I’m an editor, AMA

[Banterlope]

This is probably been done before but it might be useful for some writers. I’ve been a publishing editor for nearly 26 years – 16 in non-fiction (partworks, newspapers, illustrated kiddie books, magazines, websites) and 10 years on fiction of all sorts. God that makes me feel old. I work for publishing houses, independent authors and websites (i.e. Reedsy).

I am not a frequent visitor to this part of MN, but I see a lot of people asking if editing can be done by the author (in short: no in my experience, and I’ve worked on a ton of self-edited fiction), if editors are worth the cost (obvs I’m biased, but yes!), et cetera. If you have any questions feel free to ask me anything about the process or the working relationship between author and editor and the pitfalls that can/should be avoided, or indeed anything else and I'll see if I can help.

[MacaroonMama]

Hi there,

Not sure if the thread is dead yet but I wanted to ask about internships in editorial roles, and more specifically if a 40 year old returner to work would be laughed at!

I have an English degree from Cambridge, an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, and six years of secondary English teaching experience. But have three kids so have just done part time work for the past ten years - teaching, tutoring, nannying, a bit of freelance proofreading, and exam marking.

Would I stand a chance? I still read all the time, especially children's books, and am in two book groups.

Online, I found a few internships in the bigger publishing houses, and just wondered if they are looking for a fresh out of uni graduate, or if my experience would help?

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated. Many thanks.

[NotALurker2]

What's stopping an editor (not you, obviously...) from stealing a client's idea or even their verbiage? I heard Elizabeth Gilbert say she had an idea for a novel, met someone at a party, kissed her on the cheek and then later, that woman wrote the novel she had had in mind. She claims the idea was somehow transmitted via the kiss. Um, no, that's not how it happened..... Someone obviously gave her Gilbert's idea.

How often does that happen?

[Zilla1]

Notalurker, why do you think 'someone obviously gave her' Gilbert's idea rather than another writer having the same broad 'idea'? When I speak to most people and when I've looked at some plagiarism cases, the ideas they think have been stolen or copied usually are the broadest premises which often have several stories already written (Harry Potter, Worst Witch and The Magicians amongst others all have students joining a secret school to learn how to use magic). I'm happy to be wring but I think the idea for the story is much more than that.

[Justajot]

I'm not sure if this fits in your area of editing... As authors get more famous or acclaimed, do they get harder to edit? I've always assumed that is why the Harry Potter books got thicker and thicker.

[NotALurker2]

@Zilla1 Here's a really bad transcript of a Ted Talk interview with Elizabeth Gilbert where she discusses it:

[https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-ted-interview/elizabeth-gilbert-shows-up-sKPA_VlOFc4/#transcript]

These amazing coincidence is shall we say that seemed to have no other explanation and that there is this purpose for illness to the ideas that are out there If you tell us the story about your amazon novel that
00:21:10never wass come out that spokesman is just astonishing story I haven't told this during a long time so let me see if i can if i can get the timing right So i had an idea to write a story about the amazon jungle I actually went to my
00:21:27publisher I came with a proposal This was a novel that i had dreamed up and the novel was going take place in the nineteen sixties And it was about this spinster in minnesota who worked for a large international construction company She's quietly in love with her married boss
00:21:42And has been in love with her married boss forever He has a son who's a bit duplicitous who takes over the business gets a contract to go down and build a highway through the amazon which was a project that was attempted in the nineteen sixties but failed miserably
00:21:55And in my story he goes down there gets involved with a bunch of corruption He disappears a bunch of money is lost and she who's just been the secretary to an executive Her whole life is sent down to figure everything out in the book was to be called
00:22:08evelyn of the amazon I was working on that book I got a book contract for that book I was doing research on that book and around that time i went to speak on a conference and i met the novelist and patch it for the first time on dh
00:22:23She and i took one look at each other and became like devoted in love with each other Friend's hurt each other speaking were dazzled by each other And at the end of the speech she came up when we did the oddest thing She's actually a very reserved person
00:22:34But she kissed me on the lips and said i just love you and i said i just love you too so just put that aside because that's a part of the story In the meantime i put away my novel because something had come up in my personal life
00:22:45and my my then partner was facing being deported from the country I had to marry him I had to leave the country I ended up writing an entirely different book which was a memoir about that experience which was called committed put the novel away And after i wrote
00:22:58committed i returned to it with the hope of restoring this work and discovered that and i can only describe it this way the life and it was gone I opened up my book of notes I went through everything There was no spark in it It was a pile
00:23:11of dust I tried so hard to revive that book and it was a corpse It's just there was nothing to it And then i met and patch it again on ly For the second time of our acquaintance we went out for coffee to talk about what we're working
00:23:24On and it turned out that she had started working on a novel about the amazon jungle I was like wow that's crazy I was working on a novel about the amazon jungle I mean already that's pretty cool And then we sat down I said what's your novel about
00:23:36she was about a hundred pages into it at that point And she said it's about a spinster from minnesota who is working in a big multinational corporation who's in love with her married boss And who gets involved in this really chaotic program down in the amazon a bunch
00:23:51of money and a person goes missing and she gets sent down there and her life is uprooted as she goes into this jungle in order to solve this mystery it was exactly the same story and that's not a genre Chris that's Not like a vampire romance you know
00:24:05like that is so incredibly specific And we were both I mean i have chills now as i'm talking about it and we sat there together and we did the math on when the idea had left me and when it had come to her and we isolated it to
00:24:18the around the time that we met and we like to think that actually was exchanged in the kiss you know that the idea just jumped from one novelist to another and was like thiss novelist is not going to be good enough for me i'm going to use and
00:24:30patch it and it was the most exciting example i've ever seen of how ideas live because there's no explanation for that that is beyond any rational explanation whatsoever And that book of course became state of wonder which is an extraordinary novel that she then made her own

[NotALurker2]

Here's another one: www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2015/09/23/elizabeth-gilbert

In one case, an idea was transmitted from Gilbert to her fellow writer Ann Patchett: "It was exchanged in the kiss and that the idea, which very much wanted to be made realized that Liz Gilbert was not going to get the job done."

She is extremely naive IMO. It wasn't the idea that realized it wasn't going to become a book -- it was her agent, editor, publisher, etc.

[Zilla1]

Thank you, Notalurker,