Caren Johnson Literary Agency

By Barbara Caridad Ferrer

Congratulations! You’ve sold your book. Your editor has sent you flowers. You get your revision letter within a month of the offer or—better still—no revision letter, the book’s going right into production because you, darling, are perfect! Perfect in your creamy, chocolate-dipped perfection. You get glorious reviews and fan mail and your publisher is sending you on a cross-country publicity tour and Oprah! Oprah’s chosen YOU! Oh, and did I mention the movie deal? You’ll be writing the screenplay and next thing you know, there you are at the Oscars, accepting your award in the gown Donatella begged you to allow her make for you.

Then the alarm goes off.

Admit it, we’ve all had fantasies of this flavor. And those of us who’ve sold know that this scenario is so far from the reality, as to induce hysteria—the laughing kind, I mean. It’s cool—dreams keep us going, right? However, the one absolute truth you can take from my little fantasy is that when you sell, you will have an editor. And it’s this relationship that will shape the book into its final state. Just like there are all kinds of writers, there are all kinds of editors. We’ve all heard the horror stories of the editor with the vague directive revision letter that you’re supposed to try to interpret, then you turn in the revised MS only to hear, “But that’s not what I meant.”

Head, meet desk. Repeat at will.

Or the micromanaging editor who demands control over every last word and punctuation mark. Or the “frustrated writer” editor.

Luckily, I’ve never encountered any of the above. *knocks on every conceivable piece of wood* And this is considering that in three books, I’ve had three editors. I’ve been lucky in that I’ve had fairly good relations with all three, but you know what they say about “third time’s the charm?” That’s how I feel about my current editor. She is everything I might have ever hoped for in an editor and no, she doesn’t think everything I type is creamy, chocolate-dipped perfection. Frankly, I’d probably be highly suspicious and paranoid if she did. No, what she is, is honest, open to an exchange of ideas, easy to communicate with, and best of all, is just as invested in my work as I am. This is a project that’s just as important to her as it is to me, so the same way I have a critique partner, she’s gone out of her way to have colleagues read my manuscript, so she can compare notes with them and make sure she’s giving me good and helpful feedback. She recognizes that there are times she might be too close to the project and it might blind her to some glaring errors and we’d BOTH kick ourselves if the book went out into the world with something that could’ve been fixed.

She also doesn’t give me any easy ways out. Yes, this is really a good thing. She’s forcing me out of my comfort zone and asking me to look at the manuscript in new ways—always, is there a better way to make this point? A stronger hook? Better language choices? She knows I can write—that’s not in question. But it’s her job to help me take my writing to that next level and my job to respect that.

Respect—that’s a good point to bring up. I think the primary reason my current editor and I work so well together is we have a high degree of respect for each other. Something like this is probably best illustrated by example. First revision letter came via email and was fairly lengthy. Lovely Editor told me to take my time, digest it, and let her know if I had any questions. What I did was read it, have my freak out (BTW, make sure you read Carrie Lofty’s great post on responding to critiques.), then after a day or so, sat down and responded, point by point, to her email with ideas and questions and then followed up with a phone call where we further ironed out any other issues. She didn’t take offense that I didn’t take each suggestion offered—mind you, I also didn’t dismiss any of her suggestions with “Ohmigod, that’s so stooopit, did she even read the book??”

We’re doing the same thing with the second round of revisions—a lengthy, detailed letter with the added bonus of the line edits this time, to which I’ve responded with a letter of my own with suggestions and questions and a follow up phone call. The fact that for this revision she’s asking for some of the same things she did in the first one is a clue for me to look at the manuscript again. Did I not take the suggestion the first time because I didn’t think it was going to work and she still feels something’s missing or did I try to make it work and maybe miss reaching the objective she was hoping I’d get to? Things to highlight and mark on my yellow legal pad and make note to ask about. One thing’s for sure—I have no doubt we’ll figure it out.

I’m not going to lie—I know I’ve been exceedingly lucky. I’ve never had one of those soul-sucking experiences with respect to an editor and I like to think that I’ve taken something positive from each experience, but in terms of dream experiences, this one’s it and it works because we both do.

www.barbaracaridadferrer.com