I was talking to a young friend today. Creative, art school graduate, painter, film maker, writer, arts adminstrator, overall nice guy. I mentioned I was struggling with a publisher's request to make more of a story arc out of a 75,000 word memoir I submitted and he said he has a friend who is an editor who could help. His friend has a MFA in fiction from New York University and is evidently a working editor. I probably need help coaxing a story arc out of my loosely connected collection of stories because I am so close to the project at this point I have a hard time figuring out how to change it. I just can't get over the fact that I knew my friend's parents before they met and that my daughter babysat him when he was an infant and his friend is the same age. I've been writing novels since before they were born. I admit that I am a seat-of-the-pants, unschooled writer and have never been published as a fiction writer. I was a working journalist however, from 1990 to 2018. I do know how to put one word in front of the other. At 68 and an early voracious reader, I have been avidly reading novels for 60 years. I have no formal education past high school aside from a marine training institute and have always been suspicious and have generally disregarded creative writing as an academic subject. I always figured you need to read and live a life to be a writer, it wasn't something they can teach you in school How can I convince myself that despite being less than half my age but with his academic qualifications, that perhaps this editor friend of a friend might know more than me about writing, having actually formally studied it for six years or more?
Time doesn't mean everything. I've met young people that are better at certain things than most older people ever will be. They don't even follow the popular point allocation myth either; sometimes they're more athletic, more generally competent, smarter, and funnier. It's not fair in the slightest. That said, this probably isn't a case of getting help from someone unilaterally 'better' or more knowledgeable at writing. You yourself say you're too close to the material to organize it into a traditional arc. This is a different perspective that's at least a qualified professional. It seems like a shut case to me. Intra-field consultation happens all of the time between young and old alike.
Am I missing something? You wrote a memoir. The last I knew, memoirs weren't fiction. The "story arc" of your memoirs is the story arc of your life.
Think of it as the college graduate knowing different things about writing rather than more about writing than you. You've already found out that 28 years as a journalist doesn't make writing fiction or memoir easy peasy. Different skills, structure, and mindset are involved. You have here a person who studied fiction writing for six solid years, now works in editing, and is available to aid you with a project you're admittedly struggling with. Who cares if you have tee shirts older than this person? If I suddenly switched to technical writing and was offered assistance by someone who specialized in the subject, I'd cowboy the heck up, boot my ego out the door, and say, "Yes, please, and thank you."
@Hublocker You wrote the thing. It's yours. Lucky you that you have a friend (of a friend) who might be qualified to help you sell it.
Were your articles ever edited? That aside, you need expertise beyond your own. if you had it, you wouldn't need it. Academics doesn't necessarily create good editors, but good editors often get education to supplement their natural understanding, or seek out education because they are passionate. Consider they chose to get an education because they wanted to support and enhance their regular understanding of writing because they love it. If they don't do a good job, you still have the original draft. What's the harm?
What about this:- Non-fiction is a subgenre of fiction where the writer imposes a requirement on themselves to include some degree of truth in the narration. This extra embellishment can be difficult to pull off, but is invaluable toward gaining readers' engagement. It's easier to see this for memoirs and biographies, but any academic text on any academic subject can be thought of as a fiction-of-ideas:- the phenomena they discuss happen, but they don't happen on pages. With memoirs and autobiographies the same applies, in that a life lived in the world is being rendered as storytelling on pages, but there is also the simple fact that the stories happened in the past - which is impossible. Academia is very flawed but they have never managed to come up with anything better. I think the OP's problem boils down to whether the person is a quack. There's been a long and pleasant thread about the Received Wisdom in genre-fiction. It isn't just received wisdom though: lots of great minds have been producing theories on "how to put one word in front of the other," and someone with an MFA in fiction who works as an editor ought to know them all. Creating some kind of uniting logic for an assortment of stories is an ancient problem, and they should be able to explain the least destructive way of doing it. If they can't, then either they're a quack or they aren't the right academic for the OP. If the worry is really about the dangers of being corrupted by an effete and pretentious intelligentsia - and turned into a snowflake - it might reassure the OP that after having spent so many years as a journalist and aspiring novelist and internet commentator, the salt-of-the-earth, outdoors-living, heave-hauling, graft-hardening, spit-thickening, chest-hairying community they came from, and which the memoir's about, probably no longer wants them back anyway.
Yes. What is truth in history or memoir? Look at history books from Japan or Russia or Germany and compare with those from America or England concerning WWII. Or read somebody's memoir and then ask their family, friends and others involved how truthful it is. It's a particular perspective on the events, and doubtless fictionalized in many ways to improve readability and to cover up things the person or country doesn't want to admit to etc. Listen to different eyewitness reports of an event. They're really different fabrications, sometimes of mostly truth (though truth has many aspects and a broad range) and sometimes of falsehood. There are also elements of misunderstanding and personal bias.
In word of honour Nelson Demille said " A war story is sometimes like history and history can be like the truth, but a war story is also like a myth and a myth can be a lie" (Ive also heard it said that the only difference between a fairy tale and war story is that one starts 'once upon a time' and the other 'no shit bro, i was there') This is by extension true of all memoir... most of us shape the stories of our lives to show ourselves in better light, to protect others or merely to make them more interesting to readers.... so yes while its non fiction its not likely to be 100% truthful in every respect
There is a lot of truth to that but I was trying to step round it: the OP being unpublished (and hopefully not in the propaganda office of a military power) still has the luxury of honesty. I just meant that any statement about the past is fictitious because the universe has already made the past untrue, as it is always doing. The words that conjure the past back to the page are mostly operating in the same way as when they conjure up orc castles or vampire teenagers. Non-fiction is totally grounded in reality, where fiction isn't - but I would say this grounding isn't the most impressive thing about non-fiction, compared to what it does imperceptibly to transport the reader.
Being charitable though, might we say that it organizes the events with the benefit of hindsight - making everything clearer to the reader than it was for the people who were there? A virtuous memoir might be better than being there: truer than truthful. A bit like the difference between a painted portrait and a photograph.
Seriously? That's not even close to my definition or understanding of non-fiction. That's what I have always known as "historical fiction." I don't accept that a memoir is, or should be, historical fiction.
But memoirs are one person's recollection of their own life... it depends on the person of course but imagine Stalin or Pol Pot had written their memoirs... do you think they saw themselves as history sees them ?
The difference would that historical fiction is less grounded in the truth. Neither is real, both are narrative illusions. I went to the moon yesterday < this is an ungrounded fiction I went to the shops yesterday < this is a grounded fiction. It was real for me at the time, but it isn't any more real for the reader now than me going to the moon was It's not a combative point, it's just that words aren't the things and events they stand for - which is always underneath the potential for memoirs to be creative with the truth.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure exactly what that last paragraph means, but thank you for recognizing that I do in fact come from a chain-sawing, wood-splitting, logging, hand-rowed fishing, hunting, stump-ranching, home gardening, animal raising, well-digging, cabin-bulding background. That's why I'm wondering if a 28-year-old urban-raised academically trained editor will even get what my stories are about.
A few other bits to chew on: You don't have to be a 'better' writer than someone to give them useful advice. That's part of why we have the 'two critiques to post work for critique' rule in the share your work thread; even brand new untrained writers (which this fellow isn't if he's an actual working editor) can still give helpful advice. Everyone comes to a piece with different views, different strengths, and different skills. Outsiders often see things we writers miss because we're too close to the story. Editing is a distinct skill set. Many professional editors aren't even writers themselves, they're just experts at figuring out when things aren't working and giving suggestions on how to enhance what's already on the page. A really good editor is invisible in the final work. His age and background don't really tell you that much about his ability (although if he has a portfolio that might. As a side note, 28 isn't all that young in the scheme of things, many extraordinary works have been published by folks that age). You're not required to take his suggestions if they don't work for you, and if money is involved, you can always ask for a sample edit and see if you work well together.
You are discounting the ability of a professional editor to evaluate work that includes experiences outside of his or her personal ken. Chain-sawing, wood-splitting, logging, hand-rowed fishing, hunting, stump-ranching, home gardening, animal raising, well-digging, cabin-building editors are few and far between. If you're waiting for a chain-sawing, etc. editor who totally groks your story to help you create a better story arc, you're liable to wait a long time I say this as your contemporary: age does not necessarily confer wisdom, and academia does not necessarily mean life-long residence in an ivory tower. Just as there are academic snobs, there are anti-academic snobs. One is no wiser and no less condescending than the other. Once upon a time when I was a 25 year old range conservationist, I told an old rancher my academic background. He immediately got his tail on his back, assuming I valued my education over his experience. I explained I was offering my credentials in hopes that he would consider me sufficiently educated for him to share his experience and knowledge with me. An incredible evening ensued. Late in the evening, he asked, "So what are they teaching you in ag school these days?" I told him about what I'd read about the correlation between spiders and the health of rangeland. He thought that was pretty damned weird, but interesting enough that he intended to go look for spiders the next day. Now he is long dead and I am older than he was then. When some young whippersnapper shares something he or she has learned in school or in life, I remember that good gentleman and walk out to the pasture to check on the spiders.
By asking us for advice, you’ve already accepted the necessity of using an editor and the unreasonableness of your contempt for one. You’re asking us to help convince you of something you already know to be the case. I think you just need to accept it. If you’re more concerned about the feeling of contempt, rather than some intellectual understanding of the situation, then I’d say that’s a wider problem to do with how you feel about your standing within particular social groups and how you emotionally respond to that. I’ve been there myself, and probably still am. That takes more than an internet forum.
As a five-year-old with seven PhDs, I think I have a unique perspective on this topic. You're right about experience being necessary, but if he's a working editor then you have to assume that he has some. The MFA represents a certain amount of experience as well. Further, if he's in his early thirties then he's not young young. He's been around the block a time or two, supposedly. Finally, he's been advertised to you as having a particular set of skills. If he has those skills, then good; if not, then ok. In neither case is his age a relevant factor.
An editor works for you, unless they are assigned by your publisher. It sounds like this was a suggestion, not some one assigned. So interview the person, and get a feel for how their approach meshes with you. If you are paying them directly, then get a sample edit from them, a chapter or two. Their comments, and suggestions will give you a feel for how well the working relationship will go.
I wouldn't worry about age being a factor. If you were to hire an outside editor, you probably wouldn't ask them their age and they could end up charging you a lot. You need help with the story arc and if this guy knows a thing or two about that, why wouldn't you give him a try? Seriously, this sort of service can cost a pretty penny. If you've got someone with credentials willing to help, it would be foolish not to give it a try.
