EDITORS UNEDITED: Haydn Middleton

Meet Haydn Middleton, one of our longest standing editors, having worked with us since 2005.  

Haydn has written an almost scary number of books. Name a subject, and he’s probably written something on it! Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, for adults or children, Haydn has experience, although he’s particularly passionate about working on fantasy, historical, and literary fiction. You can find out more about his books on www.haydnmiddleton.com  

Here’s what he had to say:  

Q: So that we can learn a bit about you, tell us about one writing-related thing you’re proud of, and one non-writing related thing you’re proud of.  

I hope I can take some pride from the fact that my primary school texts for Pearson and OUP may have helped reluctant young readers to get into books. In a non-writing sense, I got a big kick out of playing football for England Writers in ‘World Cups’ in Florence and Malmo! 

Q: What brought you to the world of writing? What keeps you writing?  

A fairly powerful drive, quite early on in my working life, to spend more time trying to get to the bottom of things largely on my own. It took me several years to know what I was trying to get to the bottom of, which then kept on changing – so I’ve had to keep on writing! 

Q: Tell me about what you’re currently working on. 

A book for adult readers called Aesop’s Leap, subtitled Fables for Today, which is currently scheduled for publication by Propolis Books in Spring 2023. (There is a legend that Aesop, creator of fables like The Tortoise and The Hare and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, was executed at Delphi in Ancient Greece – flung from a high rock on a charge of temple theft. But I think he leapt of his own free will, then went on moving through the aether in much the same exemplary way as his fables. To my mind he’s circling still, showing all the rest of us how to make a similar imaginative leap, which involves passing the world as we find it through a creative filter, then setting down our personal rules of thumb for getting through life. And so, in an avalanche of randomness, I’ve written my own collection of fables for today – in verse!)   

Q: You’ve just received a new manuscript to critique: what’s the first thing you do? Walk us through your editing process.  

Well, first of all I read it with an open mind. I guess there are three things I’m on the alert for in whatever I start to read, viz: Topic (what is this writer writing about?), Language (how are they writing about it?) and Angle (what is the particular case they’re making?). Sometimes I find that scripts aren’t actually what their writers say they’re about. That’s fine. Once the script is out of the writer’s hands, the burning question is how it will be received. But I like to be receiving something which only this particular writer can have written. It doesn’t have to be a fantastically brilliant story, or be fantastically originally written, or even have any especially earth-shattering ‘message’. I respond most positively, I think, when I feel that the writer is doing everything they can to make some kind of connection, which may in the first instance be a connection with him- or herself. If this possibility of connection is there, I find that it’s there almost from the first page. I’m hesitating to say that this is all about ‘finding one’s voice’, which seems to me reductive (since everyone has any number of voices they use every day). But I want to get the impression that what I’m being told has been carefully considered in all its aspects, and couldn’t have been told to me by anyone but this one writer. 

Q: How do you manage being on the other side of the editorial process – when your own writing is being edited? What should an author who is receiving critique for the first-time be aware of? 

I’ve always welcomed informed criticism of my work (that doesn’t extend to certain reviewers!). As a former editor in a publishing house myself, I know how much a decent editor can bring to the table, in both line-by-line criticism and discussions of the broader sweep. The first-time author should maybe be aware that their script could be further away from commercial viability (if commercial viability is their goal) than they like to imagine, or than their well-meaning editor cares to spell out. My feeling is that if there’s any prospect at all of eventual publication, an editor will make this absolutely clear. It took me ten years of trying before my own first novel was published. I now accept my earlier work was unpublishable. 

Q: What writing do you get most excited about working as an editor on? What really makes you intrigued by a submission?  

I’d have to go back to what I said two questions ago: the growing sense that I’m reading work by someone who isn’t writing off-the-peg or by rote, who has an idiosyncratic take on the world, and isn’t afraid to deliver their vision in whatever form seems necessary to them. I’d add that evidence of a sense of humour never goes amiss, either. If a writer makes me smile, even in the covering letter or synopsis, I’m immediately better-disposed towards them. This may just be a flaw in me. But some of the greatest writers have shown that even the most serious subjects don’t have to be treated in a reverentially serious fashion at all times.  

Q: What do you read for pleasure? Is this different to the writing you enjoy working on?  

Mostly poetry in recent times. I find myself drawn too to reading about the lives of writers. And I spend far too much time reading opinion pieces in the media, about which I can seldom remember very much a day or two later, but it all seemed so very urgent at the time! I think it’s quite important to keep reading as widely as possible. I like learning new things, especially if the new information directly contradicts what I thought I already knew. 

Q: Finally, if you could only give one piece of advice to all aspiring authors, what would it be?  

Keep an open mind – about absolutely everything. 

Is your manuscript ready for a professional critique? Haydn is one of 70+ Jericho Writers editors, so we’ll always find your perfect match.     

Head over to our editing hub to see the services that we have on offer. Not sure which service to opt for? Drop an email to info@jerichowriters.com and we’ll be happy to discuss which service would be right for you and your manuscript. 

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