Brutal Honesty

Okay, so if anyone reading this hasn't guessed by now, I am brutally honest in my opinions. I will not lead you on a yellow leash and tell you that what you have is wonderful when it isn't. If you are lucky, I may have my husband read through my comments first to make sure I am saying it as nicely as possible... maybe.

For those who hire me, I give them brutal honesty and when we are finished, they will have a story that is marketable. However, I do not expect many to return unless they are masochistic. I do, however, expect them to leave better authors than what they came to me.

I would like to take this time to return to a post I wrote several weeks ago about the woman who hired me to edit her novel. I was the most expensive freelancer and I have a morality clause - I don't work on things that I deem to be ethically or morally wrong - that's right MY definition. Now, she had SEVERAL freelancers turn it down because of the raunchy sex in it, but she insisted it was not being published as erotica. So, I took the job.

Hmmm.... how do I say it... it was raunchy. But, it actually had a decent plot considering it is her first urban novel (she has written one other book - a memoir). Now, we have taken several weeks to tear apart this book. I worked on it, then I sent it to her and she worked on it and it went back and forth like this. Yes, I told her what she had done wrong, but as an editor, I gave her the choice to fix it or not. And most of the time, she fixed it (there are still a few raunchy scenes, but they are much better written) and she did a good job of it. I don't know if she will ever want to go through the process with me again, but I have confidence that she has a product that is marketable and she has learned things about writing.

So, I try to help people, but I reached out to one of the old school freelancers who was grumping about not getting enough money. After reading my suggestions for him to spend more time marketing himself, he called me a "troll." Okay, I 'm a big girl... I can take it. People inherently resist change of any kind even if it is for the better (which is why it surprises me than none of the people who have hired me have called me a troll or worse yet). However, in response, to ensure I was not some evil new Internet scumbag, I found this lovely blog that lays it out for you: http://thebloggess.com/2012/06/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-troll/#comment-344357
Occasionally, I am an A - if I deem there is nothing I say that will get through to you. But for the most part I am B. I do not eat people or goats... well, at least not raw.