I was a little fearful when I reached the point in writing Dig Down that I needed to find an editor. I’d written plenty of stories, most of which I’d never shared with anybody, but all of which I’d worked on by myself. I knew that if I wanted to go the publishing route, I’d need to hire an editor, but I was still a little apprehensive.
Everything I’d ever worked on had my voice because I was the only one who worked on it. But would that still be the case if I shared it with someone?
I’d submitted my manuscript to a consulting agency. There was one editor who’s bio I read who I thought would be a good fit for me, but the agency passed it along to another editor as well in case my top choice passed on the project. This other consultant’s notes were that they were really intrigued by the setup, that my opening avoided the trap of many first time writers by just providing tons of exposition up front….but that a standard novel was between 70 and 80 thousand words, and that because Dig Down was half that, we should work on beefing up the word count.
As I’ve mentioned before, brevity was key to Dig Down. It needed to have that quick pace so that it felt like Rob was constantly in danger. I knew the tradeoff I was making. Focusing on the pursuit left little in the way of character development for all the characters, but it was something I was willing to sacrifice so that I could make the escape is great as I could, believing that this would make the story stand out among the rest of the vast number of reading options out there.
I stared at that message blankly when I read it, thinking “You haven’t even read beyond the first two chapters (what even is that…3, 4 pages?) and you’re already proposing a vast overhaul to the story? You have no idea why those choices were even made, and you’re proposing a change based on the way other books have been written.”
Luckily for me, my first choice also responded later that day. She was also intrigued by the premise and impressed by the first few chapters. There was no suggestion to immediately double the word count because that’s how long most books were. She even outlined her process: reading the story through once to understand what was happening in it and what sort of story I was trying to tell, before reading it a second time to suggest revisions.
This. This was exactly what I needed to feel comfortable working with an editor. This was exactly how I felt the editing process should go. She wasn’t interested in taking my story and stripping away everything that made it mine. She was about finding out the best way to make everything work and still sound like I was telling it. A lot of her comments were about keeping the point of view consistent and pointing out where more of an explanation was necessary because it was confusing, and one thing she kept saying was “I don’t know what the answer to this is, but, that’s your job, to write it.” This always assuaged my fear that my story was being taken away from me and molded into something else.
So if you’re writing a story that you want to publish one day, but are worried that sending it to an editor will change the story you’re trying to tell into something unrecognizable, don’t be. You might get a response similar to the one I got from the first editor, but you’ll know that that one isn’t for you. They’re not trying to take your idea and rewrite it to the point where it’s their book but has your name on the book jacket. They’re doing what they can to make your story as polished and excellent as it can be.