RED LEAF WORD SERVICES

Editing and proofreading for authors of plant-themed fiction and nonfiction.

Editing for authors of speculative fiction with complex worlds and large casts.

Blog Post

Knowing When an Editor May Be a Good Fit For You

Aime Sund • Feb 20, 2024

Sometimes you just know...

And other times it takes a little work or a trial to come to a conclusion.

You've worked hard to put your story or memoir into words for others to read. I'm willing to bet a lot that you'd prefer to find an editor who will work with you and who "gets" your writing style or sense of humor.

Pretty sure I'm correct here, even without a show of hands. 🙋

Sample edits are a vital part of making this determination, and not just any sample edit, but a sample edit of your work.

I've never been comfortable with offering a neutral sample of my editing work to a prospective client. The idea makes little sense to me. The client might be able to see the methods and processes of my edits/evaluations from a generic sample, but the suggestions will have little context for them. How would they know how I would handle their dialogue scenes if the sample piece happens to contain mostly narrative? Or what about those spicy scenes?🌶️🌶️

Time is a resource precious to us all, and in many cases, it may be quicker for an editor to send back a general sample for you to view. Should this happen, make sure you can glean enough of a sense of how they handle the writer's voice and the scope of the edit from the piece.

Perhaps you can find some similarities to your own writing within the sample to resonate with. Depending on the genre and type of writing, a generic sample may be fine for you to judge on.

Otherwise, offer to submit a chapter for the editor to sample edit for you.

The caveat here is that some editors will charge to do the sample edit, others do not. If there is an individual or outfit you have your heart set on, paying the small fee for a sample is added insurance that your emotions alone won't make a costly decision that leaves you unhappy later. Editing can be pricey, and both parties benefit when the manuscript is a fit for each of them.

Let's say now that your choice(s) have returned sample edits of your writing. There are several things you can look for that will help you choose whether that editor may be a good fit for you and your work:

If there are comments in the margins, how are they presented? How do they make you feel?

The tone of the comments can be an indicator of how the working relationship may go.

Sure, the tone could be doctored on the sample to be lighter than it ends up being, but my experience has shown that my commenting style is pretty consistent from one document to another. There's a way I want to phrase queries and it's become part of how I think as I edit.

Also, many editors are writers too, so we know what it's like to be on the receiving end of an evaluation. There is much more value in being respectful and helpful than commanding or too brief.

Do the comments offer suggestions that fit with the text and your author voice?

This is where a generic sample would likely fall short. Author voices are all different, even those within genres.

We all have our small tells, go-to words, pet phrases, favorite sentence constructions, even punctuation preferences that an editor should pick up on and work with. There can be reasons to suggest changes to these author-isms, but recognizing them is the important part for you to notice.

Are reasons given for suggestions?

Explanations may not always be necessary, especially during copyedits because of their more grammatical nature. When they are present, however, are they helpful and designed to promote your writing craft?

The author-editor dynamic works best as a partnership or collaboration toward a common goal or goals, which doesn't leave any room for dictating or demanding. The author's and manuscript's best interests should be foremost, so even explanations of phrase preferences (think whether vs. if, further vs. farther, that type of thing) should be informative and helpful. No reasons given may make you feel less than seen or understood.

Can you detect any personal biases coming through?

An edit paid for by a client is not a soapbox opportunity. Personal biases should not be included.

However, please do not confuse personal biases with an editor pointing out an alternative meaning for a word that could be considered offensive, or asking you to be sure of your meaning in a situation because of a possible interpretation of a scene. Triggers do exist in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and it is an editor's job to make sure the author understands other ways their words may be interpreted.

Those are the significant points to keep in mind during your search for an editorial partner. I would also add in, depending on your style of handling feedback, is there positivity present in the evaluation?

It is not easy to write a novel! There should be some appreciation for what is done well. Every author I know thrives on knowing what they do well, even if it is so they can concentrate less on that bit of craft and more on where they want to improve.

I love those moments when I read a line in an untouched manuscript and my face lights up. Then I read it again and make a comment so the author knows my reaction. Same with humor. If I laugh, I'll tell you. You wrote the line to be funny (hopefully), you should know if it hits the mark for your editor too.

In the end, I do a lot of asking of myself "Would I want to know this if I were the author?" And because I need to know all the things by nature, the answer is always yes. Some authors may not need this affirmation, and so such an editor may not be a good fit. Think of how you learn or absorb feedback and notice if an editor makes you comfortable receiving that information. That's a partnership element.

Have in mind an idea of what you want out of your edit (within it's scope, please don't expect a full dev edit from a copyedit 😣) and if the boxes are checked with a sample, you very likely have found someone to work with. I'm not dismissing other factors such as availability or cost, as they are also important parts of the final decision. But often authors struggle more with how to decide on the personal level.

Ask for the sample edit of your work, that's my best advice. I think you'll know who's right for you right away. ~