Editing for Indies - Sorting the Facts from the Fictions by Catherine Czerkawska

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an indie author in possession of a manuscript must be in want of an editor. Or several. Few writers question this. Not in public, anyway. Although you might be surprised to learn that privately, a great many experienced novelists disagree. I could name (but I won't. Your secrets are safe with me) a number of well reviewed, nay celebrated, novelists who - perhaps I should be whispering this - self-edit. Mostly. Although they are not afraid to ask for professional help as and when they need it. And will even pay for it if necessary.

Beta testing anyone? 

When the number of editors is legion, unpaid volunteers, they are sometimes called Beta Readers. The original Beta Testers were, and still are, groups of people invited to use a new software product or video game and report on irritating faults or bugs. So - conventional wisdom goes - you find yourself a group of readers, let them loose on your manuscript and follow their instructions. Which, if you can find any significant points of comparison between your novel and a piece of software, might be a useful process. There are many people who swear by their Beta Readers. But I have never, in my years of tutoring Creative Writing groups of one kind or another, groups stuffed with lovely, talented people, I might add, come across a group of writers I would trust to tell me how to rework my own fiction. Nor would I presume to advise them in any but the most general terms what they ought to do with theirs. I'm not against editors and the editing process per se. In fact a good editor is a pearl of great price. Once you have found one, never let him or her go.The problem is that not all editors are good editors and it's certain that not all editors are good for you, as a writer.

It's impossible to acquire any kind of track record in publication and production without also acquiring significant experience of the editing process, good and bad. Any kind of new play development - for example - involves a long process of analysis, difficult questions and endless rewrites, the dramatic equivalent of the editorial process. This is the reason why most producers of radio drama like to have the dramatist present in the studio. No matter how much work you've done beforehand, there will be rewrites and it's always preferable if those rewrites can be done by the creator of the piece, even if it means writing on the hoof. Queries are one thing; concrete suggestions quite another. As a writer, you can readily take on board that something might be problematic or unclear, but in theatre at least - television is another matter entirely - no director or actor worth his or her salt will attempt to rewrite the dialogue unless they know you and your writing style very well. I can count on the fingers of one hand the colleagues I would trust to do this and they are almost all actors I know and respect, never writers. Instead, they will ask you for your alternative.

Quartz

When I was writing for the Traverse in Edinburgh, the rewrites only stopped at the point where the actors protested that they couldn't learn anything new in the time available. And all theatre is a collaboration. But here's an interesting thing. Some years later, I met the director I had worked with at that time, and he remarked, casually,  'You know, you were much too accommodating, Catherine. You should have dug your heels in a lot more. If you agree too easily, all that happens is that people will suggest more and more changes.'
Now, I was young and relatively inexperienced with theatre, and the plays which eventually emerged from all those rewrites did pretty well. But the director also had a point. Give people an inch and they will always be tempted to grab the extra mile.

Over the years, I've known good, bad and indifferent editors.  Sometimes they were working for publishers or for agencies; sometimes they were directors or actors. All were fulfilling the function of reading the work in question and commenting on it, sometimes in detail, asking tricky questions and expecting me to make changes. I've done a little editing myself and you walk a tightrope, always resisting the urge to say in too much detail what you would do yourself, trying hard to ask the right questions, questions which will somehow allow the writer to work out what she needs to do: a process of teaching people to teach themselves, teaching people to do without you.

My worst editor, for a piece of fiction, assumed a position of superiority, pointed out 'anachronisms' on every page, (they weren't) tried to rewrite my dialogue and made extensive changes to the manuscript without flagging them up in any way. In between, I've met the good, the bad and the indifferent.The problem is that too often I've been inclined to believe them all. It's one of our failings as writers - the belief that somebody else knows more than we do about our work. But with hindsight, I can see that not all of them were right. Worse, they had agendas of their own. Quirks. Irrational prejudices. Least favourite words and phrases. Books they wished they had written. Books they wished I had written.

A little while ago, I saw a request from an Indie writer for Beta Readers. The writer in question quoted a long and very precise list of things she wanted the Beta Readers to highlight for her. They included whether or not characters were fully rounded, plot inconsistencies, structural inconsistencies, overall structural integrity, dialogue, vocabulary and more, a whole paragraph of wants. It struck me that since she clearly knew about these things, and knew that they might need to be addressed, she also needed to learn how to do that for herself. It's what writers do. She needed to set her manuscript to one side for however long it took (and that's personal. There are no hard and fast rules) and go back to it in a month, several months, possibly even a year. Whereupon everything would become much clearer. Meanwhile, my advice would have been to get on with more writing. Always get on with more writing, so that while one book is lying fallow you have something else to concentrate on. Keep the ball rolling.

You may need to repeat this process several times. There are few shortcuts. A good editor can help you by asking the right questions. In finding the answers, you'll improve the piece of work. But the editor or, worse, a group of editors, worst of all, a group of editors who haven't even found their own voices yet, can't do the work for you. This is a personal opinion, but I don't think you can write a novel by committee. Well, you can. But you'll never find your own true voice. And the more you rely on other people to tell you what they think you ought to do with your manuscript, the less sure you will become about what works and what doesn't. It's a little like learning to drive and passing your test. Sooner or later, you are going to have to get in that car, switch on the engine and go it alone.

Last year, I had an interesting conversation with an artist. We are roughly the same age, with roughly the same level of experience and a reasonable amount of success. Would she, I asked, expect to submit her latest artwork to somebody for validation. Would she expect to be treated like a beginner, told where she was going wrong, and what she had to do to fix it? She looked at me as though I had two heads.
No. She would not. She was no longer a beginner. She had served her apprenticeship. But yes, she would allow the work to lie fallow for a spell and go back to it with a fresh eye. And yes, she might well discuss a project with a trusted colleague and ask for an opinion. Especially if and when she felt that she couldn't see the wood for the trees. But trust had to be established first and sometimes comments and especially suggestions might be inimical to the spirit of the work. You had to learn to be careful. Had to learn to trust your own instincts as an artist.
Had to learn to do it for yourself.
I think so too.