Your Worst Writing Nightmare

Episode 3: What if I hate my editor?

Image Description: A young girl holds out a graded exam on “reading and writing” with a “c-” grade written on it. Credit: skynesher, getty images

Here we are with the third installment of Your Worst Writing Nightmare: where I tackle a lot of the “what if’s” and worst case scenarios that a lot of aspiring and new writers reach out to me about.

Today we’re talking about an issue that usually comes up for writers after they’ve spent a little time wading in the pool of paid essay or article work. You are feeling good about where your career is heading, you are starting to get paid for your work, you are starting to feel more confident. And then BAM: one editor has you questioning your abilities as a writer and feeling like you will never publish another piece again.

I don’t know anyone who builds a freelance career without coming across at least a few editors that made them doubt their entire writing existence (don’t even get me started on how much a bad book editor can fuck you up). There is no level of experience that a writer can have that makes them completely immune to editor fuckery, but if you are a newer writer, the wrong editor can crush the delicate shell of the developing egg that is your writerly confidence. So how do you figure out what is going on when you and your editor just can’t seem to get along? And what do you do to handle the issue while preserving your confidence and your career? Here are some tips that have helped me over the years, and I hope they will help you too.

But before that - let me say a quick word about editors: we need them. Yes, some editors can be the worst. But so can many writers (oh, so many). A good editor will make your work at worst more readable, and at best a more true version of what you wanted it to be and an inspirational example of the what your writing is progressing into. I have been saved from horrific embarrassment by good editors. I have been saved hours of writing frustration by good editors. I have been made a much better writer by good editors. Even though you can tell by my spelling and grammar that these particular newsletters lack an editor (IT’S PART OF THE CHARM, OKAY?), I absolutely value editors and wouldn’t dream of publishing an article or book without one.

Most of the time, if you are coming correct to your relationship with your editor, your work will be better for it. But then there are other times.

Let’s talk about those.

Types of Editor Fuckery

1. The Tone Policing: As a Black woman writer, this is the most common type of fuckery I encounter. This may just be that an editor or publication doesn’t like the amount of swears you use (often valid if it doesn’t fit the tone of the publication). It may be that you are using slang or verbiage that the editor or readers would not understand or be comfortable with (sometimes valid. If the average reader of said publication will have to google a third of the words you are using, they will likely just stop reading. But often these critiques stem from racial or class-based biases that the editor has or thinks that the reader would have - this is not cool. And if the editor is familiar with your work and you always write like this, it really causes one to ask “why the fuck did you commission me for this then?”). Often, however, an editor is trying to capitalize off of current discussions on race, gender, class, etc because it’s the cool thing to do and not because they have any interest or understanding of their own complicity (or that of their publication) in oppression. When your language butts up against their own biases or privilege, they will then flex that privilege to try to tone your words down to a volume they can safely ignore. This is fuckery.

2. The Hidden Agenda: Do editors sometimes have hidden agendas? Absolutely - especially when commissioning opinion pieces. I’ve had editors try to manipulate my pieces in ways that supported patriarchy, classism, ableism, white supremacy, and rape culture. You write a piece that you think is on the right side of history and you get your edits back and suddenly you sound like you’re one of the old white dudes who writes editorials for the New York Times. What gives? A lot of the time editors will make changes under the guise of “fairness” or “nuance” that are really just their way of trying to force their own harmful viewpoints on readers in a way that they won’t be explicitly held accountable for. Often, editors think of themselves as the vanguard of progressive respectability and will seek the “edginess” of your work while using their “reason” to try to “keep it in line”. This is fuckery.

3. The “Rage Clicks Are Better Than No Clicks Editor”: An editor that seeks to provoke an audience just to provoke is a bad editor - ESPECIALLY if they do this without the full understanding and consent of writers. Even the best of us will occasionally have some really bad ideas. All of us have written at least a few duds. If we’re lucky, nobody outside of the five people who read our old blogs will see it. If we’re trying to put these really bad ideas out into the larger writing world, there are supposed to be people to stop that from happening. Those people are editors. Yet, I’ve often seen many newer writers - especially younger writers with perhaps more limited life experience - who write some really shitty, harmful, and misguided pieces, and their editor is like, “THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND IMPORTANT PIECE I’VE EVER READ LET’S PUBLISH IT NOW THE WORLD WILL THANK YOU.” The editor knows that the piece is shit. The editor knows that the piece will be harmful. The editor knows that every reader will hate you forever. And they publish that shit and still sleep like a baby at night. Why? Because they are unethical and their publication likely is as well and they want the clicks. They know that as editors they are ultimately responsible for every piece they edit and publish, but they also know that the average reader doesn’t know that or care. The reader cares about whose name is on the byline of the piece of hot trash they were just subjected to. The writer is the person who gets dragged, who gets harassed, who loses friends and professional opportunities. The writer is the one who, even if they recover and grow from these mistakes, will still want to bury themselves in a hole when they remember that they wrote something so very bad. The editor moves on to the next outrage, patting themselves on the back for being able to manipulate both writers and readers enough to keep eyeballs glued to their horrible website. SUCH FUCKERY.

4. The Click-Bait Editor: While similar to the Rage Clicks editor, this is a little more benign, but still annoying as fuck. You write a great piece. It’s thoughtful, reasoned, helpful. You go through the editing process and are so happy with the finished product. It goes live and you excitedly click on the link and you are suddenly the author of a piece titled: “Poor People are the Worst: Why I Think We Should Bring Back Debtors Prisons” and you’re like: BUT THIS IS A STORY ABOUT HOW MY GRANDMA TAUGHT ME HOW TO KNIT??? A lot of readers don’t know that editors are usually the people who title articles, and often they do so without any input from the person who actually wrote the article. I firmly believe that a good editor will always at least inform you of the title before they hit publish, but often that just doesn’t happen. Usually it turns out okay, but sometimes an editor will use this unchecked power to try to grab readers with a wild and often completely unrelated or distorted headline that will MAKE READERS HATE YOU. This is very common fuckery and I hate it.

5. The Editor Who Just Can’t Quit You: You’re miserable, the editor is miserable. The editor clearly hates your writing style and maybe your very existence - and yet they are still editing your piece over and over and over and trying to find a way to make it work when it’s clearly just not meant to be. This isn’t always fuckery. Sometimes an editor accepts a piece really thinking that it’s going to be great and shit just goes south and then they are genuinely trying to make it work because they don’t want to cancel the commission. But sometimes the editor knew from the start that the writer didn’t write in a way they liked, or the scope of the piece fell outside of their expertise, and yet for various reasons (often because “everybody else is publishing pieces like this” or “we really want this writer’s readers”) they accepted the piece. This is fuckery. It is guaranteed to waste your time and the editors. Sometimes you need to either bring in outside help or just walk away.

6. The Editor Who Really Wants You To Be A White Dude And Sees It As A Professional Flaw That You Aren’t: This often goes hand in hand with example #1, but it is far more wide-reaching than just tone policing. Often editors think they are doing you a favor by making your work as flavorless as that steak that Chad is over-grilling in the backyard right now. They want all of your sentences to be “proper” and they want all of your discussions to be “impartial.” They want you to write like you grew up in a bubble that was free from racism, sexism, classism, or any culture spicier than what can be found in a bottle of Mrs. Dash seasoning blend. They are sure that if you just understood that the way in which you speak - a way that has always been well understood by your community and your peers - is invalid now that you are serious writer you would be thankful. They want to teach you that writing which in no way ever challenges privileged white readers to acknowledge ideas or even language that is not their own or created to benefit them before anyone else is the pinnacle of good, professional writing. These are editors who have crawled up the ass of their own fuckery and are trying to convince you that it smells great in there.

These are some the major fuckeries. There so many more: the editors who don’t seem to have any consideration for your time or how long it takes a human being to actually write and revise pieces, the editors who want to talk a piece to death with every draft, the editors who take any pushback you give to their edits hell personally and become big whiny babies about it, the editors who actually make your spelling and grammar worse - I could go on, but honestly, this piece is already SO long and I haven’t even given any tips yet. So we’re just going to focus on the six types of fuckery I listed above.

Tips for Handling Editor Fuckery:

1. Check yourself: It’s really important when you get a response from an editor that has you feeling some sort of way to pause for a minute and sit with yourself and your first reactions. Are you upset because you see clear signs of fuckery that seem to be outside of normal editor-writer communications, or can you just not take critique? It’s important to know this about yourself. When other people in your life give you critique or constructive feedback, how do you take it? Do you welcome it and thank people for providing the opportunity for growth or improvement, or does everybody always seem to be wrong and out to get you? You will never get more out of your relationship with an editor than you are willing to accept. So if you find that every interaction you have with any editor that is less than glowing praise feels like fuckery to you, the problem might just be you. You need to find a way past that - perhaps by having people you trust to give you an honest opinion take a look and then actually listening to those people. Perhaps writing down all of the less than glowing feedback you have gotten from various editors to see if there is a pattern and then discuss those patterns with trusted friends or colleagues. Also note: if you aren’t sure if the feedback you are getting is right or fuckery, it doesn’t mean that you must immediately default to what the editor wants, it just means that you might need a little time and outside guidance before you respond in a way that might ruin a valuable professional relationship and deprive you of a growth opportunity.

2. Pitch in the same language that you write. A lot of problems arise when people use their “job interview” language for their pitch to editors and then their “hanging out with friends” language for their actual piece. Try to be consistent with how you write all of your communications with editors. If you get a commission because your pitch sounded pulitzer-ready, editors will be shocked when your piece is actually 80% dick jokes. Also, include links to past work that reflects the style in which you hope to write your piece in your pitch. Whatever you can do to ensure that the editor is hiring you because they like your actual writing is going to benefit both you and the editor in the long run.

3. Do not let edits that make you feel uncomfortable or feel unethical to you slide - even if it costs you the commission. I have pulled so many pieces that didn’t feel right to me and the only regrets that I have are for the pieces that I didn’t pull. At the end of the day, you will be the person that readers hold responsible for the piece, for better or worse. It is your name on that byline so you need to feel like every sentence in that piece is in line with your ethics and morals, and reflects your actual opinions. I’ll go even further and say that any sentence that just doesn’t sound like you for any reason needs to be changed or cut. I highly recommend reading each piece out loud to yourself before you give the final okay on edits. Any part that gives you pause or doesn’t roll off of your tongue needs to be addressed. If you can’t get the piece to a place where it works for you, pull it. Ask for it back and forfeit the commission. Hopefully you can find another home for the piece, but even if you can’t it’s worth it. In a field where editors and publishers hold a lot of power, your voice is all you have. Your voice is the one thing that editors and publications can’t steal or duplicate. The clarity and consistency of your voice is what will bring readers to you and will be what keeps your readers with you from publication to publication. That audience is the power you will build in order to be able to take on more of the work you love at publications that best suit you and rates that actually pay your bills. As a writer with a name that many people in the US can’t even pronounce in an industry that regularly pressures writers into changing their names to words that are “easier” to remember, it is so vital that I protect my voice so that people can start to read a piece and know that it’s me before they even get to the byline. It’s my writing that has people googling how to pronounce my name because my writing has become a trusted part of their lives and they want to talk about it with the same level of respect that I give them. It’s my writing that has editors reaching out to me trying to get a piece so they can share some of my audience. The moment I let my voice go to suit an editor who doesn’t value me, I lose the only power I really have in this industry. There are a lot of editors in the world and it’s a lot easier to find a new editor who will respect your voice, then to win back the respect of readers whose trust you’ve violated with pieces that weren’t in line with your values, morals or perspective.

4. Learn what your voice is. I will say this again because I really do think it is so important: read your work out loud to yourself (or, if you use another form of communication with others, read it in that way) and really pay attention to how it comes out. Does it sound like you? If it doesn’t, try to figure out which parts don’t sound like you so you can see where you have a tendency to lose your voice. Then, focus on the parts that do sound like you - that have you nodding your head in agreement with yourself - to get an idea of where your true voice lies. Ask people who really know you and value your voice to read your work and point out where your words really shine with *you-ness*. Pay attention to feedback from readers that indicates portions of your writing that really stuck with them. All of this can help you figure out what your best, most authentic voice is. Knowing your voice is one of the most important ways in which you can combat editor fuckery, because when they come for your voice, you know they aren’t the editor for you. It doesn’t always mean that the editor is bad or even trying to fuck with you, it may just mean that your voice isn’t a right fit for the publication or that editor. But regardless, if you feel like the edits are fucking with your writing voice, it’s a good sign to push back and try to find a compromise that doesn’t harm or change your writing voice, or move on to another editor that wants to preserve your voice as much as you do.

5. If you are a writer who isn’t a cis abled white dude, find other writers who also aren’t cis abled white dudes to talk to. As a Black woman writer, it was other Black women writers who did the most to help me distinguish between helpful editing that maybe I didn’t want to hear, and editor fuckery. In a field that is notoriously hostile to BIPOC writers, Queer and Trans writers, and Disabled writers, it is vital that we have a way to level-set. We all need an environment to come together free of fuckery so that we can remember what it’s like to be a writer without the fuckery (and what it should be like all the time), and so that we can openly talk about what we are facing to get advice and establish patterns of fuckery. If you don’t have other writers of similar experience to talk with, this industry WILL GASLIGHT THE FUCK OUT OF YOU.

6. Add a preferred headline to your final draft. Even though the editor has a say over what your headline will be, you can still nudge them in the right direction by putting a preferred headline at the top of your piece. It is a little harder for an editor to feel like they can get away with drastically changing your headline without at least running it by you when you’ve already made it known what your preferred headline is. It’s also completely fine to ask an editor if they can tell you what the headline is before they publish. They don’t have to tell you, and sometimes they won’t simply because they don’t know what it is yet - but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

7. Ask every single question and push back on every single edit BEFORE the piece publishes. It really sucks when an editor changes a piece in a way that makes your piece worse or even harmful. But if it gets published that way because you didn’t want to nitpick, or because you thought you could bring it up later if it really became an issue, or because you just didn’t bother to read the edits thoroughly before giving the a-ok (I’ve done this and ohhhhh does it burn): that’s on you. If you go through the whole editing process and the editor thinks you love how the piece turned out because you didn’t give them any reason to think otherwise and then you wait until after they’ve hit publish to tell them that you don’t like their changes - YOU are the one engaging in fuckery. Not only will you annoy the shit out of your editor, often publications have rules against making changes that aren’t about correcting factual or spelling errors and you’ll be SOL anyway. Trust me: if it bugs you, bring it up now. If you don’t, it will torture you later.

8. Know when it’s time to walk away. If you are trying to work with an editor and for any reason it just doesn’t seem to be working out, the sooner you can realize that and gracefully walk away, the better. Plenty of times I’ve had to tell editors that I just didn’t think the piece was working out we’ve parted ways only to come back together for great pieces in the future. Part of the reason why we were able to do so is that we let the pieces that weren’t working out go before they made us hate each other. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, and sometimes that not due to any fuckery at all, and that’s okay. The publishing world is vast and there is a place for your writing and the sooner you can determine which places aren’t right for you, the sooner you’ll be able to find the places that are.

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