Conflict Avoidance

Setting expectations early in the author-editor relationship can prevent conflict and help manage emotions when the edits come in.

- KAREN KRUMPAK

Stereotypes would tell you that author-editor relationships are inherently fraught with tension: the editor attacks the page with a red pen, the author won't let the editor change a single punctuation mark, or both. Yet editors and authors don't have to (and shouldn't!) be antagonists.

An editor is their author's ally-sometimes challenging them, it's true, but only to support their goal of making their manuscript all that it can be.

After all, conflict may be the heart of plot, but in real life, we want our relationships to look less like Freytag's Pyramid and more like a flat line.

For independent authors, hiring and working with an editor for the first time can be pretty stressful. As an editor, I do my best to make things easy on my authors as they undertake their writing adventure. But it takes authors and editors working in partnership to follow the smoothest path all the way to the end of the editing journey.

INCITING INCIDENTS

For the author-editor relationship, the negotiation stage should be the rockiest terrain you come across on the entire journey, if you approach it the right way.

At this stage in the game, you and a potential editor will be coming together with different expectations, which require some sanding for a smooth fit, even when the editor is a good match for you.

I've seen others call contracts the most important element for a successful author-editor collaboration. Contracts are important for dealing with conflicts down the line (and, by the way, emails that meet the conditions of a contract do legally function as a contract, although check with a lawyer for actual legal advice). But you can only have a clear, workable contract once you've nailed down its terms. That means communicating clear expectations on both sides.