When (and if) to get help

We’ve talked about editing for five weeks now. Those of you following Debi Alper’s superb online Introduction to Self-Editing Your Novel course are reaching its end. (The course is free to members. Interested? Learn more.) And there’s one big topic we haven’t yet broached.

What about third-party help? Do you need it? And when do you need it? And what does an external editor do that a keen self-editor cannot? Today we’ll crack open that can of worms – or rather, we’ll use the handy little ring-pull which enables easy no-crack access.

And let me start by saying two things.

Number one, you don’t get better than a Jericho Writers editor. We use absolutely first class people and we scrutinise their work and if they don’t meet our standards – consistently – they will stop being a Jericho Writers editor.

The quality of editing is not something you can easily tell from a resumé. We have some spectacular editors who have not written bestsellers, or commissioned Hilary Mantel and Dan Brown and the entire Where’s Wally series. But those people are spectacularly good at editing, which is why we use them. So: if you do choose to get third-party editing, you’re in very safe hands with us.

Number two: you don’t need third-party editing. You may want it. You would certainly draw value from it. But you don’t need it. My first book never got third-party editing before I went out to agents. (I wanted it, but couldn’t afford it). But I secured an agent without too much fuss, then had a multi-publisher bidding war for the book, and it became a bestseller. So: good results can happen with no early third-party involvement.

And yes, it’s true that more and more writers are using external editors early on in their journey, and yes, it’s true that that does somewhat alter an agent’s perceptions of what to expect. But that doesn’t amount to me saying that you need an editor. You may not. I got an agent because I wrote a 180,000 word manuscript and I got an agent sitting up till 2.00 in the morning because she couldn’t go to bed until she’d finished it. That’s the basic outcome that you need to achieve. There is no single way to achieve it.

So – I’ve plugged our services (honestly) and I’ve told you (also honestly) that you may not need them. But now let’s dig into the ins and outs of all this. Here are some guidelines to hold onto.

Know the craft

You probably won’t get a novel to a truly publishable standard unless you know your craft. I don’t care how you acquire that knowledge – books and blogs, festivals and feedback groups, courses and classes: they’re all good. But know your craft. You won’t be properly attuned to the countless errors you can make until you’ve done that groundwork.

Edit hard – harder than you think

My first novel was 180,000 words long. When I got to the end of it, I realised I’d got better as I’d gone on. So I deleted the first 60,000 words and rewrote them.

I edited so many times that (going slightly crazy and getting close to the finish line) I went through the whole damn book just to delete surplus commas. (A copy-editor later put them all back, but she put a nice curl on them and settled them just so.)

As a very rough rule of thumb, half your time should be spent writing and another half editing. If one half is going to be bigger, I’d make it the editing half.

I stress this, because you will get vastly more value from a JW editor if you’ve done the work yourself first. Sometimes we get people who send us their manuscripts, and we come back with a report that says Character X is missing this, and Plot Point Y is awry because of that and so on. And the writer tells us, in effect, “Yes, I know all that, but if I fix those things, then what?”

And … well, we’re not magicians. We can only read what’s on the page. Ideally, you would only come to us for editing help if (i) you find yourself going round in circles or (ii) you just don’t know what to do next. But put in the hard yards yourself first. We can be much more productive if you do.

Nothing wrong with testing the water first

Approaching agents is free. Getting editing help from us costs. So a perfectly sensible strategy is this:

1. Write a book
2. Edit the heck out of it
3. Send it to around 10 agents; see what they say
4. If they take you on, then yippedee-doo-dah. Happy days. If they don’t, then …
5. Either:
   1. Re-edit the work if something an agent has said gives you a flash of insight. You can send it out again if you genuinely feel that flash has been transformative. or
   1. Come to us for a manuscript assessment.

I wouldn’t go crazy with the agent submissions. I think it’s just disrespectful to bombard agents. But sending out material to 10-12 agents? Nowt wrong with that.

How to use advice

Because I’ve just spoken about agents and any feedback you may get from them, let me just say now that editorial advice is only ever advice. It’s not a command. It’s not a stone tablet, ablaze with light, brought wonderingly down the slopes of Mount Sinai.

If a particular comment gives you a moment of insight, of recognition, of YES, then work with it. If a comment just doesn’t quite make sense to you, then leave it. Or, to be more accurate: consider it. Very often, an editor may feel a discomfort around X, but their practical suggestion as to what to do doesn’t feel right. In which case, figure out if you feel the editor was right to have that discomfort (they usually are), then consider what you want to do about it.

You are the boss of your own words, always. You should never write text at someone else’s bidding if it doesn’t feel right to you. As a very rough guide, about 60% of the time, you’ll feel that an editor is spot on. A further 20% of the time, you’ll think, “right issue, wrong solution” and go your own way on the topic. And there’s a good chunk of the time where (especially if you’re a stubborn sod, like me) you just think, “No, I like what I wrote” and take no action at all.

When you really, really should come to us for help

Mostly, I think it’s totally up to you when and whether you want to use our editorial help. There’s just one category, where I think you’re pretty much nuts if you don’t use us. I’m thinking here of writers who have had a lot of “almost but not quite” type rejections from agents. If you keep coming close to the prize, then – sweet Lord – get yourself over the line. There’s nothing more powerful than third-party editorial advice in improving a manuscript. It won’t always work to get you over that line, but there ain’t nothing better.

What help to get when?

The default for almost everyone should be a full manuscript assessment. With that, you get a pro editor to read every darn page of your work and give you a detailed, detailed report on what’s working and (especially) what isn’t working and how to fix it. This, in effect, is the backbone of any big publisher’s editorial process. Every manuscript I’ve ever written has gone through that process. Every single one has been improved (except maybe for one, where I had a terrible editor who butchered the book, then published it badly, and lost a ton of money on it. But that really is a rare exception.)

If you’ve already had a manuscript assessment and you think you’re close to the finish line, then you could think about getting a development edit. With that, you get the detailed report AND on-page text commentary and correction. I don’t really like that as a starter service though for anyone. If your book has some fundamental issues (and most books that come to us do), then the on-page correction is effectively swatted aside by some of the more structural edits that are needed. It makes no sense to wallpaper a room, if some of the walls are in the wrong place. But if your manuscript is close to the finish line, then, for sure, a development edit has its place. Our office team won’t let you do a dev edit before you’re ready, so feel free to have an open discussion with them about options.

And finally, there’s the whole area of copy-editing with lighter (proofreading) and heavier (line-editing) flavours available.

Most writers won’t need those services at all. If you get traditionally published, your publisher will pay for all that stuff. You can just sit back and admire those handsomely placed commas.

The group that will certainly need copy-editing is anyone heading for self-publishing: these days, you just can’t hope to win with a shoddily presented manuscript. A scattered group that may think copy-editing is wise includes anyone with sensible reason to doubt their presentation (eg: English as a second language, or dyslexia.)

Either way though. The “edit hard yourself” rule still applies. Sometimes we get a really poorly presented manuscript and the writer is assuming that our copy-editor will just work a kind of magic with it. Not so, old buddy, not so. Your job here is the same: bring the editor the cleanest manuscript you possibly can. I guess a copy-editor picks up 95% or maybe even 99% of issues, but if you have hundreds and thousands of errors and problems scattered through the text, no editor will pick them all up.

The sorrow and the joy

Don’t expect editorial feedback to be an all-joyous thing. It isn’t. You bring us your precious baby hoping for us to dart her off to some Festival of Glorious Infants … but instead, we’re much more likely to tell you that your lovely babe has some terrible problems and will need immediate surgery.

I honestly want to tell our editorial clients to wait 48 hours before emailing us after an MS assessment. You’re likely to have some shock and/or upset, before that gives way to a kind of relieved euphoria. The euphoria, were it to speak, would say (in ancient Greek of course, but I’ll translate), “Wise editor, you have found what is worthy in my book and what is to be cast out. I venerate all that you have done and know that my feet are now set on the path of Righteous Endeavour.”

You will feel relieved (to have the issues made clear to you) and energised (because you know just what to do and how to do it.) You should also feel the book rebuilding itself as you work on it. You should feel it becoming steadily and predictably better as you go through your to do list.

For some writers, this is a one-off process. For others, it isn’t. There’s no right or wrong; only what’s right for you.

If you want to know more, contact our office team (you can just hit reply). They won’t try to sell you anything that’s not right for you. Our only real instruction to them is “honesty, always.”

That’s it from me. Debi’s Last Assignment follows …

Til soon, 

Harry 

FEEDBACK FRIDAY:

This week, it’s Assignment Six from Debi Alper’s Introduction to Self-Editing course.

Revise a scene from your novel, applying the techniques you’ve learned from this course. Share in the forum. Make sure to add feedback on others.

(This fantastic, self-directed video course is FREE to Premium Members. If you’re not one yet, you know what to do: join us here!Alternatively, you can buy the course as a one-off for £99.)

When you’re ready, log in to the forum and share your work. Make sure to add feedback on other people’s work, too!

Til soon.

Harry