I want to talk about the editorial support you should expect from an agent who says they work editorially, &what you should not expect, too. (As always these are my opinions; others will think differently; you can take any opinion you encounter or burn it in a trash can.) #Thread
Line edits/sidebar comments by your agent. I always stress these are suggestions to achieve a goal. How author arrives at that goal is up to to them, but
I DO put foot down abt blatant "rookie mistakes." Or major arc problems,sensitivity issues. I don't do this to be obstinate;but you should stay flexible too.
We may do 1 round edits. 3 rev & 4 edits. 1 rev & 2 edits.
And if I like your book but do NOT have any vision for fixing problems I find, I am doing you a favor by NOT offering rep, so you can seek an agent who sees how to make it shine and soar against all it's competition.
I am not the person you send your 1st/2nd draft to. My editing rounds are all fine tuning, tweaking, polishing, or taking advantage of opportunity to amp up stakes tension emotion etc. I am not going to teach you how to write.
More from Writing
Things we don’t learn in this article: that the author wrote David Cameron’s speeches during the period when they were intentionally underfunding the NHS and other services, directly creating the problem the author is concerned about now.
We also don’t learn that the paper it’s written in stridently supported those measures and attacked junior doctors threatening strike action over NHS cuts and long working hours, accusing them of holding the country to ransom.
We aren’t reminded that NHS funding and the future of health provision was a central part of previous election campaigns, and that attempts to highlight these problems were swiftly stomped on or diverted and then ignored by most of the press, including the Times.
I’d underline here that “corruption” doesn’t just mean money in brown envelopes: it describes a situation where much of an organisation is personally motivated to ignore, downplay or divert from malfeasance for personal reasons - because highlighting them would be bad for careers
Foges was Cameron’s speechwriter at the height of austerity; Forsyth is married to the PM’s spokesman; Danny F is a Tory peer; Parris is a former MP; Gove used to write for them regularly, and that’s before we get to professional mates-with-ministers like Shipman or Montgomerie.
Today we learn health services are brutally underfunded with scant support for hard pressed staff, although it\u2019s left unclear who is responsible for that and it appears to be an exceptional, totally unpredicted phenomenon, like a freak weather event. pic.twitter.com/StwFR7RejE
— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) January 25, 2021
We also don’t learn that the paper it’s written in stridently supported those measures and attacked junior doctors threatening strike action over NHS cuts and long working hours, accusing them of holding the country to ransom.
We aren’t reminded that NHS funding and the future of health provision was a central part of previous election campaigns, and that attempts to highlight these problems were swiftly stomped on or diverted and then ignored by most of the press, including the Times.
I’d underline here that “corruption” doesn’t just mean money in brown envelopes: it describes a situation where much of an organisation is personally motivated to ignore, downplay or divert from malfeasance for personal reasons - because highlighting them would be bad for careers
Foges was Cameron’s speechwriter at the height of austerity; Forsyth is married to the PM’s spokesman; Danny F is a Tory peer; Parris is a former MP; Gove used to write for them regularly, and that’s before we get to professional mates-with-ministers like Shipman or Montgomerie.