Stet stet stettety stet

Now, m’lords and ladies, I walk a tightrope this week.

On the one hand, I love good editorial services as much as I love apples fried in butter and cinnamon. Good editing is the rock on which all of Jericho Writers is built, and it matters hugely.

But, but, but.

Editing is advice. That’s all it is.

And yes, the advice is usually right. And if you take it books get better.

But you’re the writer. You’re the monarch of your text. In that little realm, your writ runs absolute. And in the end, the rule that matters is simply this: does a proposed change sound right to you? Or do you prefer it the way it is?

When Elizabeth Gilbert was told by an editor that she had to kill one of the female characters in her A Signature of All Things, she said no. That character stayed in.

In one of our Summer Festival webinars, Sophie Hannah was asked what to do if an agent told you that you couldn’t write the sort of book you wanted to write. She said (my paraphrase) to hell with that. Write the book anyway. It’s your life, not theirs.

When a copy-editor wanted to change the tone of my writing (meaning, specifically, Fiona Griffiths’ maddeningly quirky voice) I said no. And, because it was a copy-edit, I had to say no about a million times.

Insert a main verb into a sentence fragment, which I had deliberately wanted as a fragment? No. Stet.

(Stet is the Latin for “let it stand” and has long been the traditional way to undo a copy-editing change.)

Take a list of proper nouns and separate them with commas instead of, as I had done, with full stops? No. Stet.

Take a series of abruptly short sentences and link them into one longer and more elegantly flowing one? No. No way. Stet stet stettety stet.

And you. You’re the same.

Let’s say you are wise enough to come to Jericho Writers for a manuscript assessment. We’ll come back to you with a long report on where we see problems and possible solutions.

Your job is not to obey us.

On the contrary, if an editor says to you, “I think there’s a problem with X and you should probably consider doing Y,” ask yourself how that feels.

Mostly – I’d think about 60% of the time – you’ll think that the editor is right about both problem and solution. Great.

Then maybe 20% of the time, you’ll think, shucks, I can see the issue, but I’d really like to do Z not Y. Also great.

But in both these cases, you’re relying on your own gut. Your own sense of perfect. Your sense of this story and what it should be in that luminous land where all of your artistic goals are perfectly achieved.

You’re not obeying an editor. You’re simply using that editor to refine your own sense of what your manuscript wants and needs.

And that leaves the final 20% where you think, “You know what? I get why you think this denouement fails / this character is unnecessary / this twist is implausible, or whatever else. I get why you think that and I DON’T CARE.”

When I’ve had those situations with my editors in the past – often with minor issues, sometimes with big ones – I haven’t apologised and usually haven’t even explained.

I just return my manuscript with the changes made to my satisfaction. The 20% of issues where I’ve just ignored my editor – well, so what? If they want to cause a fuss, they can, but they never have. Their job is just to get me to deliver the best damn manuscript I can. It’s not to get me to check a series of boxes on some kind of Manuscript Approval Checklist.

You’re the same. You’re the boss. You’re the monarch of your text.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

All hail!