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Sometimes it’s impossible to see the truth about your work until you’ve seen it through someone else’s eyes.


I edited fiction for ten years before I wrote my first novels, Kiss and Burn, with Ted Dekker. Editorial knowledge is a great asset to my writing life. I grasp the fundamentals of the craft. I understand that novels are evolving creatures who look, at first draft, a little like I do when I crawl out of bed on a Monday morning. Most of all, I know not to fear the editorial process, which is like getting a wax: beautifying enough to be worth the pain.


When it came time for me to fly solo and write Never Let You Go, however, I mistook my editorial savvy for time-tested storytelling skill and attempted to write the novel in the first person. This is the most intimate voice to approach a reader with and, therefore, one of the most difficult to pull off. My thought: no sweat.


Every writer needs a little bit of ego like this. The only alternative is insecurity, and then paralysis.
So when my editor graciously explained that the novel’s tone created undesirable effects and declared the first-person voice to be responsible, my ego hemmed and hawed. My editor made several recommendations, including rewriting the novel in the third-person voice.


After a lengthy argument in which my adolescent-writer self declared to my mature-editor self that I had no desire, ability, or time to rewrite the whole worthless thing, I bound and gagged my writing self and threw her in the closet.

Then I sat my editor self in the chair and pondered what I knew:


I’m a good writer and a better editor. I know a decent story when I see one. I have an Irish temper. I could pick a fight, defend my creative choices, refuse to make the change. Also:


My editor is one of the best in the business. I’ve worked with her on many books and find her evaluations to be spot-on. She has no motive to commandeer my manuscript. She loves readers. She has as much desire to see my book succeed as I do.


I opted to trust her. With Writer Erin making terrible muffled noises in the closet, Editor Erin set to work, applying her own red pen to the page, reinventing the story voice, working on the trouble spots. An editor is trained to fix things. This part wasn’t hard.


Two things happened as I worked: I gained, and I lost. I gained fresh respect for my reader. Looking through the lenses of trust, I could see what my editor saw—sometimes to my shock and dismay. As I shifted my story’s perspective, I lost a unique style that I liked, something I believe certain readers would also like. I felt sad about this. I still do. But the loss was worth the even larger gain: Never Let You Go is a better book than it was.


Much has been said about bad blood between writers and editors who don’t respect each other’s skills. It happens, and when it does, it’s the book that suffers.


As in marriage, each party has to give something up in order to gain a greater whole. (Yes, my editor gave ground too, but that’s another story.) What will you have to give up in the editorial process? No one likes to answer that question, so you might try thinking of it this way: What will you gain? Ask that question instead, and I promise you will have a better editorial experience. And a better book.


More About Erin Healy
Erin Healy is an award-winning fiction editor who has worked with novelists such as James Scott Bell and Brandilyn Collins. She has been a freelancer for eight years. Her latest book is the supernatural thriller Never Let You Go. You can follow her around the Web through her links at www.erinhealy.com.