Why You Should Probably Wait to Hire an Editor
Or on trusting the process and just...writing.
Hi friends,
I bought this bread book called Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast because maybe my next career move will be opening a bakery that also sells books and good cheese in a small seaside town I was intrigued by the premise: all breads should involve only four ingredients, but with the variables of the ratio of ingredients, temperature, and time.
This is cool! And applies to what we do! To write, we don’t need a million bells and whistles, but we do need to a) create real space and time for the ideas to move from abstract to concrete (which is hard, because neoliberalism), and then b) write (but for realz. Words on page).
So I wanted to spend the next few weeks talking about how to incubate new ideas. Today, I want to talk about the dangers of hiring an editor too soon/why you should wait as long as possible to get feedback on your drafts (I’m just going to write myself out of a job here), and then next week I want to talk about how to deal with the voices in your head when you are ready to get feedback.
You probably don’t need an editor/feedback (yet)
From time to time, I have a conversation with someone about their work, and then advise them not to hire me (or at least not yet). They have an idea, they’ve done some early writing, and then the doubt creeps in (does this make any sense what if this is a waste of time what if what I’m writing is dumb is this ever going to go anywhere) and because it sucks to sink time into writing that fizzles out, you go looking for confirmation that it really is worthwhile.
And some editors/feedback partners/well-meaning spouses will absolutely take early drafts and read them and give you (well-intentioned) feedback. Imagine growing plants in a nursery—your job is to get them big and strong enough so they can survive being planted outdoors. But things can go wrong, just like things can go wrong by getting feedback too soon.
It probably does kinda suck—for now! (too little sunlight). Your ideas might not make sense at this point, and your writing probably isn’t very good yet (they call it the shitty first draft for a reason). You need to overwrite to figure out what you want to say. You should probably write about 25 percent more words in these early drafts than you will have in the final draft because you’re writing your way to the argument.
And you’ll take long-cuts where you realize things actually aren’t arguments after all. You’ll write scenes that don’t need to be there, run regressions that go nowhere, and that’s the point. All of that behind-the-scenes work needs to happen, and you need to trust that you’re writing your way to where you need to be. But if you get advice from people too early, it’ll make you lose faith in the process, which will kill a project before it ever sees sunlight.
You might lose your way (too much sunlight). I talk to people a lot who have a project in search of an argument. They have some cool data, or a cool idea to write “about” but it hasn’t coalesced into a real argument yet.
Take, for example, someone who has a really cool set of interviews about masculinity and nationalism in Nordic countries. What happens next? Are the findings most interesting because of what they tell us about gender? Are they most interesting because of what they tell us about Nordic culture? Are they most interesting because of nationalism? It depends, right! What journal do you want to submit this to? What questions did you ask? Who do you most want to be in conversation with?
Without answering those questions, a gender scholar, a nationalism scholar, and a Europeanist will tell you to do completely different things to develop the paper—and they’d all be right! (or wrong!) Because it’s a question only you, and your paper, can answer together. What does this paper want to be? What paper do you want to write? If you can’t answer those questions, it’s too soon to get feedback.
You might get overwhelmed (too much competition for sunlight/space). As academics, we get super excited about new ideas to the point where we essentially imagine any new project becoming the 30 projects we could write. This is where you need to know what your argument is because you need to know what the scope conditions are. Otherwise, all of the well-meaning people of the world will ask you how your theory travels to other countries/how significant event x influenced y/why there isn’t an experiment built into the methodology/etc etc etc.
Some of these questions are good and important and will make your project better! And some of them are just…questions for someone else to ask. But you can’t distinguish between those until you know which category you’re in.
You might lose interest (decide not to be a gardener and instead to bake artisanal bread). For some people, the biggest threat of all is not that their fears and doubts will over take them, that they will lose their argument, that they will be forced to defend such an overwhelming project that the plan will become ungovernable. Instead some people find that they talk about their project and…they lose interest.
If putting words to a thought is truly the most exciting part of a process for you, then those words should be on paper before you say them aloud.
So what should we do instead?
I get it—writing is long, lonely, full of doubts, and being told not to get feedback can also feel like I’m telling you to go write in an attic until you’re done writing. Instead, I think you can do three things:
Write in community, but talk about writing—not what you’re writing. In most of the writing groups I’m in, we don’t read each other’s writing. And it’s great. We save space for each other’s writing, support each other in our writing, and have none of the self-doubt that comes with worrying about what other people will think of us.
Ask for process not product support. Often times, when people want feedback early in the process, I suggest that what they actually need is coaching or consulting, with editing at the end. This is great because they can send me specific things they’re working on (great for accountability), and then we can chat through some of my observations or their questions. It builds momentum, is less isolating, and is something you can do with your friends or critique partners as well.
Ask for targeted, specific feedback. Instead of sending something to a colleague and saying “could you share your thoughts?” Ask them “could you read page 5 and make sure I’m interpreting this theory correctly?”
Leave comments to your future editor as you go. If you don’t know if a sentence makes sense, put it in a comment! If you are wondering if you’re interpreting data correctly, put it in a comment! Comment it out and then move on, knowing that you’ll remember to come back to it later, and the doubt won’t be lost to the ether—but also won’t keep you from writing.
Alright my friends, until next week! Write all the words, submit all the things, and maybe bake some bread or plant a plant or something.
Kelly
Housekeeping/What’s New Around Here:
(as always, a reminder and invitation to forward this to cool people you know and invite them to subscribe!)
So You Want to Write a Book: A Yearlong Book Writing Workshop. I couldn’t be more excited about this workshop, and I hope that all of you with great book ideas will consider applying! All of the details you need, including scheduling and payment logistics, are here, and you can apply here.
If you’re looking ahead for some end-of-semester accountability and camaraderie (see point 1), sign up for our free AprWriMo challenge, where we’ll write together every day from April 15-April 30. We’ll also have a full-day minimalist writing retreat on April 19, where we’ll open Zoom up at 8 am eastern, and keep it open until 8 pm or the last person logs off. Sign up here. It’ll be great, I promise. (If you’ve already applied, I’ll send out info soon).
If you need editing or coaching support, now is a great time to set up a free thirty-minute session to get on our calendar! Along with the traditional developmental editing and consulting I offer, we’re expanding to offer new services, including drop-in editing, support for scholars for whom English is an additional language, and help with alt-ac job searches. We’d love to connect!
Such a great article!