An author re-connected this week to ask about how to get unstuck. She’d started a memoir and finished it enough to have it edited. This week she reached out to see what she ought to do about all of those edits. Not the changing of sentence structure or correction of grammar. I didn’t see the other editor’s changes, but I’d bet the stuff that stopped up the revision was the notes in the margins.
Two choices propel the quest for an author. Those both lead to a better book, because as editors we want to make books better, not just read different. One choice is to hand over a draft because we know it needs some help and we’re ready to do our part. It’s like a bucket brigade to quench a fire, and the editor handles the bucket after you’ve passed it to them. After the edit, the editor hands it down the line. Back to you, because you’re the expert on the story and the facts and the characters.
So you pitch in and roll up your sleeves and review all the changes and the margin notes. Then you make choices. Art and creating is all about making choices. There are no wrong choices, some people believe. I’d say it’s better art when one thing has a relation to another element in the work. Going off the reservation has its limited effect. Too often and the reader doesn’t feel they’re in good hands.
The other choice with editing is to send a draft to an editor and expect a changed and repaired book in return. Those notes in the margins don’t trouble an author with that kind of edit, because the editor has now made choices for you. You’re in rewrite, as we used to say in the newspaper business. You did your best, and now the editor at the desk is going to have the last word.
If you have editing returned and you’re stuck, you’re about to learn more from the life of writing. Revision is everything, and other voices change your creations. I always talk about the richness of having someone to read behind me. I had three passes at these “outside eyes” after a fourth set of workshop writing group authors. My job was to accept or reject all suggestions, plus absorb the corrections with humility.
Sins of Liberty would never read the way it does without all of those voices. Near the end, it’s just you and the last proofreading editor. You’re the final bucket-handler, though. If the notes in the margins stump you, it’s time for a review with your editor, who’s probably built in a little time for this exchange.
