Critiques

With the good news of “your story has been accepted,” comes the usual, “make these corrections.” In both my hobby of fiction writing and my profession of technical writing, I have critiques and work with editors. I have professed several times in this blog alone, as well as real life, I am a writer not an editor. I have no problem coming up with characters, plots, and settings but ask me to put a comma in the right spot and I panic. I am completely aware of the fact that I need someone to make my writing sound presentable and correct. However, I don’t always agree with the editor’s bedside manner.

This latest acceptance and round of edits terrified me at first. It wasn’t that the editor was callous or harsh, quite the opposite he is very pleasant to work with an encouraging. The terror came from staring at the document with lots and lots of edited red text. People tell me I’m a good writer, full of potential, but that potential doesn’t seem like much when compared to an experienced writer.

On the flipside, other editors I’ve worked with just infuriate me because of their presentation. Some of them change things just because they prefer the sentence to read their way, not that there was anything grammatically wrong with my version, they just like the way theirs sounds better. Others point out my mistakes in such a way to let me know that I was an idiot, ought to know better, and did I really think I could write?

Here is the kicker; both types of editors help me improve my writing. Most of the time, I am so angry with an editor’s comments that I want to prove to them wrong and lo-and-behold my story turns out better, not necessarily because of the suggestions but because of their critical attitude. Both types of editors do get me to improve but I prefer the encouraging kind. No surprise there.