I am currently in the throes of my first experience of working with a professional editor. It was a nerve-wracking experience trying to find and choosing one. But an editor is crucial for a book.
I went through the company Reedsy, as I had no idea of where else to start. With Reedsy, you fill out a form with everything they need to make a ‘proposal’ I guess you would call it. That includes an introduction of myself, what I am looking for, a sample of my work (I gave the first chapter) and a handful of other optional bits and pieces.
Then you browse their marketplace of editors, each with a profile. You choose up to five and Reedsy sends them through your proposal and you wait for offers.
I thought it would take a week or two to hear anything, but within an hour, I had two offers. I will admit the speed was a bit overwhelming.
The two offers were quite different from each other and I chose the one that seemed genuinely interested in my book over the one who said, “I can easily do that in two days.”
Formatting Help From Kindlepreneur
I had to learn how to format my google docs into the correct settings in Word. I achieved this by following step-by-step guides from a Kindlepreneur article. I love Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur. If he comes up during a search, I click straight to his listing, because I know it is trustworthy and fix whatever my issue is!
Feedback arrived
Let’s skip forward to getting my manuscript returned to me. I was at work (a nursing night shift) when the email came through. I was busy, but every time I had a few seconds, I tried to look at it.
I was expecting red lines (track changes) everywhere and was prepared to be told it was terrible and I needed to fix everything.
But I was quite surprised how few changes there were!
I didn’t know whether to take that as a good thing or not. I did do at least ten rounds of self edits but still thought it would need help from someone who actually knows what they are doing when it comes to how words are supposed to be strung together officially.
When I commented to the editor on how few changes she said, “With writers like you, sometimes I have to read a paragraph a few times to make sure I didn’t miss anything because it feels like I should have more edits, but don’t worry, yours read really well.”
Really?
I have to admit I was worried she didn’t read it properly and was a really bad editor. And I wondered if I had wasted my AUS$560 for a 19,000 word manuscript to be edited. Part of me thought I may have been able to get away without editing at all—for a brief moment only. All work should be edited before publishing.
Ellipses
The most frequent change she made was to all my ‘ellipses’. I had them as a single character, which can be done with a shortcut [ … ]. She wanted them all to be three individual dots [ . . . ].
Technically she is right, and they should be three dots, however, I purposely chose the single character option. I have read a few times that three dots pose challenges in ebooks as if they go over a line the ebook software may break them up. You could have one or two on the first line and then the rest on the next line, losing the effect of the three dots. (If you are reading this on a laptop you may have seen the effect in this article.)
If it is a single character, then no matter what font or size a reader has their ebook settings set at, they will remain together in the same line. And that’s the issue—every reader can have personalized settings and you can’t format a different document for every potential setting.
With my prequel only planned as an ebook, it made sense to make my ellipses single characters. I explained my usage to the editor, and she replied saying that I was not the first person to mention them as an issue.
I said I would have two documents in the future where one would have three dots for the paperback manuscript and one with single characters for the ebook manuscript. It’s a simple ‘find and replace’ in Google Docs, so not a big deal.
So I did not accept her track changes to my ellipses.
Honestly, there were so few changes I just hand made the non-ellipses changes in my Google Doc version of the manuscript as quicker than going through and skipping the ellipses. I do all my writing in Google Docs and only use Word for when I send a manuscript for editing.
Epic gut punch feedback
However, it wasn’t all roses. She was a bit of a buzzkill in that she said the story is not believable because no one in Michigan is scared of bears. What the???
Basically, she told me my story would not be taken seriously unless I changed the location of the book…
No, I can’t do that.
It hurt deep down in my stomach.
The prequel was the fifth book I wrote in this series, meaning all the other four were already set in the state of Michigan. I could not change them all as I’ve used history that relates to Michigan through them.
Black bears versus Grizzly Bears
I knew they only have black bears rather than grizzly bears in Michigan, but I still thought people would be scared by them. But apparently not. They are considered cute and hilarious. Worst-case scenario is they are a nuisance in the garden or break children’s toys. Seriously?
She said my characters wouldn’t be scared of the bears and act as dramatically as I had portrayed them at their bear visits. That was kind of the whole storyline…
I even asked ChatGPT if all this ‘people aren’t afraid of bears’ business was true and it told me the same thing, that my story did not work in Michigan…
A rewrite required
It took me a moment or two (or more) to deal with that, but I have since written a ‘tame’ version. Some of the characterization I had has been lost, in my opinion, but I think it will be okay.
People are no longer afraid for their life. Do you know how hard I worked to make it sound scary? All that time wasted.
I had already downplayed the plot, realizing a cozy mystery shouldn’t be too scary. So I would have to do that again. But this time, I needed more than just changes in individual words and expressed emotions and body reactions.
I came round to the idea and reshaped it as “now I have deleted scenes to give away as bonus material”.
Cobblestones
In more feedback, my editor told me I couldn’t have a cobblestone square in Willowcroft because Michigan doesn’t have those (I proved her slightly wrong on that front).
I did some research and yes, cobblestones are rare these days, but they do exist in Michigan, including in Grand Rapids.
I had been initially happy to just remove that descriptor, but after my new research, I kept it in.
From what I learned, I created a backstory as to why the cobblestones exist. It is hinted at in the prequel but will make more of an appearance in a later book. It will enrich the backstory between the shared history of two of the characters. You can never have too much backstory (as long as you don’t spill all the information out at once.)
But seriously, it is a fictional town in a fictional story. Can’t I make it have whatever I want? Other books have talking cats and ghosts. What’s a few extra cobblestones here and there? Right?
More places would have had cobblestones back in the day. They have just been covered over. Did you know streets became smoother by the rise of, and campaigning by, bicycle riders? Cars came way later. So I learned that thanks to the editor’s comments, which I may use in a later story too.
So it was all good feedback once the initial devastation dissipated.
Watch out for a blog post on cobblestones!
Tame version
So a tame version of the prequel was written. I didn’t have to rewrite the whole book. Wally is originally from Boston, and Olivia, New York, so it is fair for them to be scared as they have never encountered a bear before. I just added more about how they knew the locals thought nothing of them and bits and pieces like that.
Mrs. Temperance’s bear encounter had the biggest change as she has lived in Willowcroft her whole life, so she would know the black bears aren’t dangerous and wouldn’t hurt her. Yet she feared for her life in the version the editor read. I think the rewrite works ok.
My thought though is that the bears aren’t acting normal, so wouldn’t that be a concern even though they aren’t grizzlies??? Surely any wild animal is capable of hurting you in the right circumstances?
It doesn’t matter now. Like I said, I have downplayed the scary bears and now have deleted scenes to share. So no big deal.
I will now send the changes back to the editor and see if she thinks I have made enough changes to be believed. Fingers crossed!
Update
My editor was very happy with my changes and is now about to start editing Book 1 of the series. Hopefully, there will be no major rewrites this time round.
