Nervous about hiring an editor because you dread the critique of your labor of love?
I totally get it. No one loves hearing what’s wrong with the thing they’ve poured their heart and soul into. It’s hard to see that heavily marked-up Word doc and it HURTS and it means more work for you to go back and fix all those typos and inconsistencies and deal with that high-level criticism that might cause you to have to rework substantial parts of the story.
(I used to so dread the editing process that I would try to write everything perfectly on the first go so only minimal edits would be required. You can imagine how that went and just how often I attained perfection. But that’s another blog post for another day.)
Could you finish your story, hit spellcheck, do a read-through, and then chuck it up on Amazon? Sure, plenty of people do. (Hell, plenty of people skip the spellcheck and read-through parts of the equation.) But is that fair to you or to your story?
Receiving feedback and edits is an unavoidable part of developing your craft as a writer and will help shape your story into a final product to be proud of. If you avoid it, you’re doing a disservice to yourself and to the story.
When an editor is doing her job properly, she is going to make you stretch beyond what you thought you were capable of. And that stretch can sometimes be painful. Reading the edits is hard, but it’s the real work you do once you start implementing the changes that’s going to help make that stretch so much easier in the future. Pushing the limits of your abilities will make you a better writer in your revisions and in your writing career as you continue to expand your skills with subsequent stories.
It’s also a lot more useful to get feedback on the story before it’s published from someone who cares deeply about your work – a good editor wants the best for you and your story. And you’re getting that feedback privately rather than publicly. We’ve all seen those reviews about poor spelling/grammar, gaping plot holes, characters who don’t ring true. Chances are, if you read those reviews, you didn’t buy that book. Why spend all that time writing something that people aren't going to read?
You’ve put in the love and care into writing this story; let an editor put her love and care into helping it be the best it can be and helping you stretch your writing muscles.
