What do you mean her behavior is "out of character"? I WROTE this character!

If you’re new to the process, you might expect the following:

1. The editor loves something you did and wants you to keep it the way it is. Validation! Hooray! Whatever the editor approves of—your characterization, your structure, your word choices—it’s one less thing to worry about as you focus on the areas that didn’t work as well.

2. The editor doesn’t like some element of your writing and shows you how to improve it. Obviously, this is a lot less fun to hear. You may be disappointed in yourself for not having gotten it right to begin with. You’re probably frustrated about the amount of time and effort it will take to fix the problem. Still, the whole point of hiring an editor was to make the book better, and now you know how to do that.

But there’s a third option you may not have considered:

3. The editor makes a suggestion you don’t agree with. At all.

It happens. In fact, it’s unusual for a writer to agree with each and every suggestion the editor makes. Don’t freak out. No, really, don’t freak out. Deep breaths. It’s going to be okay.

The first thing to do when you find yourself face-to-face with questionable advice is … nothing. Don’t argue with the editor. Don’t plunge in and do what the editor tells you, either. Just let the critique sit for two or three days.

Once the initial shock has passed, you’re ready for the second step: trying to figure out why you disagree. A tip from acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman will serve you well here.

When people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

Say your story centers around a love triangle, and your editor objects to its resolution. Mark would never choose sincere-but-boring Laurie (your editor argues)—he’d lose interest in her within a week. It’s more realistic for him to run off with Danielle, the dangerously unpredictable Alaskan bush pilot. If you still don’t agree after a few days, go back and puzzle out what the editor is reacting to. Maybe you failed to show Laurie’s more enticing qualities. Maybe Mark’s character growth, which enables him to stop running from healthy relationships, isn’t as apparent to readers as you think. The solution: instead of changing the ending, tweak previous passages so that the ending makes more sense.

Take heart. You survived writing a whole book; you’ll survive the critique. Just remember that it’s possible to take an editor’s advice seriously without sacrificing your vision.

A few days later, the author did something unusual. He sent e-mail to the editors he didn’t pick and offered detailed feedback on how he’d gone about choosing one person out of many qualified candidates.

He said he was pleased with the responses he received … mostly. The exception was a woman who provided “discouraging” comments and told him the story needed more work than he thought it did. At first this distressed him quite a bit. Then he shook it off. The majority of other bidders had said the manuscript was in pretty good shape—that, in fact, it looked better than most. Why believe the lone naysayer?

His logic was sound. Just one problem: the naysayer was right.

It’s not uncommon for writers to tell prospective editors that their manuscript needs “just a light edit.” It’s not uncommon for them to be overly optimistic. When that happens, we as editors have a couple of options.

1. Point out the flaws.
2. Say nothing.

#1 is the more ethical response. Authors expect publishable work out of the editing process. If the level of editing they’re asking for won’t get them there, they need to know that. They need us to tell them.^*

Unfortunately, there’s a sort of natural selection at play that favors option #2. Writers are more likely to hire us when we don’t hurt their feelings, and option #1 will hurt their feelings no matter how diplomatic we try to be. Furthermore, option #1 may lead them to suspect that we’re being mercenary, pushing more expensive services than (they think) they need. This is why I won’t outright condemn those who don’t press the issue. After enough authors refuse to hire us because we’re honest, it’s understandable for some of us to conclude that we shouldn’t bother.

It probably sounds as though I’m blaming writers for this state of affairs. I’m not. In the example above, the author had good reason to believe his manuscript didn’t need substantive revisions. He’d done his due diligence by getting it edited once. He likely had a group of first readers, friends and family, who were more eager to focus on the genuinely praiseworthy aspects of his book than have an awkward conversation about things that could be improved.

Sometimes the people who seek our services really are egomaniacs who believe they can do no wrong, but that’s rare. Most overconfident authors simply aren’t getting enough accurate feedback early in the process.

What does all of this mean for you, the writer? How can you ensure that you’ll get an honest assessment from potentially gun-shy editors?

Ask for it.

Instead of “I only need proofreading” or “How much do you charge for a light edit,” say, “What kind of editing do you think this manuscript needs?”

Do this even if it’s been professionally edited seven times.

You may not always be happy with the answer, but I promise you, you’ll be happier with the results.

^{* Though I didn’t inform this author that he needed more than proofreading, I did offer him a free three-page sample edit. If he’d taken me up on it, I would have shown him what a higher level of editing could do for his book. Telling him before he requested a sample edit, I predicted, would end badly—as it did for the other editor.↩}