Edit with me! Your editor's word is not gospel 📝

That time my author said "no," and the amazing thing that happened next

As a developmental editor, I’m always looking for opportunities to make my authors’ drafts as strong as possible. It’s my job to identify problem areas, then give suggestions for how to improve them to better serve the story. But at the end of the day, my suggestions are just that: suggestions.

I can still vividly remember the first novel I edited independently at Ballantine Books (an imprint of Random House), where I was an editorial assistant. It was a romantic suspense novel by an established bestselling author. I was immediately hooked by the story: this author knew exactly how to draw readers in, and the plot was thick with tension (both romantic and not) that kept me turning the pages.

But when I got to the climax — the scene where all of that amazing tension the author had been building should have finally paid off — something just wasn’t working. The stakes didn’t feel high enough, and the conflict wasn’t reaching fever pitch in the way it needed to.

This was the most pivotal moment in the book, the scene where the main character was finally forced to confront the main conflict at the heart of the story — and yet, she was acting passively. We needed her to take a more drastic action to further her goal, the objective we’d been watching her pursue over the past 200+ pages.

You can agree — and disagree — with your editor

I went back and forth with the author discussing the issue, and she agreed that this part of the plot wasn’t working as written. She just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

That’s when I suggested having the character do something dramatic — and violent — to further her own agenda. She would harm herself in the misguided interest of achieving her objective and escaping the antagonistic forces working against her. At least to me, it seemed like a solid solution that would make the rest of the climax click into place.

But I’ll never forget what the author said next:

No.