The Editing Dance

I've done editing work for years. Both in paid positions and as a volunteer, I've edited many newsletters. I've edited articles. When I was in seminary, I spent a semester copy-editing and formatting footnotes and bibliography for a doctoral dissertation, possibly the most tedious job ever.

And of course I revise and edit my own work: articles, reviews, short stories, academic essays.

But until recently, I've never been asked to edit someone else's novel. I'm finding it a fascinating experience.

That's what I've been doing for the past few nights: a second read-through of a mid-grade allegorical novel (with some fantasy elements). My first read-through came last month. The author of the book, someone I've been acquainted with slightly for years, had a self-imposed deadline for a phase of the project and was looking for someone who could give him a quick read-through and a fast copy-edit, all in a week. I agreed with enthusiasm, but discovered something I should have already known (and will now never forget): you can't read through a novel for the first time with a pencil in your hand.

At least I can't. I love stories, and when I read a new story, I try to be as open and receptive as I can be to the story itself. That's partly by natural inclination and partly a habit I've tried to train myself in, thanks to sitting at the feet of the charitable and wise C.S. Lewis for so many years. So moving into a story for the first time is an intense experience for me, and I had a hard time separating out my "receptive reader" from my "clear-headed critic and copy-editor." I realized it almost immediately, but simply didn't have time to read a 22 chapter book through more than once in the middle of a busy week near the end of a school term. So I soldiered on, though as I told the author later (when he and I both realized that such speed had not served us as well as it might) I had a hard time catching small errors in passages I read through blurred vision due to tears over the death of a major character.

So I was delighted when the author came back to me with a proposal that I read the work again, this time more slowly. He had shifted his timeline (he's self-publishing) and we were in agreement over some areas of the story we thought could be improved. This time through, I'm getting to take my time, to linger, to really think through issues of story: the way the narrative flows, how action reveals character, issues of pacing, ways the author can show more and tell less. It's more of a developmental edit. I'm still copy-editing, but that's a side dish this time: the main course is getting to savor a story I already know and love and help make it even better.

I'm discovering that there are moments in this "editing dance" that are especially challenging. It's been so long since I've provided feedback on someone else's deeply creative work, I'd almost forgotten (though not really) the importance of respecting the music and tapestry of their work. It came back to me as I tried to decide what to advise cutting, changing, re-arranging.

If this were my manuscript (and would that I had a full-length manuscript of a novel anywhere near this quality...maybe in another season of my life...) I would know precisely what to do with it. I don't mean that in an arrogant way, and I don't mean to indicate that my own work doesn't need feedback from other readers. I'm simply saying that I have a confidence when revising my own work that I lack when when making suggestions about someone else's. I can be quite ruthless in my own revising, cutting words with abandon, tightening for the sheer joy of tightening...but then, when it's my own story, I know the characters intimately, and where I'm hoping to take them, and how the story first came to me and what's imperative that I keep. I understand its particular rhythm and flow.

Aside from obvious helps to the flow of the story, I'm less certain about how to proceed with stylistic advice to someone else. Just as a for instance, this particular author tends to use slower, more passive construction and pacing than I would use. My initial tendency was to want to change all that wholesale, until I began to stop and think about why he might have chosen that particular rhythm in certain places...because of some particular chapter settings, the cultural context of the tale, the natural way some of the characters speak, and simply the "music" of his own prose. There are still places where I'm recommending more active construction and a tightening of some of the prose, but I find myself treading lightly in other places, especially now that I realize how much that particular rhythm just suits this story. My questions regarding his original intentions and purpose for those places, however, have provided some good food for discussion so perhaps ultimately that will help strengthen the work too.

It's all a bit of a dance, and I feel a bit clumsy with the steps still, but oh I'm enjoying the process. Even better is the blessing of realizing how much of my life as reader and writer (in the past ten years or so in particular) has equipped me to be able to learn on my feet. Loving story, as it turns out, is a pretty good prerequisite for this kind of work.