5 tips to help you conquer your fears about sending your manuscript to an editor
As a soft-spoken, mild-mannered sort of person, I sometimes forget that writers can find it scary to send me their work. But of course it’s daunting to invite someone into a fictional world that you might have spent years inventing—and not only invite someone in but ask them for feedback.
Here are five tips for getting past that fear so you can get the help you want for your manuscript.
1. Think of your editor as, first and foremost, a reader.
Because that’s what we are! Editors are readers who love stories and words, and our job is to make them shine. After a while, a novel-length manuscript can start to resemble nothing so much as a pile of words or pages to someone who has been laboring away on it for months or years. You sometimes need a reader to show you again the story that is there—to show you what is getting through and what is still clouded or incomplete. And a highly trained reader like your editor is exactly the person you need for the job.
2. Think of your editor as a teacher—the mentoring sort of teacher, not the hectoring sort.
While there are plenty of grammar scolds in the world, most of these folks are not professional editors. We’re here to help you, not judge you. Editors on Twitter regularly share their delight at catching a hard-to-spot error or unusual typo. For those of us who work on fiction, especially, our job is to be aware of language trends and help you establish a voice that is authentic for your story and your characters. And sometimes that means using who when whom is technically correct. Also, remember that editors are human too—we are not immune to mistakes or typos, even in our own writing.
I made an unexpected edit this morning: public —> pubic #AmEditing
— Brenna Bailey-Davies | Editor (@EditorBrenna) February 19, 2021
3. Consider what kind of communication style you prefer and make sure you work with an editor who uses that style.
Some writers prefer an editor who is blunt and thorough. Other editors prefer someone with a gentler touch. Talk to your editor about how they’ll make suggestions. If you are doing a copyedit, do you want your editor to untangle awkward or garbled sentences directly in the document, using tracked changes? Or do you prefer them to explain the problem with the sentence and suggest an alternative in a comment? A sample edit, which many editors will provide for free or for a low fee, is a good way to make sure your communication styles will be a good fit. Also consider how an editor handles follow-up questions: do you want to be able to talk to someone directly via phone or Zoom? Or do you prefer email exchanges? Find out up front when and how you can expect to hear back from your editor too, so you aren’t anxiously haunting your inbox while your editor is still buried in the manuscript.
4. If all else fails, use tech tricks to fake yourself out.
One of my clients confessed that she sometimes will schedule an email with a draft to go out later, because it feels less stressful to hit “schedule” than “send.” If she thinks of additional tweaks, she can get back in and do more editing, or she can just forget about it and let it go. Along the same lines, it can be reassuring to create a separate copy to send to your editor. (And additional backups are never a bad thing.) You can even reformat your document so it looks unfamiliar—perhaps put it in a different font and change the line spacing so it looks less like the manuscript you have been poring over for so long.
5. Know that it gets easier.
Once you’ve established a relationship with an editor and have learned to trust them, it will be easier to send them future work. You’ll know that the work is leaving your hands only temporarily and that it will return to you with the feedback you need to make it even better. With the right relationship, editing can become a familiar and welcome step in the creative cycle: write, get feedback, revise, repeat. In fact, it’s the step when you, the writer, get to take a vacation from your words—and who doesn’t like vacations?
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