E51 – When to Stop Editing

Show Notes

In this episode, Miss Catherine M.H. and V.E. Griffith discuss when to stop editing a manuscript. The hosts offer several criteria, including reaching a point of arguing with oneself over minor details, completing a set number of editing passes focusing on different aspects (plot, character, grammar, etc.), and achieving a feeling of finality. They also address when to cease working with clients, emphasizing the importance of pre-agreed scope of work, timely payment, and a positive working relationship. Ultimately, the hosts stress the need for clear communication and defined expectations in the editorial process.

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=2464

Transcript

[V.E. Griffith]
Welcome to the Revision Wizards podcast. I’m V.E. Griffith and I’m joined by my co-host and troublemaker, Ms. Catherine M.H. This is episode 51.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
This week, we’re going to dive into when it’s time to call quits and stop editing. So one big question, like when do you stop editing?

[V.E. Griffith]
Well, the trite answer is to say when it’s done. The problem is, how do you know when is done? This is a question that I asked a writing coach one time and the answer was sort of nebulous.

But at some point, you’re going to reach a point with your manuscript where really all you’re doing is arguing with yourself over word choice in a particular sentence. And that’s usually the time that it’s time to stop.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
So what reasons would you stop editing?

[V.E. Griffith]
There’s no specific reason except that I feel like it’s as good as I can make it. Once I’ve reached that point, I need to pass it off to my editor or I need to pass it off to my beta readers, depending on what stage I’m at. Or I need to simply accept that this is as good as I can make it.

And it’s time to publish as a reflection of where I am as a writer at the time that I publish. I am not the sort of person that goes through endlessly and goes back to old work and edits it and then republishes it or brings it forward again. Once it’s done, it’s done.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. I think it’s when you’ve gotten through that like magical number of passes, which there is no set rule on it. For example, when I go through and do my edits, I’m looking for a general main plot.

I go through and do it again for a subplot. I go through for character art. And then I go through for like grammar and those small little things that still, you know, don’t quite catch on.

And at that point, I’m sending it off to somebody else.

[V.E. Griffith]
You mean things that are not a pleasing you?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yes. Things that are not a pleasing. I kept that in the book.

[V.E. Griffith]
I know you did. It drives me crazy.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
I think I added it in two more times. Just, just because.

[V.E. Griffith]
Yes. Just to make me angry. I appreciate that.

I love you.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Of course. Anytime.

[V.E. Griffith]
For me, I do passes about dialogue and character voice. I do, to make sure that all of my characters sound somewhat different so that you can identify them by the way they sound. I do a pass for setting so that my characters are not simply standing in a white room with walls and no doors and nowhere to sit and nothing on the walls.

I do a pass that is devoted to character description so that my characters are not all white with Brown hair and no faces. I do one about body movement so that my characters are not just standing there looking dumb.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Another time you should definitely stop editing is when you’ve sent it to the editor. Like you sent it to them. You shouldn’t be changing anything until you have everything back.

[V.E. Griffith]
Yeah, I would agree with that. It, it doesn’t help to continue to evolve your manuscript while they’re looking at an old version and your editor is not going to want to take continual updates as you go. That’s not the way to do an edit.

What you do is you simply create your main, your final version that goes to your editor, whether you do it in Scrivener or you do it in word or you do it in Google docs or whatever it is you do. And which of course we know that Scrivener is the right way. No, it’s not.

And you send it to them and then you lay off the work. It’s a great time to sit back, get some distance from your work, let your editor do their job so that when their job is done, you can take a look at their edits, take a look at what they have done and what they suggest with a fresher pair of eyes on your manuscript. That’s the approach that I’m taking.

I have my book now with three folks. You’re one of them. Our friend Kim Lark is one and our friend Lon Varnador is another.

And all three of you are supposed to be looking at my manuscript eventually. In the meantime, I’m working on the next book.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. Another time to really stop editing is when you’ve done that final proofread because at some point you literally do have to stop editing and that’s a good one to stop at. When you’ve had that last person, look it over as your proofread and you’ve gone through and done those extra little finishing touches, then you’re done.

Stop editing. Go publish your book.

[V.E. Griffith]
Yeah. Again, there comes a point where what you’re winding up doing is pushing your spaghetti around on the plate with a spoon and there’s nothing to lift to really do that will make a substantive difference. That’s when you’re done.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
A big one for me that helps me know when I am done editing is when my manuscript pisses me off. When I am done reading it and I don’t want to ever pick it up and read it again, then I know that’s it. It’s done.

I need to go send this off because if I read it one more time, I’m chucking it into the fireplace. So that for me is a really good sign that my book is good. Like whatever happens, it happens to it out there in the world.

I have taught it everything it needs. It can grow some wings and go somewhere else for a bit. So for me, if it really starts pissing me off, I know I’m either at my point where I am sending it off to the editor or I am just, I have proofread it.

And if I read it one more time, it’s never going to be read by the public.

[V.E. Griffith]
My problem when I get to that point is that usually it’s in no shape to be read by the public. Usually it’s about third to a halfway done. And I haven’t gotten through the end of the book.

I don’t have an ending and I don’t know where the characters are going and I’m stuck in the mushy middle. That’s when I get angry. So that doesn’t, that’s not a good marker for everybody.

But if it’s a great marker for you, then by all means, use it.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
When do you tell a client that you’re stopping?

[V.E. Griffith]
Do you mean when do I tell a client that I’m stopping before I have finished their manuscript or how much I’m willing to do as scope of work?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
When you’re, you’re not going to do their manuscript, I think.

[V.E. Griffith]
At the beginning, either I’m going to take the job or I’m not going to take the job. If I look at the sample chapter and I feel like it’s ready for an edit, then I’m going to assume that the rest of the manuscript is ready for an edit. One way to find that is to have them send you the whole manuscript and then pick a random chapter from the middle of the book, not the first chapter because the first chapter is the one everybody goes over, over and over and over and over and over again.

And sometimes it can be artificially good compared to the rest of their manuscripts. So if you’re going to do a sample, do a sample from the middle so that you have a better representation of what their average chapter looks like. And if their average chapter is not ready for editing, then I decline the job and say, look, this is not ready.

You need to send it back through ProWritingAid or you need a developmental editor or you need whatever it is you need to get it ready for me, but it’s not ready for me. If they insist that it is ready for me and they want to go forward with an edit anyway, oh no, this is as good as I can make it. Then I might triple the price on them because it’s going to take me a lot more work to get it into shape.

Really the editor that you hire is going to be somebody who’s going to look at it after it’s the best you can make it given the stage that you’re at.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. For me, I’ve only ever had one that gave me some sample chapters. The sample chapters were good.

And then once we started getting further into it, we had a situation where like, all right, you get into a few bad chapters where you’re like, yeah, I can tell you definitely needed some help through this zone. But when you’re looking through, it was like, no, this is the rest of the book. Like you only ever edited those first six chapters.

And so that’s when I’ve had to come back to them to be like, look, this is not ready for me at all. You need to go back through the book and do what you did to those first six chapters before I can keep going. Cause there’s, there’s no point in it.

There were sections where it’s like, and fill in the blank with a name here. And I’m like, you’re still on a pass. My friend don’t come to me yet.

So I’ve had one situation like that where I’ve had to go back and be like, you’re not even, you’re not ready for an edit.

[V.E. Griffith]
I had a situation where I felt like he was ready for an edit, but it was taking me longer than I had anticipated, uh, simply from my work schedule and the amount of work that I was doing on it. I offered him the choice. He had paid upfront for 50% of our agreed price.

And I told him, look, I can go halfway by word count and then give it back to you. Or I can take longer and we can stick to the original price. I’m not gonna, I’m not going to jack the price on you.

And he chose to go ahead and let me finish. And I needed, I was more communicative with him after that about hitting milestones in the manuscript. He didn’t pay me any money until I was finished.

But once I was done with the manuscript, you know, it simply took longer than I had anticipated. And as far as I know, he was happy with the result. He gave me a testimonial and everything.

One of the things that’s very important to understand is scope of work when you’re hiring your editor or when you’re being hired as an editor, exactly how much are you going to do? How many times are you going to go over the manuscript? Those kinds of things you need to agree to in advance.

When I do a manuscript for a client, I go through the manuscript exactly one time. If you want me to go through it again, you have to pay me again because that’s the scope of work that I do. If you make 500 changes after you give me the manuscript, you get to pay me again because I have to go through it again from the top.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Yeah. That brings us perfectly into our next section, which is when the author isn’t cooperating with the parameters you set. Cause there could be times where you’re like, this is how like I do things.

And then they’ll push for more or they’ll push at different times to be like, no, this is how I want you to do it. It’s like buddy or you’re hiring me and we’ve agreed to something. So that would be one of those moments where like if what we’ve agreed to and you’re not even following it at the very beginning, then I cannot work with you either.

[V.E. Griffith]
Yeah. Again, it goes back to scope of work. These are the parameters and it helps me to put them in writing and send them to the client before we engage as a, in the form of a contract.

This is what I’m providing. This is what you’re providing. This is what the expectations are.

This is the final product, the work product you’re going to get. This is the deliverable. And that way we can go through each section like a checklist and let them look at it ahead of time.

The other thing that I always put into the contract is a specific notation that the author is in creative control. Everything that I do is a suggestion only you can accept or reject my suggestions, but you’re hiring me for my professional opinion and my suggestions. So just again, expectation, your editor is never telling you you must change something, but you are hiring them for their opinion and you should consider it very, very closely because you paid a lot of money for it.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
What’s another reason you would stop working with a client?

[V.E. Griffith]
The only other reason really that I would stop working with a client and possibly refund their money is if they turn out to be so unpleasant to work with that it’s not worth the hassle. I have never had a client like that. My, my threshold for pain with a client is very high, but I’ve never had a client who was so unpleasant that I had to fire them.

There are clients that I might choose to complete the job and then never work for it again. I wouldn’t necessarily tell them unless they approach me again and say, and I might say, I don’t think we’re a good fit this time. Or I might say I’m busy and I don’t have space for you, but I don’t feel like I’ve ever been in a situation where I’ve needed to fire a client in midstream.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Nice. One of them that I think would be if they, if you have like a payment plan set up and they’re not paying you, like don’t do the work, that’s a, that’s a big one. Like pay your editors.

[V.E. Griffith]
Absolutely. Pay them on time in full according to the schedule that you agreed to in the contract that you no doubt agreed to. So it is common for editors to require half upfront and then half on delivery.

I typically require either half upfront and half before delivery, but after I’m done. So I tell you I’m done. I send you an invoice, you pay me.

And then within 24 hours you get your work product or I do full payment upfront so that I don’t have to worry about collections. That’s what I prefer, but not every client is willing to do that. So if that’s the case, then I’m willing usually to do half and half.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
One that stops me from starting taking a client is if they’re not a good, like if I’m not a good fit for them. So if someone wants to come to me and is like, Hey, I really am so interested in learning more about like world building and the character development. Great.

I love that. Give me your book. If they’re like, Hey, can you help me with character development and world’s building?

And can you check for spelling? I’m going to be like, I am dyslexic and I’m not looking for spelling. You could be spelling it wrong and I could read it correctly.

So no. So when I’m not a good fit for the services they’re requiring, that’s when I’ll be like, sorry, I can’t do the work you would like me to, but I can point out another editor who works in that field.

[V.E. Griffith]
It’s important that you have a sit down chat with your editor before you hire them. Most editors will give you 15 to 30 minutes where they have not read your manuscript, but you discuss expectations with them and you discuss scope of work. Sometimes they’re called discovery calls or initial calls or something like that.

For myself, you can book one with me right on my webpage without having to get in touch with me first. So if you go ahead and book that call, come with questions in mind. That way we can discuss what your needs are and you can get all of your questions answered.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
I think that’s a, that’s about it for when, when to stop editing.

[V.E. Griffith]
I think it is too. Basically you want to edit when there’s nothing left to do except push spaghetti around on the plate.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Or when you get, you know, really pissed off.

[V.E. Griffith]
There you go. Okay. Then we’ll see everybody next week.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
All right. Stay magical. Bye.

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]
If you’d like to reach out to us separately, you can find me at vegriffith.com and Ms. Catherine at scribes-pen.com.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Stay magical. Welcome to the revisions or would it be revisions? I don’t know.

How would you say that with the S’s we have in there? Ooh, what if we did it the other way? I can take out the S’s.

And I go revisions and just add R’s. There you go. I mean, it’s slightly insulting.

You’ve put a K with that, but less insulting than if you had done it with like Kathy. It gross.

[V.E. Griffith]
Like that?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
We’re going to have to make an April fool’s one like this.

[V.E. Griffith]
Well, let’s see when the, when April, when the April fool’s episode would be, we do have an episode, April the 3rd, we could just release it a couple of days.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
We can do it.

[V.E. Griffith]
We can do a personal a couple of days early.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
No, it’s not as fun. Why not? We’ll have to, we’ll have to post one for the April fools because we don’t script the other ones.

We’re just weird anyway.

[V.E. Griffith]
Oh, okay.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
All right. I’m ready when you are.

[V.E. Griffith]
Okay.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Ms. Valentina. Ooh, my high voice. And I must sound like an old lady as I sound like a Kathy.

It actually hurt.

[V.E. Griffith]
Don’t hurt your voice. That’s bad.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
It is, but that’s why I have my sugary tea.

[V.E. Griffith]
Holly, what am I going to do with you?

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Definitely going to give me diabetes. Wow.

[V.E. Griffith]
You don’t want that.

[Miss Catherine M.H.]
Nope. But it’s a, it’s going to happen from this cup of tea.

[V.E. Griffith]
Okay. Well then add some water.