Dear Author,
I wonder if anyone has ever called you an author before, or if you think of yourself that way. I do. I refer to all of my clients as “my authors,” and I hope to one day have shelves with all of your books.
That would be a lot of books, of varying quality, because many of you are not good writers. Yet. I don’t say that to discourage you. On the contrary, I greatly admire you. Most people say they want to write a book, and a fraction of those do, and a fraction of those hire professional support, and a fraction of those actually publish.
I deeply respect your drive and am honored to be a part of your creative process, even when the manuscript is not fully baked. In truth, many of my favorite stories you’ve written are the ones full of both heart and grammatical errors. Commas can be fixed, but I can’t breathe soul into the pages for you. That’s your job, and that’s what you shine at.
The writing skills will come with time and practice, and I will read your third book and leave a comment in the margins to say, “This is the best chapter you’ve ever written! You have absolutely nailed the pacing and the tension, the dialogue sounds natural, and I only found one comma splice.”
That’s my favorite part of our working relationship. Over time, you learn to make your prose dance across the page. The clunkiness softens and your vocabulary grows. Your stories mature, growing deeper and more immersive. I make fewer technical edits in your second book, and the third one is nearly all stylistic suggestions. I learn your voice, and you learn mine.
Dear author, I know you are intimately familiar with your stories. I know you’ve spent months or years crafting your work before I ever enter the picture. Thank you for stepping back and trusting that I will care for your words, that I will see the sweat you’ve poured into the action and the tears you’ve leaked into your characters. Your vulnerability is not lost on me.
I, too, spend hours pouring over your manuscript, caring for the details and evaluating your characters. Sometimes these things run away from us. When they take on a life of their own, sometimes it takes us both to wrangle them back into the story or to broaden the story to encompass all of them. I am honored to craft worlds with you.
Sometimes you make me slam my head into the wall when you keep switching POVs or tenses, or use the words “highlights” and “underscores” six times each on every page (we both know you used ChatGPT, cut that out).
But nonetheless, I am grateful for your willingness to grow as a writer and take my thoughts into consideration. Practice and feedback are how we improve, and watching you grow is why I love my job. Even when you ignore my notes and make the same mistakes over and over, I respect your vision. I’m always on your team, rooting for you to create something fulfilling and create change in the world. Although I do wish you’d brush up on homonyms.
Thank you for your stories. The world needs more people who fearlessly (or perhaps fearfully but courageously) share what they can’t help but create in their minds. Thank you for taking the time, effort, and care to explore the worlds you dream up, and thank you for letting me rip them up and glue them back together. We make a great team.
~ Your Editor, Allison, of Sigmon Editorial