Interview With My Editor, Melissa Johnson
The Carina Press blog is hosting various author interviews with CP editors. My turn was posted yesterday afternoon, and I’m all a-squee about it. Here it is!
I can’t say enough good things about her. Having never been through the edit process with fiction, I wasn’t sure what to expect. (With non-fiction, it can go in multiple ways. With some fields, I’m well-known enough that my material goes up without any question or review. That is unfortunate, actually, because I’m as prone to typos and repetition as anyone. With other fields, I’ll get the paper or the magazine to find that my material has been printed with a new title and six missing paragraphs even though I was under the required word count. Eh. It happens.)
The experience I had was so easy that I’m spoiled forever. All of her developmental edits vastly improved the story, as did the line edit. It was quick and easy. Her turnarounds were fast as hell, even though she has a huge number of writers to deal with. Our margin notes read like a sitcom script, only funny.
Her real genius came through in the revise and resubmit letter I got for my second novella. Anyone can edit something that is essentially done (although not everyone can put on a high shine). If the second one sells, it’ll be because of her suggestions.
I’m not her only writer to feel this way. The comment thread on the interview has a bunch of her writers popping up to cheer. Go cheer for her!
