Editing

Who edits the editors? Why, other editors of course.

It’s been a long time—a very long time now I think about it—but I finally found both headspace and spacetime in which to concentrate on my own writing.

Last summer I finally put the finishing touches to the first draft of a science fiction novel that I began sketching out in 2013. As I’d been working on it for 11 years and had made major changes to the plot at least twice, I needed fresh eyes on it. To do this, I turned to Russell Jones, a colleague from the early Shoreline of Infinity days, a writer I’ve shared two publishers with, and a fellow freelance editor. Russell works at/runs/is Black Blade Literary and as a fellow SF fan, he was an obvious choice to edit this manuscript.

He did the work through October 2024 for a very reasonable rate, and well within the agreed timeframe, but because of my day job and other nonsense, I wasn’t able to do more than give it a cursory glance at the time. When I edit my own work, I need to be able to immerse myself in it without fear of distraction and I knew I wouldn’t be able to do that at the end of 2024. This week I carved out enough time to more or less ensure that.

Russell did a great job. Being edited means opening yourself up to all kinds of shame, running the gauntlet of “how the hell did I miss that?” “oh, how embarrassing” and “how do you not understand… oh yeah, that doesn’t make sense, does it?” He was definitely the right choice because in addition to all the typos, inconsistencies, and saggy bits he found, he is a writer and reader familiar with the thought experiments necessary for creating a consistent science-fictional world. He caught a number of things about my world that had never crossed my mind and which, now fixed, make the world stronger.

This month I’ve been on both sides of the desk, working with two writers I am mentoring while dealing with the weaknesses in my own writing. I have a reputation as being quite a tough editor, not pulling my punches, not sugar-coating criticism. Some writers like this style. Some actually want to work with me for exactly that reason. One of my mentees says she finds it funny, that in her day job people apply the “shit sandwich” approach to feedback (positive-negative-positive) which is incredibly patronising (it’s essentially childish, a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down) while I just write “Stop it!” in the margins. Other writers don’t like it so much, which is fair enough.

This, incidentally, is why we pay professional editors rather than just getting our friends to read for us. Friends won’t tell you it’s shit. Friends won’t spend hours digging into the structure of the narrative in an attempt to explain why the plot goes off the rails around page 180. Unless you’re very lucky, friends won’t tell you that chapter 39 is honestly just so boring they thought about giving up then and there. The amount of people I’ve edited who say, “Why has no one ever told me this before? I’ve shown it to so many people!” Yep, but I’m the first person who is being paid to tell you the truth. I don’t have to hang out with you afterwards.

I edit that way because that’s what works for me as a writer; it’s what I want. If something I’ve written is shit, I want my editor to tell me it’s shit and how to fix it (before it’s published, not after when it’s too late, useless critics), that’s an editor’s job. The editor for my first three novels, Rodge Glass, used to write “WE KNOW!” in the margins of my manuscripts when I was over-explaining or repeating myself, and to this day whenever I write I have his voice in my head shouting “WE KNOW!” It may hurt your ego in the moment but by god you don’t forget your mistakes going forward.

Russell is less brutal, but still nicely direct, which works for me. I can feel the jaggy bits of the book being smoothed down as I go through it, can feel the plot clicking into place, the pace picking up as bits are cut out, and that’s what editing is all about.

I’ve missed this, being immersed in my writing for a prolonged period (i.e. more than an hour here or there, which is what I’ve been reduced to recently). Hopefully I can carry it on in the coming weeks and get to work on new writing, rather than redrafting. I always prefer the blank page.

The biggest issue I’m left with is that Russell doesn’t think the title works, and I would tend to agree. I hate titles. I hate coming up with them. It’s the worst part of the process for me. Every time I have to do it I understand why Led Zeppelin just went with I, II, III and didn’t even bother naming the fourth album (we call it IV but that name isn’t anywhere on the record). The author wants a title that encapsulates the heart of the book (I wanted to call The Waves Burn Bright “Caldera” for example); the publisher wants a title that explains to the buyers in places like Waterstones what kind of book it is (In the Shadow of Piper Alpha), the “does exactly what it says on the tin” approach. Finding something that pleases both camps is next to impossible unless you are doing crime fiction (put the word dead, murder, or blood somewhere in there and you’re fine). I wonder if I can find a publisher who’ll let me call this one Iain Maloney X.