Recently, I read the book Repossessed, by A.M. Jenkins. Good book. Highly recommend.
Anyway, afterwards, I was curious about the author, so I did a little Googling, and came across this Suite 101 interview with her, wherein she says (amongst other things):
What opened up another world for me was talking with other writers about editorial advice, and seeing that when editors tell you something that’s not working, they almost always are pointing out a valid problem–but they aren’t always pointing to the right way to fix it. I learned that it’s better for your writing if you can pick out what is bothering the editor, and then feel out a way to address it that seems right for the characters and the ms. It’s a mistake to blow off an editor’s advice just because you don’t agree with their fix.
I’m currently working on not one, but two editorial letters, for Rampant and SSG3. One question I get asked all the time is whether or not I “have to” take the advice given to me by my editors. I don’t like the framing of this question because it casts my relationship with my editors in an adversarial light, as if the draft I turned in is somehow the Platonic form of the novel and any editing that occurs is a bastardization of my vision. I think people have this assumption because of horror stories about “bad editors” who try to change the book to fit their vision of it, and not the vision of the writer. There are also a couple of very famous writers out that that balk at the idea of anyone touching their masterpieces, and so aren’t edited at all.
I’m not going to say the editing process is utterly without pain — it’s not. That’s why we have terms like “kill your darlings” and why we have friends and loved ones and agents to moan and groan and whinge to. But it’s painful like getting an injection is painful, or “feeling the burn” of exercise. Revision is the hard part of writing for me, but it’s also the part that tempers the book.
My favorite part of revision is working out possible solutions with my editors. Because I recognize what Jenkins does — that yes, there is a problem, but what the solution is may be up for discussion. Sometimes, my editor will suggest something and it will sound great, but when we try it, it doesn’t work out so well, and it’s back to the drawing board. Sometimes, she’ll suggest something that I’m not fond of, and we’ll work together to try something else. In that case, you have to overcome the reflex of thinking there’s no problem, just because you don’t like the sound of the solution.
Recently, my editor brought up a problem with one of my favorite scenes in my draft — a real “darling.” Not only did I think the scene was fine as is, I thought it was great. It was actually a solution to a problem that I’d had in the course of writing the draft, and I was incredibly fond of it. And yet, I hadn’t thought of this problem. My editor wanted to brainstorm possible solutions to the problem, but I had a bit of a mental block about it, because solving the problem she had with the scene would rob it of my favorite elements. We each floated several ideas, trying to keep that element I adored, but none packed any particular punch (this was a big emotional scene), and I knew I hadn’t found “it” — until my editor rather radically suggested an entirely different take — one which would wipe the slate clean of EVERYTHING I thought was important in the scene, including the presence of a pivotal character.
Oddly enough, I loved it. Although it trashed my darling altogether, it packed one hell of a punch, enough that it made the darling pale in comparison. And it quickened the pace. And strengthened other facets of the novel, and recycled and helped little old ladies cross the street and reduced our dependence on foreign oil and all sorts of other goodies. I’m very pleased with it. And I’m very in awe of my editor.
So sometimes revisions can be fun. (Sometimes…) But I’m learning that it’s important to think of this as a team effort. It can be difficult to break out of the “corrections on a student paper” mindset at first, but it’s so worth it.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:10 am
I always felt like the phrase “Kill your darlings” was itself a phrase that needed revising. Always sounded entirely too precious to me.
I think your comments about the perception of the editing process are on point–too many people see it as adversarial or oppositionally defined. I don’t think that will change, though (for people outside publishing, at least), since it’s a product of people identifying with their written output.
September 28th, 2007 at 8:05 am
aden, you should read my “When good advice goes bad” series about “kill your darlings.”
September 28th, 2007 at 9:24 am
“too many people see it as adversarial or oppositionally defined”
it’s because a lot of times, it is.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Good post, Diana. Perceptive and the signs of a mature writer. We writers do put a lot of ourselves into our work and want to protect it, but in the end, the finished product really is a team effort. Good advice.
September 28th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Diana–I did, actually, read that post, and wasn’t commenting about your choice of words. (In fact I originally ran across the phrase as “Murder your darlings,” and I thought that was more insufferable.)
I also didn’t mean to echo what you’d written there, but at 3 in the morning I guess I’m more receptive to certain ideas than I thought.
In college I worked at a writing center, and part of our mandate was to offer assistance on student papers. The common responses were of two flavors: “Awesome, I’ll pick this up in twenty minutes when you’ve rewritten it,” or “So you think that sentence doesn’t flow? You can go STRAIGHT TO HELL.”
I meant to suggest that for people who are not exposed to the editorial process as a large part of their professional lives, the perception that a critique of the work is a critique of the self probably won’t budge.
(Meekly heads back to the “darlings” thread to make sure I read what was actually there…)
September 28th, 2007 at 8:56 pm
In the words of a Sheryl Crow song – the first cut is the deepest
It still hurts to admit that you could’ve done something better, but not when you see how much better the finished product is because of your open-mindedness 
Hitting delete is tough to do, but I rarely regret it anymore once the rewrite is done.
September 29th, 2007 at 10:34 am
It can be difficult to break out of the “corrections on a student paper” mindset at first
I love this. It certainly DOES seem that way, doesn’t it.
October 1st, 2007 at 6:03 pm
I have admittedly limited experience in this milieu as yet, but I was really pleased with how editorial notes strengthened my book.
There was one spot where I had to do a bit of thinking because the straightforward solution wasn’t going to preserve something I felt needed to be there, but I devised a workaround that I actually think made the book much stronger.