Issue 9.3 | Autumn 2007

Flyers and Catchers

Gillian and Liz Cross on writing and editing by Mary Hoffman

Writer mother and publisher daughter Gillian and Liz Cross took part in a fascinating dialogue in Oxford in the summer as part of a day conference of CWIG. They had not conferred beforehand but this is what each decided that authors want from editors and vice versa.

How editors would like authors to be

(As imagined by Gillian Cross)

• A fount of up-to-the-minute ideas
• open to discussing all possibilities and pitfalls of the idea before writing anything,
• a really good team player
• someone who writes for recognisable niches
• personally memorable, flamboyant and eccentric

How editors actually want authors to be

(As described by Liz Cross)

• VERY patient (all editors are dominated by guilt)
• able to nag "nicely"
• good at meeting deadlines
• open to editing
• having a clear vision for their own work
• recognising boundaries
• having a rare and precious talent

How authors want editors to be

(Gillian Cross's personal list)

• able to see the potential of the "pitched" idea
• willing to take the risk
• able to ask open-ended and perceptive questions, NOT suggestions
• prepared to give a contract and a deadline
• willing to "go away for a long time"
• responsive to delivered text within two or three weeks at most
• enthusiastic
• able to put their finger on anything wrong
• confidence-building
• respectful that it is the author's book
• consultative about changes
• able to write the blurb better than the author.

How authors would like editors to be

(as perceived by Liz Cross)

• prompt and communicative
• honest
• the author's friend (in terms of making the book what the author intended)
• a representative of the author within the publishing house
• a midwife
• a "catcher to the trapeze-artist's flyer of the author" (using Alan Garner's metaphor)

After such a thorough review of expectations versus reality there was a lot of discussion. One writer told the anecdote of a temp working at a publisher who was asked to send back a rejected manuscript to an author; the editor had stuck a post-it note to the ms, saying, "Send the usual fuck-off letter." Unfortunately the temp did not remove the post-it before putting the ms in the envelope!

Another writer recalled sending in a short story to a children's publisher and receiving no further communication in spite of reminders, until she was sent proofs to check!

Questions were asked about multiple submissions and Liz Cross said she assumed that new authors were submitting multiply.

There are no specialist courses for children's editors and Liz Cross learned by working for David Fickling. The point was made that authors wanted editors to be good at editing and not be would-be writers. A flyer needs a catcher - not another flyer!