Tables Turned: Being Edited by my Publisher

“The Prophetess” tells a story about an American teenage girl who is called to join a secret community of Jewish prophets. The story weaves Jewish tradition, mysticism, modern Jewish American life and discovery of Israel into a coming of age story of a girl who discovers her power and purpose in life. This blog series tells the story of the making of “The Prophetess” — my first novel.

Being edited is always a humbling experience. In my day job, I’m usually the one explaining to others why the word “impute” can’t be used that way (you can only impute “to,” not impute “that”), or why this prepositional phrase really belongs at the beginning rather than the end. I’m the one who sends Microsoft Word files with a sea of red marks tracked on them.

This month, my publisher sent his final revisions to my novel manuscript, and it was my turn.

I sent the entire document to be printed (100% recycled, hole-punched) at Staples. As soon as I picked it up, I knew there would be problems. The publisher had changed the last line, the one that my beta readers always seemed to appreciate. And, on the first page, he had questioned whether my prologue was really necessary. Cringe.

Well, I said to myself, this is part of the process. I wanted a publisher, not to do this on my own. My father helped by reminding me that I’m the author; I also have the right to an opinion about his feedback. So I dug in with good intentions, intending to keep as many of his comments as I could.

As I read through his edits, I discovered a few trends. He didn’t like quite so many active verbs for dialogue (cut: whispered! demanded! acknowledged! affirmed!) but didn’t seem to mind adverbs as much. He put the word “that” back in several places where I’d removed it (during my “that” purge, when I removed the word more than 300 times).

The majority of his comments were helpful. But a few comments puzzled me so much that I had to look them up… and learned things I didn’t know:

I had always thought “nauseous” was the word used for feeling sick to your stomach, but I learned the proper word is “nauseated.”Somehow I missed the day in grammar class when they explained that “like” is a preposition and “as” is a conjunction. I made this mistake about 30 times, by including a verb phrase after the word “like.”In grammar class I did learn to use the Oxford comma, but in my job, which follows the AP Stylebook, I had finally broken the habit. Apparently, this publisher prefers it. OK.I’ve also always been particular about not splitting infinitives, but it turns out he didn’t mind splitting infinitives nearly as much as I did. I looked it up and he’s right.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been edited by anyone, and it was indeed humbling. But I also learned some things, and I think the book is better for his edits. I also was able to tell him where I disagreed and make some counter-offers.

We have a bit more work to do, but it’s amazing to realize this is the publication process. We’re almost finished with the manuscript. The real message here is that we almost have a completed book!

Want to hear more? Join me on this journey by following The Prophetess page on facebook. I’m also on twitter @StillEvonne. Willing to help get the word out? Join the Supporters of “The Prophetess ” facebook group!