76. Navigate the Editing Process with Allyson Wilkins

Ready to transform your manuscript from a rough draft into a polished gem? Discover the secrets to navigating the entire editing process, whether you're working with a professional editor or sharpening your skills to self-edit your book!

In this episode, join Erin P.T. Canning and special guest Allyson Wilkins, an expert editor for YA and adult fantasy and fairy tale retellings, as we demystify everything you need to know about getting your book ready for readers. Learn how to know if your manuscript is truly ready for professional eyes, debunk common myths about working with editors, and get practical and actionable tips you can apply right away!

What you’ll learn: 

• Understanding Editing Stages: The key differences between developmental editing, line editing, and proofreading, and when your manuscript is ready for each phase.
• Finding the Right Editor: How to choose a great editor who enhances your unique author voice, not changes it, and what happens once your manuscript leaves your hands.
• Editor Rates & Time: Get transparent insights into how editors charge, what goes into their work (the 1K–3K rule!), and realistic turnaround times.
• Self-Editing Masterclass: Actionable strategies for self-editing your own book, including the power of beta readers, show, don't tell, avoiding LY adverbs, and unique proofreading techniques.
• Common Mistakes to Avoid: Learn common pitfalls authors make before and during the editing process, and how to set your book up for success.
• Pacing Your Publication: Honest advice on managing publishing deadlines and preventing burnout.

Guest Spotlight — Connect with Allyson: 

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getitwrite_editing 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getitwriteedit 
• Website: https://getitwrite-editing.com 

Resources discussed: 

• Editorial Freelancers Association: https://www.the-efa.org/ 

Connect with us: 

• Website: https://erinptcanning.com  
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/erinptcanning 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinptcanning/ 

READY TO TAKE YOUR WRITING FURTHER? 

Join our Patreon community and access our vibrant Discord writing group to get writing prompts, participate in sprints, download free resources, and more: 
https://www.patreon.com/erinptcanningeditor

Transcript

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Are you ready to transform your manuscript from a rough draft into a polished gem? Today you'll learn how to know if your book is truly ready for an editor, how to choose the right one and how to collaborate effectively without losing your unique voice. Stick around and you'll also walk away with essential self editing tips that will help you avoid common pitfalls. Welcome to Embracing the Fiction Author Journey, the podcast that helps writers pursue their author dreams. I'm Erin PT Canning. I'm an author, editor, and book coach who's been at this for more than 20 years, and my mission is to help you own your identity as an author. Now, no matter where you're at with your writing. Hey friend! Thank you for joining me for another episode. Today I have with me Allison Wilkins, who is an editor who focuses primarily in YA and adult fantasy and fairy tale retellings. Let's start at the beginning, which is why do you I love being an editor? Basically just kind of fell in love with the idea of being able to help authors develop their stories and their characters. I was a theater major when I was in college. Um, so I've had a lot of experience with character development and arcs and looking at the plot structure. There were a couple times where we would have to write our own plays and so we'd have to do all of that anyway, so it, I feel it translates pretty well to novels. I love it. You already touched upon this, basically, the difference between a developmental editor and a line editor. So you're focusing on those big picture issues, like character arcs and plot holes. And as the line editor, I'm going in there and focusing on sentence level, paragraph level, making sure that everything is flowing really good, that we've got clear descriptions and ideas. Do you have any advice on how authors can get that sense of is this manuscript ready for a developmental editor, or can I go ahead and proceed to a line editor? I think a good indicator is get a beta reader, and if they come across anything that's really big then, yeah, obviously, you know you're kind of not ready. Usually I encourage people to do beta reading before developmental editing. And honestly, also, if you're not quite sure, you can contact an editor and ask for a manuscript evaluation, or they can do a sample edit even. Sample edits are usually free. And they can go through and just kind of see where your, where your manuscript is, if they think it's ready. But those would be my two suggestions, give it to someone else that you trust to, to kind of go through it. And then if you're really, really unsure, ask for a sample edit for a developmental style or just a manuscript evaluation, which is pretty similar. What misnomers do you hear a lot about writers working with editors that you would like to set the record straight on? I feel like one of the biggest ones is that, you know, editors can be really harsh and they're just out to change an author's story. They don't care about, you know, the story. I don't think that's true. I mean, we want to enhance the author's vision and make it better, bring out their voice, retain what they've what their idea is, and find those improvements. So no, I don't think we're out to just, you know, slash the manuscript to pieces. I agree with that one a lot. I've heard other people in groups commenting about bad experiences that they've had with editors, and I feel awful. And I'm like, okay, but that means that you didn't find the right editor. We're definitely not all like that. How do you go about offering suggestions to a manuscript that preserves the author's idea and voice? I'll ask questions trying to get the author to think and to kind of develop some of their own ideas. When I get a client, I send out a form, like a questionnaire basically, and have them say, Hey, if you have any suggestions or any places that you want me to look at specifically, let me know. So I try to keep that communication open with the author just to make sure I'm not stepping on toes. And I'll give suggestions, you know, if they want me to do that. And a couple clients that I've had are like, yeah, please give me a couple like little Ideas. I definitely love the whole asking questions method, especially if I notice that, you know, an author has said A, B, and C in their manuscript, and so then they say something else that feels like it's contradicting it or doesn't quite align with it. I'm not telling them how to write their story. I'm just saying, okay, based on everything you've said thus far, how does this help that? How does it support it? And maybe, you know, can we, can we talk through that? Those are the editors that I want people to look for is where they are supporting what it is that the author is trying to do. We're working with that. We're helping them to make that better, not saying, well, I think you should do it this way. What do you wish clients didn't do with their manuscripts when you get them for review and editing? I think the biggest thing is to have a, as a complete manuscript as possible. Um. It's really tricky, especially as a developmental editor to get a manuscript that has like a chapter missing or two or three chapters missing or something like that. You can get the big picture, but you're like, okay, how exactly is this scene going to fit in, like even if they give you a scene description. So ideally if you can get a complete story, even if you don't think it's the best and you know there's issues, that's okay. That's what we're here for. And then I think it's also good to have that open dialogue where if the client can say, Hey, I'm missing three chapters, but it's because I'm really struggling. I don't know what I need to happen here to get from point C to point G. It falls a little bit more in the book coaching area, but at least you know that beforehand, as opposed to here you're in the middle of developmentally editing a script and all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute. We're missing a whole bunch of scenes, you know? Do your authors already have style sheets or series Bibles when they are contacting you and sending you their work? Or do you work primarily with providing them with bookmaps? I think it depends on the author and depends on what they're writing. Can you walk us through what a book map is and how is it that you go about creating that for your clients? Yes. I love bookmaps. I use Excel. I put the title in. I put the total word count, and then I break it down literally chapter by chapter, scene by scene. I put the word count in each scene and the percentage of the overall. That way you can kind of see, Hey, I had this many words in this scene, and it takes up this much time in my book, um, which can be helpful if you find a scene is way too short or way too long. Maybe you need to pare that down. But I also include what the scene is about, and then you can have different categories where you look at exactly where the action happens. Oh, this is where the main male character and the main female character meet. It helps really to look at the overall arc of the plot. You can look at the character development. I find that, especially with character development, it's really important to do that because you might be missing a conflict scene or something where the characters need to interact just to help their relationship progress or something. So I enjoy doing that. And I've had clients say that the book map is, is helpful for them, especially as they're going through and editing and applying all their changes. Editors, I believe in the work that we do. I know that affording us can be a little bit scary, so let's talk about it. How do you determine your rates? Do you want me to go first? I feel like I'm putting you on the spot with everything, so. Ha. Whatever works. Okay. So I make sure that my rates are in alignment with the Editorial Freelancers Association. How about you? Yeah. I try to be in line with them or just under. And it's one of those tough things because I know that editors can be expensive, but the just the hours upon hours that I pour into this. How do you explain that to clients when they are nervous about the cost of an editor and what they are getting for that price? The best way I've tried to explain it is I'll usually offer a sample edit, and then I also offer payment plans. So, um, I try to be as open as I can of, you know, here's what you get. I usually go through the manuscript twice, which takes a lot of time. You'll get all sorts of questions and comments and bookmaps. And it takes, it takes time. And then, um, sample edit is usually just an author sending 10 to 15 pages or so. I always recommend that the authors ask us questions, you know, what type of feedback do you give? How do you give that feedback? Uh, what level of editing are you going to be doing? How often are you going to be working on my manuscript? I mean, when I get a manuscript, depending on the length of it, you know, am I turning it around in five days? No. When I get a manuscript, I'm working on it every single day until I turn it around to them. Here's another interesting thing. The rule of thumb for editing is anywhere from 1, 000 to 3, 000 words per hour. Now, if it is a very heavy line edit, I am closer to that 1, 000 words per hour. I try to go for the 2, 000 words per hour. So I'm opening my calculator because I don't do math, but if we have a 100, 000 word manuscript and we're saying 2,000 words per hour, that means 50 hours worth of work, right there. For one read through. Yep. That's 50 hours of work! That's a lot. Like that's a full week of 40 hour work week. Come on. That's over time. Exactly. Also the other thing to keep in mind with editors is that, yes, that's 50 hours for one read through, if you're in that middle range of the 2, 000 words, but the editor's brain, just like writers, we're not meant to be working an eight hour workday on a manuscript. With the amount of processing and thinking and checking for, you know, when you hit that point of like grammar and punctuation, like there is a point where our brain says, Nope, I need to stop this and come back to it tomorrow because I have poured so much brainpower into it for the number of hours that I did put in today. I usually give an average, and I, I like to overestimate. I like to say, yeah, developmental edit for roughly 70, 000 words might take me three weeks. And I usually will, am open and say, I'm also a mom. I have two kids in school. So, and I also have another little part time job. I'm usually very open with, yep, I'm doing all of this, but yes, I will try to get it to you under the time that I overestimate. My last question is what tips do you have for those who are looking to self edit? Don't sit in really long sessions, like take breaks. Make your own little, little sheet, little Bible style sheet, just so you can write down all the details that you put in, and just go back and check those. I'd ideally already have had a few beta readers read it, and take their feedback and go and use that. Word usually catches your, some of your mistakes, grammar mistakes. Self editing is tricky because you want to be able to, to edit yourself. You can read craft books as well. You can take courses. I am all for authors taking like a proofreading 101. And I know the EFA, Editorial Freelancers Association, offers those for non-members too. The tricky thing with this question also, I find, is it depends on what type of self editing they need, right? That is true. You know, if we're talking more in the developmental phase and you're trying to self edit, then I would say plot your character arc, even if it's something as simple as where is my character emotionally at the beginning of the book versus the middle of the book versus the end of the book. I keep a timeline within my novel as I'm editing it. I use H2 tags for my chapters, H3 tags for my scenes to identify my scenes, and then I actually use H1 to mark timeline. So H1 is day one. And then every time that switches, I'll add in an H1 of, you know, now I'm on day two. And a week has passed, okay, so now I'm on day eight or nine, et cetera. Yeah, I was going to say that of put section headings. It really helps to jump back and forth. And in fact, I have an episode that I dedicated to that. Document Navigation, episode 25. And if you look at the YouTube version of episode 25, I have a recorded video of showing how to add those style tags to a document so that you can easily navigate, whether it's Google Docs or Word Doc, because that, that is crucial for being able to jump back and forth with your documents. If you're gonna attempt line editing on your own, for that one I would say edit in layers. Um, edit via different lenses, you know, so like one time you go through and you're just looking at emotions. Let me just look at emotions. Am I showing that through. You know, the next time you go through you're looking for have I actually set my characters within the scene. I love the clients that I work with regularly. And so they know me and I know them. Um. So I can be like, so your character is just floating in a bubble of white clouded space. I have no idea where they are. Like, I think they're in the kitchen, but the kitchen is a white blank space to me. Can you please paint the scene for me? Um, and so she'll reply back laughing and be like, Oh yeah, I totally forgot to do that again. It's great once you get that relationship with your clients, that you can do that. What advice do you see yourself giving clients frequently the same advice over and over again? I think the one I've done the most is to dig deeper into a character's background. The question I've gotten most is how do I help this, this character? You know, I feel like I'm stuck with him or her. And it's usually, well, what's their background? Let's deep dive into their story. Create their story for me. Even if that whole story does not end up in the book, you as an author, I think, need to know that so you have their experiences. It's shaped who they are. What life experiences have led them to this part of your book? I want to add on to that. I love that because one of the ways that we really create a unique voice for our characters is when we are filtering their reactions through their experience, right? Another big one I tell authors is to show and don't tell. Like, you want to show the action. Yes, I will ask where if they're saying, Oh, this person doesn't like this person, I will start asking twenty questions, like why don't they like them? How can he show that he doesn't like him? What's he doing with his body language? Uh, what's the look on his face? What is the tone in his voice that can tell me that he doesn't like this person? Is there any object in the room that he could be using that he's like clutching in his fist, like I'm about to hit you over the head with this thing to show that, again, I don't like this person. Whenever I find an emotion word in a sentence, I will highlight it and be like how can you show me happy? What does that feel like in her body? So, uh, yes, that is always a classic. Advice that I give frequently, lately it's been a lot of setting the scene and LY adverbs. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yes. I tried not to like strike them out every time. But I love when I'm sending a reply, like here's your manuscript and here are some things that I have noticed a lot of. And I'll be like, I'm challenging you to reduce your LY adverbs by like 90 percent. But I'll also give examples of why. A particular case was the word immediately. I had a manuscript where the word immediately was being used like every other paragraph. And I was like I am right there with the character in the moment. And so if this character jumps onto the bed, I don't need that he jumped onto the bed immediately. I am with them. That is what we are doing. I don't need you to tell me that it's immediately. So, a lot of times I recommend, I challenge you to take the L Y out and see if it doesn't change the meaning of your sentence at all. And if it doesn't, then you don't need it. It actually bogs down your sentences rather than letting your, your reader stay in the moment and stay in the flow and keeping up that pace. I totally agree. I'm not saying that they're evil incarnate. Just overuse of them can really weigh down your prose. As an author, I will see myself putting them in. And then as an editor, I will go back and take them out of my own manuscript. So I get it. One other little last piece of advice is like don't rush to get the next book out. I have seen a couple of recent authors that I've worked with that are like, Oh, I've got to get this next one out so fast. Like, no, you don't. Your health is important. You know, you want the story to be good. So it's okay if you need to take a whole nother year to get it out. You don't need to get it out in six months or four months. That's a hard one that I've been working on myself as an author. The marketing strategy of it, there is a lot of pressure to get more books out in a year. I have seen authors who have very successfully pulled off four books a year, sometimes more. I cannot do that. I will hit burnout, and my mental capacity will shut down. I will say that with my third book when it came out, I backed myself into way too tight of a corner and that was not healthy. The amount of writing and revising that I was doing for the last two months prior to release, that was not healthy. I had already set up my, my pre order date for that one. And I was locked in. So, I am not scheduling my pre order for the next book. I am not doing that to myself again. It can be a good marketing strategy if you know your flow, if you know your method, if you've got your editors lined up, then, then it can work. If you are still figuring that out, I do not advise doing that. What would you recommend when an author is going to search for an editor, do they want to use the same one for a developmental edit, a line edit, copy edit, proofread? I think an author can get away with having a same developmental and line editor, but I really think they need a separate set of eyes for a proofreader because of the fact that by the time you get to the proofreading level, your editor, our brains already know what the story is, so we are filling in whatever might be missing, whatever typos might be lingering in there, we already know that story just as well as the author inside and out. So it does pay to have a separate proofreader looking at that book at the end because of the fact that they're not going to be filling in details. I think that is the best way to do it. I do occasionally, I do offer all inclusive packaging. But if I do that, I usually want to make sure I get like at least a month, like several weeks in between when I get the manuscript for like a final copy proofreading. The other thing that I find really helpful at the proofreading stage is, uh, I do this for my own, I read the book backwards from the last chapter to the first chapter, and I will also, one chapter at a time, going backwards, have the audio reader or have my computer read the story to me because that will also help me to catch the things that my brain is just filling in the gaps. An example was just gripping, but I had spelt it griping. Like he's griping the rope, and I was like, Oh, like my brain just would not pick it up at that point. It is terrible to have your computer read your book to you because you feel like you're the worst writer in the world when they're like, and then she went to the store, and like you're like oh my god i'm the worst writer ever. Um. But it will catch griping versus gripping so. That's a good self edit one, too. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. Your contact information is in the show notes, but where do you recommend that people find you? Best place is on Instagram. I respond to messages pretty quickly. And you can see some of the other stuff that I, I do a lot of arc reads, so you can see some of the other books I recommend. Handle is get it write and that's W R I T E, then underscore editing. Okay, getitwrite underscore editing on Instagram. Thank you so much! You're welcome. Thank you for having me. I hope you found these tips on how to transform your manuscript into a polished gem. Incredibly helpful. Ready to take your writing journey further? Join us on our Patreon community for just $5 a month. You'll unlock exclusive virtual writing sprints, fresh and inspiring prompts designed to spark new ideas and access to our lively discord group where the fun continues. Find the link in the show notes. We can't wait to welcome you.