Rewrites and Revisions: They’re Nothing Personal
January 26, 2008 by Deb Ng
Filed under Writing Tips
Having work sent back for a rewrite or revision can be a blow to a writer’s ego. Many feel as if their hard work is minimized after an editor asks for changes or correction to their copy.
Rewrites and revisions are all part of the territory. You can submit a perfect piece and it can still be sent back for some reason or another. It’s nothing personal, it’s business and the most seasoned writers have work sent back to them all the time. There are many reasons an editor might request a revision:
- They don’t have the space they originally thought and need the piece shortened.
- They article needs more words, a quote, or a little something-something to give it credibility or make it stand out.
- There are typos.
- It wasn’t what they had in mind.
- They don’t have room for the piece at all.
Revisions aren’t personal. It doesn’t mean you’re a poor writer or the article was bad. If that was the case, you wouldn’t have gotten the assignment or your editor would be sending a rejection notice instead.
What to do if you receive a revision request:
- Read over what your editor wrote and do what she asks.
- Tell yourself it’s nothing personal.
- Consider that the editor knows what she’s talking about.
- Ask questions if you need to, but don’t argue.
- Chalk it up as a learning experience.
I know a few writers who feel it’s a personal affront and it will ruin the piece if they change even a single word. They need to get over it. When you do a job for the client you’re doing a job for…well…the client. The client is paying you to write a piece to his specifications. To argue about it will label you as a prima donna who doesn’t take direction well and isn’t willing to work with the editor. If you truly disagree with what your editor is saying, by all means have a civil conversation. To make it your way or the highway is to ensure your client won’t be working with you in the future.
Just remember it’s nothing personal. An editor has to put out a good product so you can’t fault him for wanting things a certain way. Granted, there are difficult editors out there, but unless you want to find a new gig, you have to find a way to work with them.
- 10 Reasons for Difficult Clients or Why Your Clients Aren’t as Difficult as You Think
- 4 Measures to Put in Place So Your Freelance Writing Clients Won’t Rip You Off
- Thicken Up that Skin – It’s Nothing Personal
- Should You Request a Deposit from Your Clients?
- Should You Trust Freelance Writing Clients with Personal Information?
Great advice. I’ve never been bothered when my work is edited, unless the editor inserts a typo (this has happened a couple of times). Writers who don’t want a single one of their words touched will have a hard time in this business.
This is so, so true. It took me forever to not tear up everytime I got a request for revision!
Kinda like walking on gravel. It hurts the first few times but you can eventually do it!
I am confused. The comments re: editors is dated Saturday the 26th. My computer tells me today is Friday the 25th. Yet, there is a reposnse dated Saturday the 2th!
And the comments appear under Jobs for Friday the 25th. And actually there are NO jobs listed for Friday the 25th…I think..ARRRRgh…what’s happening?
Bob
Ye gads…even MY response is dated TOMORROW.
Have I entered some time warp thing here????
I am now scared! Very scared….VERY!!!!
I got pulled off of an assignment once because I just couldn’t give the client what he wanted. He was looking for the articles being written in a particular “voice” and I just couldn’t seem to get that for him. It’s only happened that one time, but oh, man, did it hurt!
You’re right. It’s nothing personal. We all try to really nail it that first time around though so it stings when we’re told we missed the mark. Having had that happen a couple of times, I know that the second version can be much stronger and the editor has done me a favor.
Does anyone here do any editing? I’m frequently in a position to edit someone else’s work and I try very hard to be tactful when I ask for revisions. It’s much easier to find flaws when editing than writing, especially if it’s not my own work! It’s a hard line to walk … you don’t want to step on any toes, but you can see the gem hidden in their writing just beneath the surface.
I’ve done some freelance work for one of Texas’ biggest daily metros, the San Antonio Express-News. Each article received lot of editing and revisions–including the lead. Was disappointed, but guess what? I still got paid. Yee-haw!
Hey Deb, just a quick question. When the last happens (they don’t have room for the piece) outside the fairly traditional world of magazine and newspaper journalism…is a kill fee standard?
I just ask because I know that blogging is a totally different world..
I once lost a job with a magazine because of my attitude towards edits. Whenever my editors ask me to change something, I do it, with no angst. (Unless I am asked to change facts — which I flat refuse to do. I figure someone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.)
Most editors were delighted with that approach. “Want it changed? No prob.” However the editor of a local magazine stopped using me because of that. I later learned from another contributor to that magazine that the editor felt that unless a writer fought every change tooth and nail, the writer was “not sufficiently invested” in his or her writing. My attitude is $75 for 800 words is not worth getting emotionally invested in. Whatever it takes to get the job done competently, as quickly as possible is what I want.
I suspect this editor is a bully at heart that likes mind-games more than good writing.
I find that I can only learn from a good editor. I wrote a piece on palliative care for the CBC, Canada’s national tv network. It was good, it was solid. It also turns out it was missing some pretty important information.
The editor asked me some pointed questions that made me go over my notes and rewrite certain parts. I learned a lot from that exercise.
Since the beginning of Dec., I’ve gotten a few new clients. One doesn’t ask for any changes, but I feel a bit insecure, wondering if I’m missing something somewhere. One is sending me emails and we’re going back and forth while I learn what it is that she wants.
I figure that as long as the editor is patient enough with me as I learn, it’s a win-win situation.
@Mark–I suspect you made the right decisions not pursuing it.
@Jodee–seomtimes no matter what you do, you & the client may not be a good match. Sometimes, that’s just all there is to it and no one is to blame. Better for both to find a better fit!
Just this week (about 3 hours ago, in fact) I did my first real editing work as a volunteer. Our local abuse shelter was applying for a major grant and the final draft was due Friday (today). I’m a counselor, so this is right up my alley and I’m familiar with the lingo, etc. I was expecting just a light to medium proofread at most. This organization’s been around forever, and they live by grants all the time. I thought they would see it as kind of a nice “gesture” to me because I asked (but fairly well done before I even got it).
What I found was astounding. Lots and lots of great information, but infected with catastrophically long sentences! Practically unreadable in several places. I read a few of the worst sentences outloud and couldn’t make it to the end without gasping for air. There was NO punctuation and about 3 or 4 separate complicated ideas crammed into most of the sentences.
I realized very soon that it was going to be much more work than I had originally thought, and I was going to have to just ask what some things meant. The accuracy and proper message of this thing truly meant the lifeblood of the organization!! Plus, I was reading all about how desperately they needed the money for 26 densely packed pages. I suppose they’ve gotten grant money before I ever edited anything for them, but still. I wanted this agency to be a reference for me as an editor and I wanted to be respectful of them.
I made a point of highlighting exactly what I had a question about, and briefly explained the reason why. Also, I had to basically rewrite nearly every sentence in the darned thing. I’ve spent the last four days (and late into the nights!) working on this. Like I said, all the info was there. But *way more* than half of the sentences needed to either chopped up three ways or completely torn apart and reassembled. I was pretty worried at the start how she would take this, but she told me right away how much better it looked as I was sending her finished parts. That made me feel better. I didn’t tell her that she had too many run-on sentences, just a few things here and there that I couldn’t make heads or tails of. She did agree to be a reference for me today. I am hoping that my politeness and my clear explanations about certain things helped her come to her happy feeling about the result.
A friend who used to work for an editor once told me that edits are actually a form of flattery. The only pieces that require no edits are pieces that are so bad the editor doesn’t want to waste any time on them. If it’s good it’s worth editing and reviewing.
Strangely that thought has made every red marked page easier to digest!
I’ve found that there is no such thing as perfection. My first discovery, at a publishing company I worked at, surprised me at first because I assumed that all writers submitted perfect manuscripts, and happened to walk in on an editor printing a manuscript with corrections. Another instance I interrupted a publisher doing the same, who went on to tell me that she’d never come across a perfect manuscript (during her time as a literary agent in the UK).
In my current experience, I feel that I receive good feedback from writers when I suggest and correct certain sentences, but I do approach it differently, correcting from a grammatical angle, and writers do make errors. For example, fiction prose shouldn’t be dominated by adverbs, and when this happens, I alert the writer. I’ve also had negative experiences, with writers who won’t budge and while I can concede to a valid argument (i.e. an editorial article with facts), I don’t tend to tolerate ego ridden writers that well, when I know they’ve done something like create a word that doesn’t exist and persist, or argue back. In my view there are millions of writers out there, and like any occupation, no one is indispensable.
On the whole, editors don’t request corrections out of personal spite against a writer, they represent a publication or client (in my case it’s a publication), and quality control is a fact of life.
I just landed a job where there is a strict rule – your article will be sent back for revisions once, if that doesn’t fix all the errors and more revisions are needed the article will be scrapped with no pay and that ends that job. So I’m going to have to be extremely cautious because the pay is marvelous.
I’ve had articles sent back for revisions, usually minor, once it was because the person decided to go in another direction with the city article. Never had a job where one edit/rewrite was it or else.
@ Mary: Thanks. I realize now that I just wasn’t a good fit for that particular project. That client assigned me to something else and that worked out better for both of us.
@ Ann G: I think I know what gig you are talking about. They e-mailed me back too and I’m looking over their guidelines. I found that policy a little intimidating, too. This company also seems to have a clear idea of what they want and I would think that as long as you are able to follow instructions that you will be fine.
@Ann & Jodee:
That is an itmidating policy, but I’d probably give it a try once if you think their expectations are clear. Better that than the client who doesn’t know what they want and just keeps sending it back until it gets there. At least there’s an end, you know? Sometimes I’d rather a project just cut short than to widdle down the pay to nothing by constantly revising and taking away from better gigs.
@ Mary: When you get down to it, if a client isn’t happy with your work, they’s not going to give you any more assignments. This one is just more up-front about it.
A good editor is wonderful, and when I’ve had revisions requested by good editors, who either need me to adjust to the tone of the overall publication a little bit, or who just help me take my work to the next level, I welcome it.
Like del, though, I’ve had the negative experiences of editors adding typos or not giving the work back for revisions, simply rewriting it and butchering it to such an extent I couldn’t use it as a clip. I even had one editor add quotes from an interview that never happened. I made my displeasure very clear to both editor and publisher and had my name removed from the piece when they didn’t think it was a big deal.
In my experience, the lower the pay for the gig, the more likely the latter is to happen. The higher paying gigs tend to hire editors who are more interested in making the piece the best it can be to reflect well on the publication as a whole than in proving to the publisher that they’re earning their fee.
Anyone know about kill fees for bloggers/other online outlets? Just curious.
I’ve never really had a problem with revisions. I’ve learned to accept there’s no such thing as perfection back in high school, when I was still writing for our school paper. Strangely, I understand the sentiments of Mark L.’s erstwhile editor. Call me crazy but I do.
@Rachel>> I haven’t heard anyone offering kill fees for blogs yet, but then again, I’ve only been problogging since late last year.
Getting asked to do revisions is never fun, but I’ve learned to just accept it. Usually, the stuff that gets requests for revision doesn’t have my name on it (lately, I’ve been sprucing up Web copy), which means it’s got the client’s name on it, which means it has to fit their standards. They hire me to do the job, I do it.
Speaking as an editor, I’ve never seen a piece that didn’t need any revisions at all, except the pieces we didn’t use. Even if it’s minor, nitpicky stuff, everything that’s ever crossed my desk, from slush pile work to copy editing, has always needed at least a little revising. Way of the world, and when I’m writing something that goes out with my name on it, you bet I want someone there looking my stuff over and making sure it’s right.
@Jodee-I’ve spent the weekend reading everything over. There is the part of me that is a little overwhelmed. I know I can do it, but the format throws me off and the perfection rule makes me nervous. I’m certain that once I have the format down, it wouldn’t be an issue, but getting the format down is frustrating and the pressure to get things right the first time round makes it stressful. My propane’s up to $4.50 a gallon – $340 a month now for the monthly payment) – my husband’s company just moved half the business to El Paso and overtime has been eliminated in the process. That makes us desperate for the money, but the stress is eating at me too and there has to be a balance. Weekends are supposed to be family time for me, but this weekends been a mix of reading, re-reading, and then trying to come up with perfection.
@Mary – I have no problem with the editing, it’s the line that if it isn’t perfect after the first edit that your job is over – not just for that one article, but with the company period. The push for perfection first time around (I’m a wicked perfectionist to start with – obsessive compulsive to be exact) is what I struggle with this time.
@ Ann G: I’ve looked over everything a couple of times now but I haven’t written anything yet. (I was working on a 5,000 word report for another client and I had it almost done but I had some problems with my computer and I lost the document. I wasn’t able to retrieve it through my backup software, so I’ve been redoing the work. I had some notes but I like to compose at the keyboard so I had to start again from square one. Not how I would ideally want to spend my time, but…stuff happens.)
I’m sure that company wouldn’t have wanted to pursue you if they didn’t think you could do the job. Why don’t you try putting the perfection thing right out of your mind and just do the assignment as best you can? (And practice a bit of CYA (cover your a$$) by continuing to apply for other gigs…)
@Jodee- that’s the approach I’ve taken. I emailed questions to the editor because in my sheet the keywords in one area are different to the other, but then wrote the article up my way and am now going to go back through and adapt it to their format and change keywords that might need changing.
I hear you on the computer issues. My desktop crashed a few weeks ago. I’ve made a habit though of continually emailing files and emails to a Gmail account where I keep them permanently just in case something goes wrong. Before shutting down, I go in and make sure the file actually arrived. I can then go to my parent’s house or brother’s house and work from their computers and have ready access to the work I was doing.
@ Ann G: They can’t fire eveyone; they need the work done! I got that report done so now I can take another look at their requirements. Now I am starting to wonder if the pay is worth it if you have to jump through that may hoops to give them what they want. Hmmm….
@Jodee- I just turned mine in. I agree with you – the pay now makes me question it. I suppose once the format is second hand, that won’t be a question though. In the meantime, my slate is cleaned of that and I’ll see what happens. Meanwhile, I just had another offer, so I’ll focus on something a little easier for now!
@ Ann G: Could you let me know what happens? If you don’t want to put it on the board, feel free to e-mail me at jodeecredmond@gmail.com
Thanks.
I’ve been lucky enough so far to come across clients and editors who either love it as is, make changes I can relate to and completely understand (and would have made myself if asked), or offered valuable suggestions that have helped me grow as a writer.
I truly adore one of my poetry editors because he is invested in me as a poet. He is young but has experience that puts him into the professional realm. He shows considerable respect because he recognizes my own skill and experience. Working with him to sharpen a poem is wonderful and his comments are always insightful and right.
Of course, there are clients out there that will never be pleased. In the end you will have to turn some jobs down. You can’t spend forever trying to tweak an article for the single rate offered originally.
I’ve taken to charging additional fees for extensive revision. I value my expertise in this area and if my clients are hiring me then they trust my judgment and have a fair idea of how I work. The fact is, if you don’t love it I’ll make small changes but if you’re asking for a dramatic change it’s going to cost you for a rewrite. I value my time and my ability and assume whoever hires me has done their own research into my skills as a writer.
The same rule applies when I edit. If I need to make drastic suggestions or changes to the original and you come back for a second edit after making changes it’s going to cost for an additional edit.
I think this is where charging for time is a safer financial option than charging for word count. The time it takes to put together (write or edit) a certain number of words can vary depending on the demands of the client/editor, the research required, etc. $50 for an article I’ve had to rewrite a dozen times just isn’t acceptable.
Perhaps it all comes down to respecting ourselves as professionals. Yes, you need to bend with the editor, learn from what they tell you, but ultimately, if they aren’t satisfied then stop wasting both of your time. They need a different writer and you’d do better to find a different client/editor.