My whole life, it seems, is writing. I write books under my own name. Like most writers, I have a day job too. That day job is ghost writing. My biggest client recently employed a new editor, and I love having someone else go through my work. I’ll be the first to admit I never find all of my own mistakes. This editor, however, seems to feel that nastiness is the way to reform.
Like I’ve said, I make mistakes. I don’t catch them all. On one memorable occasion, I switched to Spanish for three paragraphs, self-edited the manuscript three times, and still didn’t catch the change. The editor (not the problematic one) caught it, gently pointed out that she had no idea what I was trying to say, and we both had a good laugh.[1] I usually defer to my editor, because I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses.
This editor, on the other hand? Her first comments to me included things like, “You’re just bad at dialogue.” Which would be fine, if the reviews for the work I’d done for this client didn’t include specific praise for the dialogue. Lots of it. She likes to challenge things as “not factual” when five seconds on Google would prove me correct. She doesn’t understand commonly used figures of speech, to the point where I’m linking her to Urban Dictionary and even the regular dictionary.
On the last project I submitted, she called me a hack. To my face.
Now, I think I understand some of what she’s doing. She most likely sees her behavior as motivational. Some people believe that being negative toward subordinates encourages them to strive harder toward perfection. It even works on some people. The problem with this is that I’m not her subordinate, and that’s never been a motivational technique that works well on me even from people who are in a position of authority over me.
Another issue here is that most of the issues here – pretending there are errors where there aren’t, for example, and not understanding basic figures of speech – make it extremely difficult to take her seriously as an editor or respect the changes she suggests. Some of them are valid, but I find myself tempted to blow them off and write “stet” just because they’re coming from her.
And finally, every time I get revisions from her, I’m left useless for days. Any other authors in the m/m space will tell you, this has been a tough year in terms of sales. The day job provides most of my income, but to keep this job I have to keep submitting work to someone who subjects me to insults and can’t spend five minutes looking up something she doesn’t understand. Then I’m left trying to play catch up, which doesn’t exactly add to my job satisfaction (or get more work done on my own projects!) I’ve enjoyed working with this client so far, but now I’m questioning our whole relationship.
I have a lot of respect for editors. You’re sitting there going through work that may in fact be drivel, and it might be so unreadable you can’t tell if it’s drivel or not. You’re all in a precarious position too, in terms of the market. The work you do makes our final product better, and I appreciate what you do. Every profession has its bad apples.
I just needed to exorcise this particular demon, and to give a general warning
about this kind of behavior. Calling someone a hack isn’t going to endear yourself to them, and if you’re going to challenge an author on easily proven facts make sure of yourself first. It’ll go a long way toward smoothing your editor – author relationship, and they’ll trust you in the future.
[1] The lesson learned being “When you pull an all-nighter to get the manuscript in on time, you will regret it. Stop. Don’t do that. You’re not an undergrad anymore.”