-Doubt As An Editor
Yes, editors have a lot of self-doubt and wrestle with imposter syndrome just as hard as writers do. Being both an author and an editor, I can see it from both sides. So what to do we DO with this?
Imposter syndrome, the dogged enemy of creatives everywhere. Editors are no different. If you’re an author reading this, you now know our secret: we second-guess ourselves all the time and worry about it constantly. This happens at all levels of experience, too. I’ve been editing for longer than a lot of folks I’m friends with, and I’m less experienced than some of the others I know out there (hi, Pam!) who have been doing this longer than I have by an exponential amount. I’ve seen this concern from people at all levels of experience.
The thing that helps me combat it, honestly, is talking to other editors.
When I first started working as an editor, I was the only one I knew. I started working with an indie publisher as his editor, and I had no community at that point. I met a few people early on who were editorially-minded (or so I thought at the time), and that only made the imposter syndrome worse. Every call I made was questioned, and I was challenged at every turn by pretty much everyone. I had authors who didn’t like my edits, and I had a boss whose style guide changed with every book or who expected me to know his style guide when he never gave me one. And it wasn’t CMOS.
As a result of this lack of self-confidence, I struggled with believing I knew what I was doing for a very long time. Sure, through some of that, I entirely didn’t know what I was doing. Most newbies don’t—that’s just a facet of being a newbie. A beginning violinist doesn’t play Carnegie Hall either. There’s no shame in that because we all start somewhere.
Then, at some point around the ten year mark (yes, you read that properly), I discovered editorial spaces on Facebook and joined them. Swiftly, I learned that not only was I one of the more experienced editors in a lot of those spaces, I was also right more often than I wasn’t when it came to opinions on style. That isn’t to say I’m infallible—I’m not—but it changed my perspective of my own level of experience.
The funny thing is that if anyone else came to me and said they’d been doing something for a decade and then said they didn’t think they knew anything and weren’t worth a damn, I would hold them upside down and shake them. Or try, anyway. At the very least I would do so on a psychic level. However, when it came to myself, I was convinced that my time, energy, study, and work wasn’t worth anything because I had been entirely lacking in affirmation that I knew anything worth sharing. To be clear, I don’t think my experience is usual. I spent many years being told what I knew was worthless and that I didn’t know anything at the time. Or talked down to consistently by people I thought were my betters. (They weren’t my ‘betters,’ to be clear.)
Once I joined the editing community and started interacting, learning, and studying, I started seeing that my self-doubt not only wasn’t exclusive to me but was also not reflective of reality. At every turn, I had people who would both challenge and encourage me. My editor friends are people I cherish. Not only will they shake me when I’m being dumb, but they’ll be there to cheer me on when I’m dealing with a frustrating situation.
From the perspective of someone who has now been editing for fifteen years and is quite confident in the value they bring (even if I am always learning and trying to continue improving), that self-doubt kept me held back from a lot of opportunities I could have had. I’m not advocating for blind self-importance here, but don’t second-guess yourself so hard. Sure, double-check whether or not that comma is correct because punctuation can be a beast at times. Yes, spend time thinking about whether or not re-phrasing something will damage an author’s flow. We absolutely should tiptoe through an author’s manuscript without trampling their daisies.
However.
Trust your instincts. If your gut says something, chances are it’s right. That gut feeling might be that a client is going to be trouble. That gut feeling might be that the pacing here is just off. That gut feeling might be that you think a character’s portrayal doesn’t seem true to them. Your instincts are born of more than just your reading the CMOS and editorial blogs. They’re born of your study of story, your passion for words, and your understanding of the craft of writing (even for those of us who aren’t writers yourselves).
Those instincts are also born out of life experience. Part of the reason my clients hire me is because I have held the swords, worn the armor, and fired the handgun, and ridden horses. I’ve either studied or done a lot of the things their characters have in certain genres, and that perspective gives me unique value as an editor of those genres.
If you’re dealing with a situation where doubt is rearing its ugly head, find other editors. There are so many communities out there and while there are a lot of us, it’s also a very small world. It’s both huge and tiny at the same time. There are tens of thousands of us, but when it comes to the world, that’s a drop in the bucket. There aren’t that many. And we are often a few degrees of separation from one another. You are one of us. Come and join in, in the spaces we are.
Never be afraid to ask a question, either. If you want clarification, ask for it. Authors sometimes write confusing things that make no sense and need to be poked. Sometimes we just haven’t had our coffee, and our brains just will not parse certain sentences. Sometimes we have bad days, brain fog, or struggles. Those things are all just human. We’ve all been there.
When you are dealing with self-doubt, the remedy will be connection, study, and talking to your peers. Yes, us editors are your peers. The rest of us are here to support each other, share the load, and lift one another up. We’ve all made mistakes, made bad judgments, written too-sharp editorial letters, and missed commas, quotation marks, and so on. We’ve all had those days. It’s human, and it’s okay.