A Love Letter to my Editor

She found the gold in the dirt

To say that I was skeptical and nervous about working with an editor is an understatement. 

I carry (like many) visceral and raw memories of a sea of red ink. And not kind, helpful red ink - but pedantic, critical, hurtful red ink. The kind that leaves you questioning yourself. Or pissed off. (Or sometimes both 🤣!)

Over the years I’d come to trust and know that I can actually write fairly well—and that a lot of the previous red ink was more about them than me. 

So, did I even need an editor, then, I wondered? There was the expense for one thing. But really, what was an editor going to do that my beta readers couldn’t do too? 

Aah, with hindsight the ignorance of that question is laughable…and cringeworthy! A total first-time-writing-a-novel mistake! 

One of the best explanations of the difference between a beta reader and an editor that I came across when deciding what I wanted to do was: “a beta reader is an average reader, an editor is an expert reader.” 

My beta readers gave me lots of great feedback. But my editor could tell me WHY my beta readers had the feedback they did. More importantly, she could also provide suggestions on HOW to address the feedback. She saw where my dialogue was flat, where I was “head-hopping”, where I was leaving dangling threads, where I was creating a confusion of threads (trying to do too much at once). She could see the holes and gaps that my beta readers might have subconsciously registered, but hadn’t directly voiced. A specific example I’m thinking of here is that my editor asked me about how lonely and isolated my main character was supposed to be. She had picked up on subtle inconsistencies between how I was portraying the main character, and where and how supporting characters were showing up. 

What finally tipped me into deciding to work with my editor? 

“I don’t believe you need to punch someone’s baby to help it grow up,” she said. And that’s when I knew she was the right person to work with. As any writer will tell you, it’s supremely vulnerable entrusting your “baby”, this thing that you have spent literally hundreds of hours on, to someone else. 

It takes real skill to be able to see the gold in a book when it is still surrounded by tons of dirt. That’s the skill she had: she went in looking for the gold, not looking for the dirt. 

The end result: tons of dirt was indeed excavated (the book overhauled top to bottom). But that dirt was excavated with glee and with purpose, because it was about bringing out the gold. 

And it was my editor who showed me where the gold was. 

So to Emily Dahl (and Dahlhouse Editing)

I am in your debt. I don’t have another editor to compare you to. But I don’t want another editor.

And I am looking forward to many years of finding more gold together.