SomewhatDistracted Critiques

Ah, Editing!

This is going to be part rant/part education. Unfortunately, I'm going to make you suffer through the rant part first. I'll go on and apologize for that.

Every so often, I'll go into the IYW club and see a thread asking how you should pay your editor. And it never fails that someone will say that editors should not ask for dedications, reads, comments, or critiques--that they should do it out of the kindness of their hearts. 

Obviously, the people making those statements have no idea what editing entails. 

Let me give some examples. If you went to a mechanic, would you have the audacity to tell him that he should fix your car out of the kindness of his heart? What about if you go to the beautician? Should she cut your hair out of the kindness of her heart? Would you say that the surgeon who just fixed your mom's heart shouldn't accept payment, that he should do it out of the kindness of his heart? 

If you answered yes to any of those questions, I have a question for you: Why didn't YOU fix your own car, your own hair, or your own mother's heart? 

What was that answer again? Because you don't know how to? Well, isn't that interesting... 

When you pay to have things fixed, you are paying that person for his/her knowledge and the time it took him/her to acquire it. It may be that you don't have the knowledge of how to fix whatever it is that needs fixed or that you just don't have the time to fix it. Regardless, you're paying that other person for the time s/he spent learning his/her trade and the time that s/he is spending fixing whatever it was that needed fixing. If you want this fixed for free, your best bet is to do it yourself--and hope that you don't really screw up in the process. 

I'm sure that someone is probably still laughing his/her arse off at my comparison of editing to the aforementioned careers, but let's use this analogy: A doctor is to the body as an editor is to a story. This also works with beauticians and mechanics. Editing involves surgery on the story, polishing it to make it beautiful, and just making it work.

Now, back to the original question: What should you pay your editor? 

I'm going to admit that I do some editing on the side for my most dedicated followers. And I do it for "free"--but, they have given a lot to me in the way of reads, comments, and friendship. This is my way of paying them back. I only do this for people that I consider my friends on some level, and they are very understanding of the fact that it may take me some time to edit the chapter, possibly a month or longer depending on what I have going on.

I have lots of people that I'd like to edit for, but I don't have the time. I have my own writing and editing  to do, and when I'm editing a story like The Contingency Plan, I have no desire to look at someone else's story. Between chasing a one-year-old around most of the day and life in general, I have about two hours per day that I can devote to writing and editing--and that is only if my son takes a nap. If he doesn't or he wakes up early, it won't happen that day. The only thing I require from these people for whom I've offered to edit is that they don't tell others that I'm the editor. 

But what should you pay your editor?  I don't think it is unreasonable for an editor to ask for a read, comment, or critique, to be honest, you should do that anyways; you need to know that the editor actually has a clue about writing and grammar. I don't necessarily agree with a dedication, but I don't think that's unreasonable either. It really depends on how much s/he does for your story. Keep in mind that a professional editor can cost thousands if you are trying to self-publish a book. 

How much time did your editor spend on your story? I've spent hours upon hours on some projects (college papers, Wattpad stories). There are times that I've been certain that I spent more time polishing a project than the writer spent writing it. I'm not exaggerating. If I'm spending more time correcting your mistakes than you spent writing, well... I almost think you owe me naming your firstborn child after me. If you've already had your firstborn, you should change his/her name. Okay, I might be kidding about that.