What Do You Need Editors For?

I've been asked the question many times, almost always by non-writers. Or if the question comes from a writer it is, for certain, from one who hasn't yet been published. "What do you need editors for? What right does anyone have to tell you how you should write your story?"

The best analogy I can think of as to why writers need editors is that it's the same as singers relying on vocal coaches throughout their careers, however stellar those careers may be. Why? Because they need someone to hear them who isn’t standing inside their own heads, someone who can give them feedback they are too close to the sounds they make to give themselves.

Let me give an example of what I get from a good editor: Little Dog, Lost went through many, many drafts before it ever left my desk. Once the manuscript was acquired and I began working with my first editor at Atheneum, Kiley Frank, it went through at least three further drafts. Here is one of the questions I remember Kiley's asking. (The best editors ask questions, lots of questions, rather than stepping in to try to shape the work themselves.) "Why does Mark want a dog?"

Now, right here I have a confession. My first response—a completely silent one, I promise—was "What a dumb question! Doesn't every kid want a dog?" (I'm good at keeping my first responses silent. It's one of the talents that has helped me to have a long career.) But then I realized . . . I had a generic boy wanting a generic dog, and who cares about generic? So I went deeper and this is what I came up with:

Maybe it was his mother's "No!"—
the flatness of it,
the certainty—
that made Mark want a dog
so much.
Maybe it was that,
before Mark was even born,
his father went out
to buy a loaf of pumpernickel bread
and kept on going.
That's the way Mark's mother put it.
"He went out to buy a loaf of pumpernickel bread."
Mark knew it was a joke—
sort of—
but still
he had never liked pumpernickel.
It wasn't that he missed his father.
How can you miss somebody you've never met?
But sometimes
his nice little house
and his big green backyard
and his life
seemed kind of lonely
somehow.
So Mark had decided
long ago
that a boy without a dad
or a brother
or a sister
or even a cousin
living close enough to count
needed
a
dog.

Presto, my boy was no longer generic. His desire for a dog was no longer generic either. And if I'm guessing rightly, when my readers hit that patch, they will suddenly want, too, for Mark to have a dog. It's so obvious now, but without Kiley's question, I never would have seen what was needed, because I didn't see it through multiple drafts when I was the only reader.

A good editor's eye helps the writer--every writer--to create the story she set out to write when she put down that first, solitary word.

Thank you, Kiley. Thank you to every editor who has helped my stories grow into what they started out wanting to be.