E44 – V.E.’s Experience Being Edited
Show Notes
In this episode, V.E. Griffith talks with Miss Catherine M.H. about being on the receiving end of an edit.
The Revision Wizards are at https://www.revisionwizards.com
V.E. Griffith’s website: https://www.vegriffith.com
Miss Catherine M.H.’s website: https://www.scribes-pen.com
Transcript at: https://revisionwizards.com/?p=2440
Transcript
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (0:01 – 0:09)
Welcome to the Revision Wizards podcast. I’m Miss Catherine M.H. and I’m joined by my Mageling co-host V.E. Griffith.
[V.E. Griffith] (0:10 – 0:17)
This is episode 44 and we’re going to be talking about my experiences being on the receiving end of getting an edit.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (0:19 – 0:24)
Well, first off, holy shit, you have finished a book. Congratulations.
[V.E. Griffith] (0:25 – 0:25)
An actual book.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (0:25 – 0:26)
That is amazing.
[V.E. Griffith] (0:27 – 0:38)
It’s right now, it’s about 40,000 words long. I’d like to plump it some and make it 60 to 80, but we knew that I write short. So that’s just how it’s going to go.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (0:39 – 0:47)
So, yeah. So how has this been? Did you take any time off between when you wrote it to when you’re getting the editor done? How’d you go about it?
[V.E. Griffith] (0:48 – 2:47)
I have not really taken a lot of time away from it. The editor and I are working.
It’s more of a book coaching situation. The editor I’m using is J.P. Reindfleish IX, who’s been a guest on our podcast. He’s a certified Three Story Method Editor and a Dialogue Doctor Editor. He’s reading it about 6,000 words at a time. And so we’re going through it and he’s editing it. It’s essentially a developmental edit is what we’re doing.
My stuff is pretty clean on the line edit front. So I’m probably not going to do a full line edit, but I do feel like I need somebody to look at it for the developmental edit. So that’s what we’re doing.
And then I get an hour a week of his time to pick his brain, record the session. And then I can go back over the recording, make detailed notes and then implement changes. So I finished the draft and got to quote the end, which is unbelievable.
I finally got there. It’s only been 10 years. And then I immediately turned around and went back into the manuscript from the beginning to start fixing things that I knew that needed to be fixed, inconsistencies, things that had changed, problems that cropped up.
I knew there were a couple of holes in the manuscript that I needed to fill, things that I talked about later that didn’t happen earlier that I needed to fix that. So I went through and I fixed those things. There were some changes that I made to some of the characters to make them more likable and less jerk.
And so I had to implement that. And then I got in touch with JP and we scheduled a time. So as we’re going through the manuscript, 6,000 words at a time, I’m taking his suggestions and it’s taking me about two days per 6,000 words to fold his suggestions in.
And that’s where we’re going so far.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (2:47 – 2:54)
Nice. So have you had that gut feeling yet of, Ooh, you didn’t get that or that’s my word?
[V.E. Griffith] (2:55 – 5:11)
No, I have been, well, there are things that he doesn’t get because he’s not supposed to yet because of where we are in the manuscript. The flip side of that is that I have to give him spoilers because otherwise he can’t help me as well. This is not a beta read situation.
In a developmental edit situation, you don’t want to keep a secret from your editor. You want to keep a secret from your beta. And there’s a, there’s an important difference there.
So I’m not keeping secrets from him. So I’m having to give him spoilers. There are some things that he doesn’t understand, but where those pop up, those are things that I don’t want him to understand right then.
So that’s a, I take that as a positive. I am not feeling very proprietary about, Oh my God, I have to kill my darling. I don’t want to do that.
Doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’ve been taking criticism like this since I was 13. I’m fucking 50.
Now I can do this. This is not a problem. So I can see how someone who is slaved away for 10 years over a manuscript could feel that way if it’s their first completed manuscript.
But A, I don’t have that problem. But B, if I did sort of the approach that I would take is that I’m looking at work. I’m not looking at a child.
I’m looking at something that I want to make better. And I’m paying a lot of money to this editor to help me do that. So it’s not true that I have to take every suggestion that he makes, but I should seriously consider every suggestion that he makes simply to get my money out of it, you know, if nothing else.
And JP is an excellent, excellent developmental editor. He’s, uh, I’ve talked to several people who have used him for their work and everyone that I know speaks highly of him. And now I do too.
So I think from, from both of those perspectives, I’ve done this before and I really am trying to make it better. I haven’t gotten real proprietary about it and hung on to any particular thing that I have to have left in the manuscript. I can think of one sentence in the manuscript that I’m going to hang on to whether he likes it or not.
And, but it’s one sentence. So, you know, assuming I don’t cut the whole scene, which I don’t think I will, I think we’ll be in good shape with it.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (5:11 – 5:29)
So do you think there’s a slight difference between like you and me in that sense where I’m the overrider and I’m like, of course you would need that in the book versus you’re trying to bulk things up. So you’re more willing to be like, I can cut that and bulk this up. Do you think there’s that helping you out in that sense?
[V.E. Griffith] (5:29 – 6:34)
I think there is. And I think that it’s easier for me when I need to, to cut stuff because I’m, I’m the sort of story storyteller where I want a very, very tight story. My style is very tight.
My voice is tight. I don’t like to use a lot of flowery language. Some writers do, some genres do, that’s fine, but that’s not where I want to be.
So I’m not really having trouble with cutting if I need to, where I’m having trouble is bulking out and adding three paragraphs of exposition. Not, not really three paragraphs of exposition every time I have a character say a line, but adding exposition, adding body language to long stretches of nothing but dialogue. Because I wrote a very, very dialogue heavy manuscript, which is interesting because that’s one of the teachings of Jeff Elkins, the Dialogue Doctor, is to focus on the dialogue first. And it worked for me. It really did work for me.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (6:34 – 6:47)
That’s awesome. So looking at your writing style, are you finding some interesting things that you didn’t know now that someone else is looking at your work? Because I mean, like you wouldn’t even let me look at your work.
[V.E. Griffith] (6:48 – 8:17)
You’ll get it. Don’t worry, just not this week. It’s going to be, it’s going to, at the rate we’re going, it’s going to be probably late October.
Okay. Okay. So you’ll get to see it.
And I have, I have already drawn up, this is something that I did for JP and you should do for your editor and for your beta readers. I drew up specific answerable questions for him about my manuscript that I wanted him to focus on. I want this, I want this, I want this.
Help me do these three things. And these are not, did you like it? What did you think of it?
These are much more specific closed-ended questions than that. I have a set of questions for you that I’m going to ask you. And they are slightly different from the questions that I’m going to be asking our friend Kim Lark, who’s also going to read the manuscript.
And she’s also been a guest on the show if you want to go back and listen to her. And you want to keep it short. You want to keep it three to five questions.
I think for you, I’ve got six and they are questions that you could sit and write an essay about and knowing you, you probably will, but they are specific. They’re not, you know, and, and one of them is like, one of them is actually pretty important. It’s where did you stop reading the manuscript?
Where did you give up? And if you didn’t give up and you slogged through because of our friendship, where would you have stopped? Because the answer to that question tells me where the manuscript sucks and where it drags.
So I want to know that.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (8:17 – 8:17)
Yeah.
[V.E. Griffith] (8:18 – 8:47)
So I also have specific questions about specific characters. Does this character make sense? Is what this other character doing consistent with the rest of the story?
Did I portray him or her correctly? You know, is this offensive? That’s important.
You want to know that I’m not going to be hiring a specific sensitivity reader, but I have two of y’all. So, you know, I hope my characters won’t be too awful. So that’s, that’s the, that’s the approach I’m taking right now with, with all of that.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (8:48 – 9:01)
So have you discovered a surprise style to your writing that having someone else read it, they’ve pointed out to you that you were like, Oh, that’s, I didn’t realize I did that.
[V.E. Griffith] (9:01 – 9:32)
Not yet. I’m, I’m hoping I find something. We’re still, we’re still in the sort of, in the act one phase of the book and act one is longer than act two and act three.
This is one of the things that I specifically want to go over with JP, how to bulk out act two and act three, because I feel like they’re weaker and they are too short, especially act two. But that’s been an ongoing problem for me for five years now is getting through act two. So.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (9:32 – 10:04)
So with your writing, because you are an editor and you did say you believe it’s, it’s cleaner than probably those who aren’t line editors, because you are a perfectionist when it comes to writing a single sentence. If anybody ever sees our scripts that we do for our intros, he will always go in and correct even the tiniest misspelling. And I’m like, it’s fine.
I can read it. It’s fine. But have you had time to like, is your first draft more of like a second and a third draft?
Do you think.
[V.E. Griffith] (10:05 – 10:50)
It kind of depends on the writer and how you feel, how the writer might feel about their command of English. Honestly, I feel like mine is closer to a first or a second draft or third draft in terms of the mechanics and the language that I choose. But I feel like it’s, it’s more like negative two or negative one in terms of the story.
So the story is what needs the adjustment. I will admit, however, to committing the cardinal sin of hiring an editor. And that is that I sent work to my editor before running it through an AI tool.
I did not use ProWritingAid. I have a lifetime subscription to ProWritingAid and I forgot to use it before I sent him stuff. So.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (10:52 – 10:56)
But you send it weekly, right? You didn’t send it all at once.
[V.E. Griffith] (10:56 – 11:37)
That is correct. I send it weekly. So I’m sending, I’m sending two to three chapters at a time.
My chapters are running two to 3000 words each. And so I’m sending those to him weekly. So I could go in, I went in with ProWritingAid last, I did this last night.
It took me all day. I put the stuff that I had already edited that I’ve gotten back from him through ProWritingAid. I held out the two chapters that he’s currently sitting on that we’re going to talk about next.
I’ve already sent it to him, but I haven’t gotten his feedback yet. So I held those two out and didn’t run it through there because I want my copy in Scrivener to be exactly the same as his copy in Google Docs.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (11:37 – 11:38)
Yeah.
[V.E. Griffith] (11:38 – 12:12)
When we’re, when we’re talking. And then I took the rest of the manuscript, the other 13, 14 chapters and ran them through as well. So now everything else in the future that I’m going to be sending to him has already been run through.
So, and I found with ProWritingAid that it made a lot of difference. It helped me get rid of some of that, Oh my God, passive voice. Oh my God.
Oh my God. And it helped me tighten some of my word choices. I, it’s a, it’s a product that we are not paid to sponsor or that we’re not sponsored to plug, but I really like.
And it interfaces directly with Scrivener too.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (12:12 – 12:34)
The devil. So how has that process between you and JP been working? Cause you did just mention Google Docs.
So I know that that’s a rough one for you and some editors prefer Google Docs versus Word. You’re someone who prefers Word. So how has that process been for you?
[V.E. Griffith] (12:34 – 13:29)
It’s been pretty seamless. I send him a Word document by email and he dumps it into Google Docs because I don’t have any special formatting other than italics anywhere in the manuscript. It just goes straight in.
It’s no big deal. He makes his corrections and he makes his comments with track changes turned on like you could do in Microsoft Word. Google Docs supports that.
And when we’re going through the manuscript during our sessions together, our one hour sessions, we’re using Google Docs. Once we’re done with that, I can take the Google Doc and export it back to Microsoft Word. When I do that, it keeps all of the changes that he makes and all of the comments that he makes.
So I don’t lose any data. It just, it’s just a format conversion into the, the format that I prefer. And then I can store that document for permanent archival in Scrivener.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (13:29 – 13:30)
You can use OneNote.
[V.E. Griffith] (13:32 – 14:42)
I can, but I, I, I’m the sort of person where I want everything in a hierarchy and I want everything in a single place. So if I have made, I have decided, executive decision, because I’m the author and that’s what the fuck I want to do. I have made Scrivener to be the source of all truth for everything about my manuscript.
So everything goes through Scrivener. So if it comes out of Scrivener for some reason, when it comes back, for example, I’m going to send you your choice of document formats. But when I send you that, when I get done, all of my changes are going to go back into Scrivener.
So all of the comments that you send me, if you send me a PDF of your handwriting, handwritten comments, that’s going to get dumped into Scrivener and archived so that I can look at it later. Everything is there. Even the videos, Scrivener will store videos.
Even the videos go into Scrivener. Makes my project very, very large and it makes backups take a couple of minutes to zip them up and it makes storage of the backups larger, but I want everything in one place. So no, OneNote is not the option for me.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (14:43 – 14:49)
I know. I just like to bring it up since you love Scrivener so much and it’s the devil to me.
[V.E. Griffith] (14:49 – 14:53)
Scrivener is wonderful. You should, you should give it a fair shake. I’d even buy you a copy.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (14:54 – 15:04)
No, I have tried like six times with Scrivener and it does not work. So is there anything you’d recommend based on this editing experience to other people?
[V.E. Griffith] (15:04 – 16:08)
The big thing is hire an editor, hire an editor, hire an editor. When you are talking with that editor, when you are going through your work with that editor, whether it’s a book coach type of situation like I’m doing or whether it’s a, you send it off and then you get the manuscript back, you know, two months later kind of situation, whatever your arrangement with your editor is, be open-minded about what they have to say. They’re looking at your book for the first time.
This is what you’re paying them for. Make sure that what you’re accepting and what you’re rejecting from them makes objective sense. Try and be objective.
Take a step back emotionally. I know that people get very proprietary about their writing. Honestly, it’s a book.
It’s not a child. That’s, you know, I’ve got kids. I know how you, I know how you feel about kids.
It’s not a kid. Okay. It’s work.
So it’s something that’s easy enough to step back from, even if you spent a decade telling the story like I have.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (16:08 – 16:11)
Nice. So one last question for you.
[V.E. Griffith] (16:12 – 16:13)
Oh dear.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (16:13 – 16:20)
What is something from this experience that you’ve enjoyed that you would like to incorporate into your editing for clients?
[V.E. Griffith] (16:21 – 17:27)
I have been surprised at how much I have liked having the conversation and spending the time with my editor. Most of my clients have been, send me the whole manuscript at once. I read it, I edit it, I give them back in pieces.
And then we might have a one or two hour conversation about it. And then that’s all. I’m really enjoying the book coaching aspect of this.
And it’s not just because JP is a cool guy, although he is, I feel like that’s an approach that would be interesting to try with my clients and see if it works. Now he and I are doing different kinds of edits and I don’t know necessarily that it would make a whole lot of sense to do a line edit in a coaching session kind of situation, but maybe it would. And maybe I would have clients who are interested in that.
And if they are, by all means, please get in touch, vegriffith.com. That could be an approach that somebody who needs that kind of time-intensive handholding would benefit from.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (17:27 – 17:44)
So I guess I lied. I’ve got one more question for you. Okay.
Since we like to be as open as we can with our audience, what is your pricing like with JP, like working with an editor? Because we all know that pricing can vary from editor to editor. How’s that working for you?
[V.E. Griffith] (17:45 – 18:26)
Well, as of this recording, which is August of 2024, I’m paying for blocks of four sessions with JP. So a single session would cost for what we’re doing would cost $129 or I believe for four sessions is $529. So there’s a slight discount there.
And I’m buying two of those blocks to get through all 40,000 words. Obviously his pricing may change, depends on demand and depends on market conditions and depends on all the things that go into determining pricing, but that’s what I’m paying. And that’s what his published prices are for right now.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (18:26 – 18:33)
And that seems to almost line up with word count price. Like if we were to do it, looking at like word count pricing.
[V.E. Griffith] (18:33 – 18:39)
I’ve never actually done the math, but yeah, it does seem about right.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (18:39 – 18:46)
Because you’re paying what, like a thousand for the two blocks? Well, the two sections of blocking.
[V.E. Griffith] (18:46 – 19:10)
Yeah, that seems about right. Um, yeah, that, that seems about right in terms of, in terms of by the word. So it just, it depends on how you and your editor want to structure it.
I think we’ve done an episode about, about structure of payments, but I think that what I’m paying is a fair, you know, market, uh, based price for the service that I’m getting. And I think it’s working well.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (19:11 – 19:33)
That’s awesome. Good for you. And I’m super happy that you have finally finished this book.
I am excited to read it. And like, cause I’ve given you like ideas occasionally and I’m like, I wonder which ideas he took or if like, or how you, you know, changed it for your session. Like I mentioned something and then you’re like, oh, I can do something.
[V.E. Griffith] (19:34 – 19:34)
Yeah.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (19:34 – 19:34)
Let me do that.
[V.E. Griffith] (19:34 – 19:49)
You’ll get to see, you’ll get to see. So it’s, it’s interesting that I’ve got, I’ve got my fiance wants to read it and I am not going to show it to her until after I’m done with your comments. So she’s going to be the last of the first.
So.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (19:50 – 19:59)
Nice. Yeah. Trevor says he won’t read it until, um, until it’s published.
He’s like, not that I don’t love you, but I want to hold it in my hand as a book. And I was like, all right, fine.
[V.E. Griffith] (20:00 – 20:01)
Well, that’s cool.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (20:01 – 20:04)
He tried once. We didn’t get past the first paragraph.
[V.E. Griffith] (20:05 – 20:05)
What did he say?
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (20:05 – 20:12)
He is a very line editor kind of person and he was reading draft three. You read draft five.
[V.E. Griffith] (20:12 – 20:19)
Uh, okay. Yes. Okay.
So for our listeners who may not know what that means, it needed heavy edits.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (20:19 – 20:33)
Yes and no. I mean, you never saw that original first chapter. So you had a much cleaner first chapter.
Yes. Which isn’t even the first chapter anymore. So it’s great.
Yeah.
[V.E. Griffith] (20:34 – 21:43)
Yeah. So anyway, that’s, I’m having a great time doing this. I’m really, I’m, I’m, I don’t know if I’m proud of the work, but I’m proud of the work I’ve put into it.
So I think that that, I think it’s, it’s all for the positive and I’m, and I’m really, I’m getting a lot out of this relationship with JP and, um, I feel like it’s, it’s a net benefit for me. It’s a net benefit for my writing and for my, for my skills toolbox as a writer, because what I learned to do in this exercise with him is something I should be able to carry forward into my next novel. And that’s the way you want any editor relationship to be.
When I’m working with a client, I don’t want to just take your manuscript and fix it. I want you to see what I did and I want you to be able to write a cleaner manuscript the next time and my experience has been frequently that clients can do that. So they’ll come back to me with a second book and it’s a lot better than the first.
And I think that’s a win for everybody.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (21:45 – 21:59)
Nice. I think it will be really interesting to see if you go through a line editor and how that different, like maybe that’s where you’ll feel that excuse you, I know how to write feeling.
[V.E. Griffith] (22:01 – 22:06)
Maybe we’ll, we’ll see what, we’ll see what happens when, when you and Kim get ahold of it.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (22:08 – 22:22)
And I bet with each time that you’re like more like every edit that you’re doing. So every draft of it, I bet you’re going to feel more and more proud of it where it’s like coming together. And then you’re going to be like, this is my fucking book.
[V.E. Griffith] (22:22 – 24:04)
Yeah, I am. It’s interesting. And I, I went back yesterday.
Scrivener has the ability to keep what are called snapshots, which is basically versions of a scene. And a given scene, I might have seven or eight snapshots. So every time I go in and I make, I dink with it and I make changes, I’ll take a snapshot and I’ll give it a name and I’ll give it a draft number.
And then after I give it to ProWritingAid, I’ll make the ProWritingAid changes and I’ll make a snapshot and give it a name. And then I’ll send it to JP and then I’ll give that a name. So I have a line or a snapshot of exactly what went to JP.
Then I’ll make my changes and then I’ll make another snapshot and that will get its own name, draft number. And then I can go back and look at my current version of the manuscript and click on that very first draft zero snapshot that I took and compare them. And they are totally different.
Scrivener shows the differences in blue and red and the whole thing is blue and red. It’s like nothing survives. It’s great.
It’s really neat. And what that shows me as a writer is that I really am willing to take the feedback and make the edits. It’s not perfect coming out of my fingers the first time.
God knows it’s not perfect coming out of my fingers the first fucking time. But I think that this has been a really helpful and useful exercise and I would recommend it to anybody who wants to make themselves a better writer.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (24:05 – 24:07)
That is awesome. I’m out of questions. Okay.
[V.E. Griffith] (24:09 – 24:11)
Well then I guess we’ll sign off for this week.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (24:13 – 24:17)
All righties. Have a good one and stay magical.
[V.E. Griffith] (24:17 – 24:17)
Bye.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (24:18 – 24:32)
Thank you so much for joining us for today’s episode. You can find every episode on your favorite podcast player and on YouTube. For transcripts, please visit our website at revisionwizards.com.
They go live the same day as our episodes.
[V.E. Griffith] (24:33 – 24:41)
If you’d like to reach out to us separately, you can find me at vegriffith.com and Miss Catherine at scribes-pen.com.
[Miss Catherine M.H.] (24:41 – 24:42)
Stay magical.