Top Five Things I Learned While Working with My Editor

1. Don’t Take It Personal – Consider your editor Monica and you’re the crusty ass boy she was singing that song to. This is a business and at the end of the day, your editor should provide honest feedback. The last thing you want is for your editor to blow smoke up your ass telling you the book is great only for you to release it and get crappy reviews. Now you’re looking like Debo after Craig knocked him out and the whole block is clowning you because your editor was trying to spare your feelings. I’m learning that if you’re going to be a writer you need tough skin, a good sense of humor, and a drive to push through.

2. Trust the Process – Copy editing takes time, and you don’t want to rush the process. Please don’t pass on hiring a professional because your brother’s girlfriend took an English course at the community college. Ebony doesn’t know anything about sentence structure or the genre you write in. She doesn’t even like dystopian fantasy but since you said you’d pay her forty dollars she agrees to skim through your 100K book. Damnit, Gina, that’s not gonna fly. Decide on a budget, get a sample edit, and pick the editor that’s right for you.

3. Don’t be afraid to start over – When I received the notes from my editor regarding my debut novel the feedback wasn’t good. The feedback I got hurt my feelings and made me question my lifelong dream. I consider myself a practical person and I had an honest conversation with myself, and part of the conversation was asking myself if this writing thing was for me. Maybe I’m not meant to be an author, I thought. And that’s fine, writing a book is hard work and I accomplished that, maybe that was enough.

But there was another part of me who was like, “Fuck that. Stop being a scared baby and get your ass back up and implement the changes to make your book better.” And that’s exactly what I did. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t make the book better, I wrote a completely different book. Same characters and setting with a totally different story. (Sidenote: The fact that my editor didn’t charge me for editing roughly seventy thousand new words is beyond me. But for that I will be forever grateful.) The end result is a book I am immensely proud of.

I say all that to say this, starting over isn’t failing, it’s just approaching the same situation with new facts. When you know better you do better.

4. Pay attention – Your editor is like that blonde chick off of The Players Club. “All eyes on me Mothersuckers.” Your editor is going to be dropping knowledge so grab a pen and paper and take some damn notes. What you learn during the editing process can make you a better writer. For my first book, I choose a developmental edit. That shit is more expensive but for me, a first-time author, it was worth it. I learned so much about how to structure my book, develop my characters, and weave a cohesive story.

Think of your editor like your favorite stylist. Yes, you could try to do it on your own, but can’t nobody lay them edges, tuck them box braids, or achieve the perfect shade of auburn brown like your hairstylist can. Your editor is the same way, she/he will see things you missed, point out inconsistencies, and if she’s really good tell you your shit is whack, in the nicest way possible of course.

5. Trust your gut – Don’t be afraid to make the big choices, this is your career. My debut novel Working Through It was supposed to be released in the early part of 2021. But it wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want to rush it. So, I decided to wait and make sure the book was what I wanted it to be. I made hard choices about chapters and cut characters. I believe that my book is better because of it.

Bonus tip: Shop around. I plan to work with several editors this year. I have already hired two. One for a standalone book and the other for a novella. I want to test the waters and work with different editors so that I know what I like and don’t. It’s like dating you wouldn’t marry the first person you ever kissed, without playing tonsil hockey with a few other people.

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