By F.T. Bradley
Editors don’t edit anymore. That’s what I heard more than once before I signed my book contract for Double Vision, my middle-grade series with HarperCollins Children’s. It’s one of those publishing myths that came from some unknown source, and you sort of assume it’s true when you’re a newbie.
Whoever said editors don’t edit is wronger than wrong (is wronger a word?). When I turned in my second (or it may have been third, or fourth…) draft of Double Vision, I thought the heavy lifting had to be done soon. Just a few minor edits, right?
Wrong (again). My editors—I have two: the brilliant Barbara Lalicki and awesome Andrew Harwell—sent me yet another copy of my manuscript, littered with notes and questions, like: What time is it here? Where is Linc’s (my main character) backpack? Why does he do this—oh, and shouldn’t he be wearing a coat in December? I would thumb through the pages thinking: this is going to be, like, a lot of work.
And it was—for all parties involved. If anyone can dispel this myth that editors don’t edit, it would be me. I have a stack of marked-up manuscripts, and emails well past office hours from my amazing editors at Harper to prove it. And I haven’t even told you about the copyediting and proofreading yet…
All this work might sound kind of depressing if you’re still waiting for that book contract—but guess what happened once I sat down to write the sequel to Double Vision? I started asking questions like: where’s Linc’s backpack? And it led to an unexpected plot twist.
Editors really do edit. And they’ll make you a stronger writer—at least, I’d like to think so.
F.T. Bradley is the author of Double Vision (Harper Children's, Oct. 2012), the first in the middle-grade adventure series featuring Lincoln Baker. Her husband's Air Force career has F.T. and their two daughters moving all around the world, but for the moment the family lives on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. To find out more about F.T. and Double Vision, visit www.doublevisionbooks.com, or find F.T. Bradley on Twitter @FTBradleyAuthor.
ABOUT DOUBLE VISION:
Undercover spies, codes and ciphers, a secret painting with unimaginable powers... It's all in a day's work when you're one of the world's top kid agents. But Linc Baker isn't a kid agent at all. He just happens to look exactly like one of them. And when this lookalike goes missing, Linc will have to impersonate him on a mission that plunges him into a world of intrigue, danger, and great pastries.
No pressure, right?
