For the past year I found an editor who was helping coach me on the question of how do I even start to revise a novel? I've shared previous experiences in trying to find the right editor, criteria I sought, and a lot of the positive and profound impact this one had on my confidence and novel development. Therefore, I thought I would share the experience of the demise of this relationship. In keeping with shared experiences of writers on this journey, perhaps this will give other writers some insight into their own journeys.
Here is a little song reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKXPmV3L3Jo
As I said, I finished the first draft, with some helpful observations about what it should be, but then I had never gone through the revision process and felt lost. I ran into a lot of immature or unprofessional editors who thought it was appropriate to insult me as the client and incorrectly diagnose grammatical errors - or story errors - rather than listen to me and help me develop the story I envisioned.
Finally last November, I met an editor who was more mature and really helped move slowly in working with me and gaining my trust letting her into understanding the book. She validated a lot of my experiences, as well as validating me space to process and refine the characters and story arc. This was a huge relief compared to the many ways editors overstep. Working on your book is intense enough. It is magical to find someone who enters the process with you to share those exciting moments of breakthrough. While I have struggled the last year, she was very generous with me. I wanted to do everything I could to support her, and we had a friendship with our collaboration. She helped come up with the logline I use in my query letter.
In the spring, I expressed interest in continuing with the collaboration beyond the scope of the initial project, on a monthly retainer. Somewhere this is where things started to sour. The last year has been hard enough on my mental health feeling isolated. She had some changes in her personal situation. I exercised patience and understanding, hoping that things would settle back into our groove, but they never did.
When I came to her, with all of this incredulous commentary from the editor want-to-bes, I had several critique group responses as well as beta reader feedback, which left me with more questions than answers. I had no idea how to get to the solutions, but believed in the book I had written. That is where we started, but that was not the entirety of my questions. Those in my writing groups know I have asked and demonstrated interest in workshopping whenever possible the question of writing the omniscient third.
As I like to say, I hate meaningless lingo editors use, and want to discuss specifics in the book and in the writing where something actually needs to change and how. Here's where things went really well between us and the progress I made: she helped me understand how to use language to foreshadow; she helped me with characterisation; she helped me intertwine the character arcs to create tension and focus on moving the plot forward.
In the spring I connected with some writers in my alumni group who surrounded me with next level quality writing and helped me begin to think about my own writing pushing to this level. As Nina Allan says, she always reads and surrounds herself with writers who are better than her. Over the summer I started writing some short stories which all allowed me to step out of the world of the novel and focus on different elements.
Communication with the editor was beginning to derail. When we checked in to discuss novel chapters, she started using lingo phrases like "you might have to kill your darlings" which don't even apply to this draft stage. She also started to forget the characters. Unlike previously when she had been regularly involved in the character discussions, she would not respond to me for weeks at a time. In the checkins I couldn't tell whether we were even talking about the same story anymore. In the meantime, she tried to press me to pay her to read the whole book - I have not had the money for a full manuscript read by any editor. She also kept saying "at some point, (I) would reach a phase where the critique groups did not help me anymore, and it would really be better if one person was involved." If this was supposed to mean herself, I wondered why she thought I would chose to rely on someone whose reliability was starting to wane!
However, after the acceptance of my first short story, I wanted to focus on polishing one where I could make some money. This was her shot! It was a new story, and there had been no one else's eyes on it. Unlike my other writing where I had beta feedback or critique group input, it was a blank slate for her to identify the areas that needed to be corrected to develop the story. There were two weeks from the time it was begun to a deadline, but the weekend before the deadline, she went camping. I did not want to bother her while she was camping. I was surprised, and appreciative, that she was attentive and responding to me that weekend. The problem was that she was not identifying the issues with the story correctly. So the weekend before the deadline, I had to get on Fiver and find some beta readers. They responded with some impressions which were not my intent. The topic was psychology, so I ran it by my therapist who gave a professional breakdown of the psychological factors. I had to do all of that the weekend before the deadline, find other people who were not the editor, to correctly assess what changes I needed to make to the story.
On the novel, as well as this experience with the short story, she was dismissive when I tried to discuss like adults feedback on her performance and contributions. When I said I wanted the opening chapter to reflect the strength I used in this short story with literary devices, I put in a filler sentence I expected to brainstorm with her on our checkin call. Rather than brainstorming, she just told me to remove it because it didn't fit without any suggestions what would fit instead.
After the short story weekend, she totally disappeared and changed the relationship between us without any discussion. I accepted this one month but not two. In the second month, I knew unless the relationship changed it couldn't continue. I did not want to treat her like this relationship was just a transaction. That was how I felt she was treating me at this point. I could have cancelled the last month of the retainer payment, but I wanted to give her the option of having a conversation like adults about the situation. When she was faced with the decision to end our collaboration or have a conversation, she opted for the former and not the latter. It was not how I would have wanted our relationship to end. The whole experience of losing her support gradually was painful, because the contrast with how things had been early on was clear. The friendship and chemistry had been gone for months, as much as I tried to retain the same level of support for her.
My therapist said that perhaps this editor had taken me as far as she could, and that it was ok for this to be the end of this stage of collaboration with the support this person could offer. It would have been nicer to be able for her just to validate the observations I had made for months instead of being dismissive. That dismissive nature, whether it was the opening of the book and that filler sentence, or the narrative voice, is what I see now.
For Nanowrimo, I joined a new group in Amsterdam to get to know people. There were supposed to be weekly checkins I hoped would motivate me, which kept getting cancelled. Finally this week some people got on the call to discuss progress. I expressed where I was with the second draft, and that some of this literary prose might have to wait for the next round. This group told me, like the first draft observation, what to expect from a second draft, which was immensely helpful.
That had me doing research and finally finding some blogs about the omniscient narration. I jumped ahead to start the second section revisions. I can see the hand of the editor helping me with the characterisation and tension in the scene, as well as my ability to go back to the scene and see things to tweak to make it stronger. However, I also started adding, perhaps a little heavy handed, a narrative voice. I also started using the tips from these articles how to use the omniscient voice to weave together how different characters in the same scene viewed the situation. This brought me back to why this had been so difficult for that editor to help me with. These were the specific tools which could have been applied if she had not been so dismissive. I went to Reedsy to put out requests of more experienced editors specifically if we could have a workshop on this one specific topic, and thought this was one of the elements I came to my editor with a year ago. Which she dismissed, just like my desire to be pushed in the direction I wanted to go with the opening scene.
Maybe my therapist was right. It was an intense year of isolation for me. My therapist, my editor, and my father were frequently the only real support. I have writing groups where I have made friends, but these three were with me during a very intense time. I took a break from my therapist for a few weeks recently to clear my head of her voice. In the novel, coming back to this question that I presented a year ago is taking the book back to the original voice. Through all of the critiques and changes on characters and tension, wanting to be close to the characters, the narrative voice has moved away from this intention. While the first go might be a little heavy handed, hopefully I can find an editor to work with me to think through and brain storm what the right balance is. I feel much better being able to hear that voice clearly again.
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