On Edit Letters (and How Our RTM Mentors Handle Them) by Fatiha Rais

On Edit letters

First of all, congratulations for getting that mentor, agent, or (freelance or acquiring!) editor.

You put yourself out there, taking a leap of faith on a project that you love and want to publish one day. That’s not an easy step to take, so take a moment to celebrate that before anything else. And now, because of your first move, you have someone in your corner who can see “the vision” for your work. That’s great news!

Let’s start at the top. What even is an edit letter?

This might be the first time you’re receiving a large amount of feedback. You may have heard what an edit letter is but you’re not exactly sure what you’re supposed to do with it. The one you’ve received is twelve pages long and they’re all single-spaced. You’re excited that someone is so passionate about your work, but maybe you’re also panicking at the amount there is to work on.

Breathe.

Edit letters offer a critique of a partial or full-length novel. They get to the heart of your project, considering how best to help make your book MORE of what it already is whilst also targeting the points that are weaker and offering constructive feedback on how those can be improved. Edit letters are intended to be inspiring, honest, and thorough.

They’re often split into sections. These sometimes include: overall comments/an introduction (these are often focusing on the big picture comments, what the reader loved, what are the major things to work on), plot, characters, worldbuilding, style (for those repeated line-level issues), target audience (where it fits on the market, comps, appropriate word counts). Other sections can include more personalised categories like ‘Romance’ and ‘Themes’ and how these can be drawn upon further to the betterment of the novel.

Now, comes the hard part: you need to process the edit letter.

Lie down if you need to, cuddle your pet, let yourself weep. Give yourself the time to unravel considering the sheer amount of work you have in front of you.

Now, let’s take some actionable steps. We’ll start small.

•  Send a professional response to the one who gave you the edit letter.

•  Change the font if you have to.

•  Double space that single-spaced horror.

•  Print it off and cut it into sections or page break at the end of each section in a document.

In each section there will often be a few sentences of what the agent, editor or mentor loved, their impressions of that section and constructive criticism about each. Take a highlighter to the sections one-by-one and consider what aligns with your vision. If the edit letter is from an agent or traditional publishing editor, you may already know that they agree with what you want to keep and change in your story. But nonetheless, look over the constructive suggestions on those pages in front of you.

And remember, the suggestions that they’ve offered are still just suggestions. You’re the one who will have to implement the changes in a way that fits your book. This can be exactly what’s on the page or it can mean that the literal suggestion isn’t quite what you had in mind but can open more doors towards an idea that you feel good about.

Make your own notes about each section, brainstorm your own ideas and then consider how you’ll implement these in your story.

Our mentors on how they tackle receiving edit letters:

Fatiha:

I like to read my novel again before I dig into my edit letters. Getting an edit letter usually means someone has loved my book enough to see the vision for it and so I like building up my ego before I, then, dash it with the edit letter’s constructive criticisms! Once I’ve read through my novel again and familiarised myself with all the components, I begin my attack with a highlighter. I create a traffic light system of what immediately vibes with my own revision ideas or the heart of the story (green), what I need more time to think about or larger developmental edits (amber), and finally, things I can’t see myself changing (red). Then, I give myself some space. Sometimes after I’ve taken some time away those reds and ambers become greens, sometimes they don’t.

Rosario Martinez:

Edit letters sound scary BUT so necessary obviously but especially when you as the writer feel and know there’s something SOMEWHERE that needs threading that you can’t see because you’re so IN the story because it’s been in your head for so long that fresh critical eyes feel like a blessing. I actually do like feedback after I’ve sat with it or prepared myself. It’s a complicated feeling but overall a necessary and a good one. Yay edit letters.

Solar:

The first thing I do is reverse outlining!! and then a spreadsheet of the reverse outline but with very short description of the chapter. it allows me to see a holistic view of the book, which POV currently has more chapters than the other (good for multi-pov books), and I can highlight which chapter(s) I need to edit/add/delete.

CL Montblanc:

In terms of tackling edit letters as a writer, I find it really important to sit on the feedback for a few days. Seeing all of that critique at once can get really overwhelming, especially when it's immediate and you have no idea how you’re going to be able to address it yet. Then I usually address in-line comments and things that are quick edits. Like typos, plot holes that only need one new sentence to fix.

Being able to remove those first makes the rest feel smaller and more doable. Then when you just have some of the bigger notes left, you can take time, come up with a plan, and maybe talk to your mentor/agent/whoever about what you were thinking of doing, just so you can feel that sense of approval and go in to rip up the MS while feeling like you’re on track rather than “omg I’m gonna ruin it.”

Helen:

For my last dev edit I put the reverse outline in a spreadsheet and then made three other sheets — one to note down all the high level problems with the manuscript and my thoughts on solutions, one for worldbuilding notes/things I need to remember to thread through the whole MS, and one for a new outline based on the reverse outline where I put the old outline side-by-side with the new one to see where I need to make changes.

It also helped me a lot to send that spreadsheet with everything to my agent before beginning the edit work — having her approve the plan made me feel a lot more confident about tackling the edit :))

Everyone has non-negotiables:

There are times when you will see a suggestion and think “this will change the heart of my story and I hate it”. When this happens, take a pause to mull over the comment. Give yourself some time. Then, there are two directions this can go; the suggestion is right or it’s wrong.

When it’s right, great! You can work towards implementing that. But when it’s wrong, it’s a little tougher. Consider what your agent/mentor/editor is asking you to do and what it accomplishes. If you think you can figure out a way to accomplish the same thing in a different way then make a note of that for discussion. If you’ve had time to think and still don’t agree with it, politely let your agent/editor/mentor know. Usually, they’ll be receptive of this and be willing to negotiate.

These situations aren’t easy. It’s a little heartbreaking hearing that the person who should’ve had the vision for your novel sees a divergence from its heart. But it is important to gather your thoughts (and your courage!) and discuss them. It’s your story. Don’t compromise it in a way you’re not happy with.

Final Note

If you’re anything like me, all of these steps will have your anxiety issuing a high-alert warning! Your fight or flight response will be constantly triggered from the moment you hit send on that manuscript to mentors/agents/editors to the moment you receive this edit letter and you might second-guess your entire writing career up until this point. Take a step back, look past your highlights and your notes to the positive comments that whoever issued your edit letter has left for you. Take those words to heart. Your novel has struck a chord with someone and they’ve tried to draw on all the good they saw with their constructive feedback. The next part will be tough, but remember that by revising, using the edit letter that you have, you are giving your novel the best chance it has to make its way out into the world.

Happy revising!