The Wizard Behind the Curtain
My notebook from a Center for Fiction workshop with the genius Stefan Merrill Block, which I subsequently dropped in water and blow-dried. He later reviewed my manuscript.
It’s a freelance editor!
I assume there is a stigma around freelance editing. I don’t know this for certain, but the secrecy around which authors use freelance editors implies it must be shameful. Authors don’t explicitly thank their freelance editors in the Acknowledgements page of their books. They don’t admit their manuscript has been edited in their query letters. But I refuse to believe that’s because authors don’t use them. I know freelance editors, and someone is paying them.
When a lawyer is applying for a job at a new law firm, they are usually asked to submit a writing sample—a brief they’ve written in a prior case to show off their skill. The reality is that no junior lawyer is filing briefs without edits from a more senior attorney, and when the junior lawyer submits his or her writing sample for a new job, it probably incorporates those edits. This process is not discussed, but it is understood. Freelance editing must be similar.
Sure, there are writers who don’t need it. They were born with novels bursting out of them like sneezes—a little bit of build up and then, ACHOO, brilliance. There are also writers who have studied for years, whether in undergraduate, MFA, PhD, or all of the above, and they’ve learned how to write a novel. But then there’s me, and maybe you, and definitely that guy over there. We have no clue what we’re doing. We’ve got ideas, imagination, desire, and good grades in English. Enter freelance editor.
A freelance editor does not write your book for you. You can pay someone to do that for you, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about. A freelance editor will read your work and provide comments, much like a classmate in a workshop or your friend in a writers’ group, but instead of jotting down some notes on the subway ride there, they will invest as much time as you are willing to pay for. And they are experienced authors and editors whose feedback you should be able to trust (otherwise, why did you hire them?).
I had no idea that freelance editing was a thing I should know about until I took a Center for Fiction workshop, and our teacher said that famous authors (who I will not name because see first paragraph) use them, paying thousands of dollars for the best editors in the biz. They view this as an investment. Write a better book, get paid more money for your book. A year or so later, I reached out to him to ask for more information on freelance editing generally and how it worked. He connected me with his editor-friend at The Finished Thought because he thought she would be a good fit for the novel I was writing. For me, this turned into a life-changing partnership.
At the time, my novel told a story through three different voices. I had been unsuccessfully writing and rewriting the first fifty pages for a year and half, with only an outline of the rest. Once my new friend read the first three chapters, she told me—politely—that one voice was compelling but the other two were not. Ditch them, she said. Go with the one that works. When I started writing only through the voice that I clicked with, the pages flowed. It was like I had this really ugly piece of art my grandmother had given me, and whatever room I hung it in became the ugly room. But then I read Marie Kondo, and finally had a reason to throw it in the garbage. Without her perspective, I don’t know when, or even if, I would have reached that epiphany.
Later, my novel veered into a strange direction. My novel is about marriage, and one day the main character woke up and decided to get divorced. In one paragraph, she got a lawyer, a new apartment, and a new outlook. The first line said something like, “Getting married is all about sex. Getting divorced is all about money.” Not a very good line. You’ve lost the tension, my new friend said. I realized that trading in for a fresh start is good in real life, but it’s not good in fiction. Anytime a character is running away from something, it’s probably a narrative misstep—unless the character is being chased by a murderer, a pack of wolves, or an FBI agent.
Finally, I reached the end, which for me is the hardest part of the novel. If my first draft were a mountain range, it had many peaks and valleys. The main characters fought, then made up and had a nice dinner, then went home and fought again before climbing into a cozy bed and getting a good night’s rest. “No comfortable chair,” my new best friend said. By this she meant that toward the end of the novel, the tension must rise to the height of the stakes you’ve established, and you don’t want to break this tension by giving your character a comfortable chair to sit in and mull their choices over until the very end. (In my second draft, I took this advice far beyond its logical conclusion and wrote an ending involving smashing a shark tank and breaking into Gracie Mansion.)
The point is, the book is still yours, and receiving targeted feedback throughout the process is nothing to be ashamed of.
Here are some amazing writers and teachers I’ve had at Catapult, Sackett Street, and Center for Fiction who offer editing services (hire them!):
https://chelseabieker.com/
https://www.stefanmerrillblock.com/
http://lynnstegerstrong.com/
https://www.heatheraimeeoneill.com/
Catapult also connects writers with freelance editors here: https://catapult.co/c/consultations