This week, I’m joined by queer romance writer Skye Kilaen. Skye shares her process for finding beta readers and editors she can trust, how she weeds out toxic criticism, and how she took a sensitivity reader’s feedback to totally reshape a story. Plus we chat about in-house versus freelance editing and our favorite romance tropes.
Music: Harlequin by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3858-harlequin
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Show Notes:
@SkyeKilaen
Planet Jinxatron: https://planetjinxatron.com/
https://skyewritesromance.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/skyekilaen
Tell Me Anything: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55691821-tell-me-anything
Three-act structure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure
DNF: Did Not Finish
LGBTQReads.com
Women of Color in Romance: http://www.wocinromance.com/about-us/
#QueerAuthorsNeedBetas
Transcript:
Ariel: Hi there and welcome to Edit Your Darlings, a podcast that tries to take the sting out of editing by talking with darling authors about their experiences. I really want to know what the story is behind that story.
I'm Ariel Anderson, and today I'm joined by Skye Kilaen. Skye writes queer romance, both contemporary and science fiction, that's sometimes about polyamorous relationships, something that I feel like I have to dig so hard to find. And even her contemporaries are usually at least a little bit geeky, as she often writes in her local comic book shop. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you so much for making time to talk with me, Skye!
Skye: Well, thank you for having me. I think this is going to be a lot of fun.
Ariel: When I got your pre-interview questionnaire, you kind of blew my mind, because I assumed that most writers talk with maybe a handful of beta readers, and you said you take feedback from 20! Twenty beta readers for each project. Why is 20 the perfect number for you?
Skye: You know I didn't set out to do that, I promise that was not a goal, and I never really planned like oh here's a target number. And in fact, a long time ago before I was really getting to the point of having beta readers, someone told me that they had 25 for one book and I was just, I couldn't believe it. But now, like when I look back on lists of who all has been around for me on various projects, it really does seem to turn out to be about 20 people by the time that I'm done.
What I have ended up doing though this process that I've kind of found my way to is that I do multiple rounds of having people beta read. If I'm doing my job right then the first group they just have like tons of tons of feedback from all kinds of stuff: structure, characterization, some people like to go ahead and be like “this sentence doesn't work.” That's great. And so I get that feedback from like five or six people, and then I do everything I can with all the feedback they gave me.
And then the second group is kind of like a test, like am I heading in the right direction. Are there more things clicking? And so like I get great feedback at that stage, but it's also me kind of evaluating like, did I do a good job when I did my revisions? Did I address things that people were like, “Oh hey, you might want to look at this”?
Ariel: So it's not that you have betas arguing with each other.
Skye: No, no no.
Ariel: It’s that you've put in the work to address this concerns.
Skye: Yes, exactly, and a lot of times, because that is sometimes hard to assess when you're editing like, I am I moving forward, am I making progress. So then by the time I get to like a third group of beta readers after more revisions, I’m really looking for showstoppers. I'm not taking feedback anymore that's like, you need to remodel the whole plot, the love story should start sooner, the conflict should be about this character's insecurity instead of about them losing their job, they should all join a motorcycle club. Calm yourself. This is the story I'm telling, these are the characters, these are their issues, but like how do I tell this story better.
And I don't want to imply that like with group one people can tell me to like change the whole story and have them join a motorcycle club, but there's just different kind of levels of feedback. Group one you can be like, Oh, the pacing is totally wrong, like I really need to move this way back to the beginning. By group three, I'm like, you know what's stopping you from enjoying it? What's taking you out of the story? That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for. But I will say that in one of those later stages I always have somebody catching like really important stuff that nobody else did that's been there the whole time, because everybody's different, everybody brings different life experience different perspective.
Some of the changes that I have been so happy to make that have been so meaningful, helping me really tell a story that's going to be kind to my audience, like some small phrasing that was unintentionally clumsy or, you know, “hey, when this character does this to this other character, this is how it strikes me. Is that really what you want to be communicating?” And I'm like, oh gosh, no that's not at all what I was trying to do. Those things have come up in that really late beta stage so I really value those people at the last minute still being willing to say “hey, you know, you've got a problem here.”
Ariel: And it's so much better to find it in beta reading than to have your proofreader come back and say, “Uhhhhh....”
Skye: Oh, right! No kidding.
Ariel: So then, how do you find all of these amazing people? And how do you know that you
can trust their feedback?
Skye: Oh gosh, that is really tricky. For me it has been a long process to build them to where I can really have that many people to lean on. And in the beginning, I cast a really wide net. I had no idea what I was doing. I was in some places like these giant Facebook groups where people were like, “I’ll beta read anything,” and you can really get just anybody. You don't know much about them or how they respond to books, how they think about books, what their values are.
And like, to me, especially being in a queer romance space where there is more vulnerability, there is more need for community care, I often find that values are the most important thing that makes me click with a beta. It's not all about like, “they have to have the most basic technical skill analyzing the pacing,” you know. I need them to be in the same place that I am, and then to tell me, like, how that work that I'm doing makes them feel and what that makes them think about.
So, at this point, I have a combination of writers that I met on Twitter, and various community like Discord servers or Slack channels. Some of them are readers. They are not authors themselves, but they bumped into me on social media somewhere and they really enjoyed beta reading. Honestly the most crucial thing that has helped me build that network and have those people is beta reading for other people, making those offers and making that commitment myself first, putting in the time and energy supporting other authors in my community. And I also beta read for some YA authors as well just because I love them.
But you know when you read somebody else's stuff, you can make some really great connections doing that. Especially, I've tried to hang on when I find somebody who isn't just like, “This is great. You're a wonderful writer. I love it. You just need to fix this typo.” I'm like, Oh, okay. And then I was like, “Oh, it must be fine, I'm done.” I didn't keep looking for those people who would be like, “Hey, I love the direction you're going. but this needs a lot of work before it's ready for publication.”
Ariel: Yeah, I wonder if beta readers feel less comfortable giving negative feedback. I can't do beta reading because I'm so scared of the harm that can come at that stage. I feel like when people get to copy editing, they've already gotten all the harsh feedback they're going to get. And so I can just come in with some little tidbits, right?
Skye: Right, right. Yeah, I know some people, they do kind of hold back and, like, I definitely give feedback differently to people when I know them, and when they're just some person that I just connected with for the first time, like I'm not going to maybe go as far as I would with someone that I don't already have a relationship with, where they know that I value what they're doing.
But I also think there are some people who like to beta read because they like reading. They’re not necessarily there because they understand how to support authors in a constructive and actionable way versus like helping them feel good and there's definitely a role for that but you got to have a mix.
Ariel: Yeah. A lot of writers have that hard time accepting positive feedback too, like the person that's giving it to them it's just trying to fluff their ego.
Skye: I definitely know folks like that. Everybody has kind of a different combination of how they feel about their writing and so some people have that combination inside that it's hard for them to hear those compliments, it's hard for them to really believe them. Definitely.
I personally love positive feedback. I love to know what is working. At what point in the manuscript do you smile, do you laugh, or do you go Aww! Because I'm a romance writer, like, I want to be pushing those emotional buttons and giving my reader that experience. And I don't think that anybody who I worked with early on, who was only giving compliments, was trying to be nice or flip my ego or they were lying or whatever. I believe that they were enjoying it.
When you talk about finding people you can trust—that was something that you had brought up—one thing you need is those people that you can trust to also be thinking critically, along with enjoying it, and to bring up those things that they see. I think it's incredibly rare that an author can self-edit to the point of their book being so good that it doesn't need some additional eyes on it, because you're in your own head. You cannot tell how the things you are writing down sound in somebody else's head, who don't know your intentions or all the backstory that's living in your brain about this world, about these characters.
I do have a couple of folks that I think of as primarily cheerleader betas, they are treasures! I absolutely love them! I love them. I would not give them up, they, you know there are times when you're working on a book where you're in a hard place and you don't even know whether it's good anymore yourself. Those people can be so amazing to come in and help you remember what you love about the book and help you remember what other people are gonna love about the book. If authors are struggling with really believing that positive feedback: I think you are writing the book because there were things you loved about it. And so finding those people who can enjoy that with you, that's probably helpful.
Ariel: I love it. So, we have the positive feedback and we have the negative feedback, and they can both be useful or unhelpful. And so how do you tell the difference between what's good and bad critique, and what gets you to tell a beta reader, you know, thanks but no thanks? Very kindly, very kindly.
Skye: Sometimes I wish I had been less kind, actually, when I have pulled people.
Ariel: Oh no!
Skye: I have had a couple of experiences that were really brutal, that were really, really toxic and brutal. And it's just it's the minority; I have had so many people give very generously of their time to help me with my work, but it is such a good question, how you tell the difference. I only have experience with this from beta readers. My paid editors have always been amazing, but I'm sure that can happen with pro editors as well. I've definitely heard from some folks with presses who've just felt like it killed their joy, you know, to work with that person. They just weren't on the same page.
The biggest problem, in my experience, in telling the difference between kind of like, “this is hard to hear” versus “this is just not okay” is that there's always some useful feedback mixed into what I think of as feedback that really crosses the line into toxicity. It's rare to get something that's like, “You’re trash, your book is trash, it’s all wrong.” You're not gonna get something that's like 100% just the person hates it and everything they say is wrong and mean so that you can kind of go, “oh, this person is doing their own weird thing. Goodbye.”
Ariel: That person clearly has an agenda.
Skye: Right.
Ariel: They're out to do harm.
Skye: Exactly, exactly. And that's totally about them. But so what happens is you get these mixed things, where you read a few things that you're like wow this almost feels like a personal insult, or they're just on a different planet and they didn't make any effort to figure out what you were trying to do. It's all about them and what they want. But then there'll be this insightful comment that you're like, wow, nobody else has pointed this out and I'm really glad that I know this. And if you are a writer, like me, who really does want those insightful comments so you can improve, it's just enough to keep you reading, like to keep you going through what they said. But the emotional cost can just be way too high. I know some people who can just shrug it off, just take the helpful stuff only. I'm not one of those people.
I had a really great exchange with another writer on Twitter, where they were like, “Yeah, it's like, how many times do you want to stick your hand into a box of knives to get something?
Ariel: Mmm, never. Not once.
Skye: Why would you ever do that? You know there's something good in there, but it's a box of knives right? It's hard to know upfront, whether it's just because like it's feedback and it's a Tuesday, or because it's toxic feedback.
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: But what I look out for now, to like help me keep away from the really dangerous stuff and I actually have someone who pre-screens feedback now.
Ariel: Ooh!
Skye: When I get it from any person I've not worked with before. He looks through it and then he’s like, you don't even need to see this, or, you know, yeah, you can go forward. But the two things that I look for is, first of all, this vibe that they are frustrated with me as the author for telling a bad story or the story that they didn't want me to tell.
One comment I very clearly remember was somebody who put a little comment box in the side, and it said, “No, no, no, this section was hastily written.” And I'm like, okay, first of all, “no no no,” that's not feedback; that is you having like an issue. And then how is any of that constructive rather than scolding me because you are frustrated?
Ariel: Yeah. There have been some times when I've put in a line edit a comment that's like, “This section doesn't seem like it's as vivid as the rest. Here's an example of where you've done it really well.”
Skye: Absolutely, and there's totally a way that that person could have said to me, “I hit this section and I feel like we're just zipping along so quickly. I don't know what's happening. Is that what you're going for?” But I'm not 10, and even if I was I wouldn't want someone to be saying to me “No, no, no.” That's not the way you talk to other people when you're trying to work with them or help them.
And then the other thing that I kind of look for is comments that kind of gives me this feeling that they just think they know far more than I do. Instead of leaving room for the possibility that maybe I know about something but I just haven't gotten the implementation all the way there yet. So that same person actually linked me to have a video explaining the basics of three-act structure. And I was like, okay, so what you're saying is, I don't even know the basics and you're giving me homework. Was there a way you could have said, “Hey, I'm used to the three-act structure. What I would have expected here is something like blah blah blah.”
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: But just kind of this constant way of like, “well here, you clearly don't know this,” or “editors like to see blah” or “readers are going to...” There's always a way to say something where you can, as a beta reader, ground it in your own reaction, your expectations, your experience, and share that with the author. And if someone is just consistently choosing not to do that and instead talking down to you, that's a box of knives.
I also got a different one who was really, really terrible and said at the beginning of her multi-page report on all things that she hated about my story and my characters and every choice I have made. She said, “I really want you to know that I'm telling you all this because I want you to be successful.” And I feel like I should have stopped there like I shouldn't have kept going.
Ariel: Yeah, I want you to know my intentions in punching you in the face are for your benefit.
Skye: Yeah, if you feel like you have to signpost it like that, you probably have not expressed yourself well throughout the rest of the document. And I just, at that point I call it a loss and I walk away. And I've actually incorporated that I have like a two page sheet that beta readers get on the front of the document, that kind of says, look, this is what I need in order to be able to keep working on this book. In terms of the way I get feedback, and these are the things I want you to know.
And one of the things I tell them is, if you just don't like the book, if you don't like the characters, you don't like the book, you need to just stop reading. I don't want feedback from you if this just does not click with you, that's fine. Don't feel bad about it. Not every book is for every reader.
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: But I've just gotten to the place where the only kind of feedback that I want is, “I'm excited with you about what this book can grow up to be. And here's what I think of where it is now so that you can keep making it better.”
The only exception would be what I call an artistic ethics issue, because I'm always perfectly fine with someone saying, hang on. We need to pull this car over and we need to rethink because this story that you are telling the way you're telling it is giving me this icky feeling or something, this kind of message that I don't think is what you're going for. And I'm like, Ew, no, that's not what I want!
But aside from that, like if you don't like the way I'm doing pacing, like if it just drives you up the wall, just stop.
Ariel: That's interesting because I worry so much that it's the greatest insult to DNF a book.
Skye: I think people actually in their recreational reading should DNF way more often.
Ariel: I thought I was a monster because I DNF all the time. Because there's just so many good books out there I want to read the good one! Ya know?
Skye: Even if it's not a good-bad dichotomy, it's like there's plenty of books that people write that are just not interesting to me. They are not speaking to me where I am. And that's okay.
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: That’s fine. And if a beta reader is like, you know, I just am not even having a good time reading this, why would I want them to keep going? You know, I've had people basically hate read my books while beta reading.
Ariel: Oh no!
Skye: I'm not gonna get anything good from you to help me make the story better.
Ariel: Why is hate reading even a thing?
Skye: I mean I think it goes back to, you know, the two things that I look out for now which is that people feeling like they are doing you a favor. They're superior to you and they're doing you a favor. But also, they are frustrated with you for writing this thing that they were probably excited to read, or they wouldn't have volunteered to beta read it, and then finding it so disappointing. And I have been in that situation where I've offered to beta read for someone and I was super excited about their premise, and then I was like, oh, this is not as far along as I would have wanted it to be. And sometimes I have said, hey you know this is just not a good fit for me, and sometimes I've said, okay, so what can I give this author? Because I think this could be very cool in the future, you know, what do I have to offer?
Ariel: That's a hard line to trod. It's hard to find that line between “this might not be for me but what can I offer.”
So I would love to hear about your experiences with sensitivity readers because in addition to getting feedback from betas, saying maybe, “ooh, this yucked me” and that was unintended, right, you've had experiences with actual sensitivity readers, and I was curious about what sort of content led you to seek out the help of sensitivity readers, and what were those experiences like?
Skye: Sure, I love sensitivity readers. I love it. I love that whole thing. I'm probably like the most pro sensitivity reader author on the planet, possibly, even though I have had two sensitivity reads so far that were like the person saying “look, you totally blew it.”
Ariel: Oof, oh my heart!
Skye: And they were totally right. So yeah, let me tell you. Okay. I've had sensitivity readers so far for three projects, way pre-publication. One of them was a draft short story that had a white police officer love interest talking about her decision to leave the force, to quit being a police officer, because of racialized violence, basically. This was several years ago but I mean, I'm old enough to remember Rodney King, so to me this is not like a new topic since last summer.
And then I had one for a finished novel, like a second or third draft, where the point-of-view main character has depression that had led to a suicide attempt in the past and residential hospitalization treatment in the past.
A partial novel with a point-of-view main character who is Jewish, to really get like a temperature check of like, am I on the right track, am I including details correctly? And then I paid for a sensitivity read for my first novella, which had already been acquired by a publisher at that time.
Ariel: Mm, so the publisher didn't pay for it?
Skye: The publisher is a very small publisher and they do not offer those services. The love interest of that novella is blind. And in the time between when it was acquired and when we started edits, which was a really long time—it was almost a year—I had realized, the more I read, the more I listened to conversations about sensitivity reading that I realized I had not done my due diligence, and that I was already starting to see problems with the way that the book worked.
All of those experiences were fantastic. I feel really fortunate to have worked with all four of those people. I think sometimes authors talk about sensitivity reading in this way, or have this idea, that the goal is that you get somebody from that group. And then they tell you whether what's in the story matches their personal experience like you're asking one person to just speak for a whole group. And that is not it at all, that is not what sensitivity reading is.
In my understanding and how I've approached it, you are looking for someone with editorial or at least a lay person’s analytical skills for looking at fiction, who's a member of a community, and has also spent time thinking about and analyzing representation of that community in literature.
So for the blind love interest for the novella that was with the publisher, I actually just approached somebody on Twitter that I followed, who had written about disability and specifically blindness in fiction. I really admired their work, they'd done some great articles. They had not done sensitivity reading work before but they were obviously doing that kind of analysis and they were really knowledgeable. And so they read it, and then they sent me back this report, and it basically said like, look, you are not even on the map to be lost. You are so far out of where you should be. You have a significant structural flaw in this that basically just cascades ableist garbage over almost every other key choice in the story. Everything is tainted by this. I love your character but it's in spite of your story and your story does not love your character. So you need to get this fixed for you to throw this in the garbage.
Ariel: How long did it take you to get up off the floor?
Skye: I read it right before I had to leave to go pick up my son from school.
Ariel: Can you drive and sob at the same time?
Skye: I was like, okay, okay, Okay, you have to operate this motor vehicle. You have to calm down. I mean I think it was a little bit easier because I was expecting that there were problems. That's why I hired someone, is I was starting to go, wait a minute I think there's a problem here. I can't put my hands on where it is, you can't. But like, whoo boy. Yeah.
By the time I got home and I read it again. So it's like an hour later. I was like, okay I'm gonna look at it one more time, and then I'm gonna walk away from it for like two days. And by the end of those two days I was ready to get to work. I was so grateful. My publisher would have totally just put that book out exactly as is.
Ariel: Oh no!
Skye: I was so grateful that wasn't happening. I wrote to them and I was like, I need more time. I cannot start regular edits with you in three weeks. And so they were like, can we give you like a two month extension, and I was like yes, perfect.
What would have really broken my heart was having that book go to publication. And then there's no way that I could undo it unless my publisher agreed to help, and I had put out this disabled character that a lot of people might have been really super excited about ahead of time.
Ariel: Yeah!
Skye: And then read it and had it be so painful.
Ariel: Yeah.
Skye: I don't want to be carelessly hurting people. So like I was trying to figure out what to do next. I was ready to go; I wanted to get that change me that editing done. And that's one of the things people don't always talk about, about sensitivity reading is, once you know you have problems, how can you be sure you fix them?
Ariel: Mmmm!
Skye: Sensitivity reading is super expensive. I honestly don't know if I will ever make back what I spent, because this is a sci fi FF novella with a small queer publisher. It’s not going to sell a bazillion copies.
Ariel: Well, if I have anything to say about it! I don't.
Skye: I mean I've had some people who've been really super generous in supporting it and getting the word out there, but just I made sure to spend what I needed to spend in order to like figure out what was going on with the book, and I don't regret it at all. But paying for a second round was just not an option. To be honest, if I were my sensitivity reader on that project, I would not have said “yes, Skye, I will read it again,” because talk about a deeply unpleasant experience for them to read this and just be like “Ew!” And I think that's why sensitivity reading, like, it's so important that that is paid job.
Ariel: Yes!
Skye: Because you're really asking people to take a big risk and sometimes that, that this is gonna turn out poorly for them.
I went and talked to some authors I already knew who were really smart about disability representation in fiction. One of them swapped me for some beta reading at like a three to one ratio to take a look at it. Did some more revisions. Once I had kind of cleaned up everything, I found a blind beta reader and a vision impaired beta reader who were both willing to read it. One of them I traded them some online research, and the other one didn't want anything; she just liked the genre, she thought it would be fun. And they really helped me to solidify those last details to fix those issues. I would have killed the book from the publisher, if they hadn't signed off, I would have just been like, “I tried, it didn't work.”
Ariel: Ooh, there is so much power in that. That takes some superhero posture.
Skye: I mean, I'm fortunate and I'm privileged that I was in position to pay for that sensitivity reading, and to look at the prospect of not making any money on that story and go okay. Not everybody has that wiggle room. But I'm going to say if you don't, then you really need to think twice about committing to a character that really does need sensitivity reading because it's pretty far outside of your experience.
The police officer character was in a short story. The volume of feedback was a lot less. But it was another situation where I was grateful that the sensitivity reader just didn’t pull punches. Going back to that idea of like you're the author and you have all this stuff in your head about your intentions, you can't tell how it sounds like to someone who's not you. And especially as someone who, I am not in a community that is historically targeted by police violence, except for the queer community. But my personal experience, that is not a history that I personally have. There is no way that I could have completely known how, what I have that character saying about how she's making her decisions would sound like to someone from those communities.
And so, you know, in this case, it's a little different kind of sensitivity reading. It wasn't for a character with certain characteristics. It was because of a specific topic that I wanted to address as part of the story. It's like a meet cute romance. I definitely wanted someone to be like, hey, how does this strike you?
So I had picked a, an author of color, who I knew had personal background in that area had written police officer characters, and had spent a decent amount of time thinking and talking about artistic ethics. And I was super lucky that they said yes, that they were available. And they did say, “okay, I see where you're going, but then when you get into this part of it, you need to do more work, you're not done yet.” And that was really helpful to me and it made a lot of sense. It really did click what he had to say.
I wasn't surprised that when I had sensitivity reading on the projects that had the character with depression and one who was Jewish, that I had done a much better job on my own and with research because those are things that I have people in my family, I've had close long-term friendships, a little bit of early beta reading on the character with depression from people who, you know struggle with that, live with that. I didn't ask them to like dig deep into that representation, but I think they would have flagged me, you know, if they saw really, you know signs that I was way off key. But I had better grounding in those two things to start with and I could really see that, that helped.
Ariel: You said that you worked with both in house and freelance copy editors and proofreaders, which is interesting to me. I wondered if those experiences were pretty different for you or if they were kind of exactly the same. And did you have a better time with one
or the other.
Skye: To me they were very different. And honestly what I think it comes down to is I'm just a lot more comfortable working with freelance folks than I am in an in-house publishing setting.
Ariel: That's fascinating. Tell me more.
Skye: I think a lot of it comes down to power. Once a publishing company has your book, you do not have final control over what happens with it. But I think when I'm working with a freelancer, it is easier for me to have this feeling of like, hey, awesome, this person is coming in to this project on my side to help me make my book better.
Ariel: Oh, oh yes!
Skye: Versus in an in-house publishing setting, because I know that that's a business for them. And I know that there are certain requirements around that, the feeling that I am walking in with an author is, this person is trying to get their job done to their company's standards. And that means fitting my book into that system. And, like, I picked a publisher that I had a lot of respect for a lot of those companies standards. I didn't just throw it at the wall, but I still... like, that's a very different perspective. For example, I'm normally a huge rule follower in life. Like I get teased about it.
Ariel: Do you go exactly the speed limit?
Skye: I try real hard, but I'm also from Texas, so.
Ariel: Oh no, no no. You’ll get run over.
Skye: But like, I'm kind of like that lawful good person, but it turns out that I'm kind of allergic to people telling me some grammar rule is a reason that I have to change something about my manuscript. When I'm working with a freelance person, like, it's all suggestions, right? They can't make, me do anything.
Ariel: Yes!
Skye: You know, I've had some beta readers who will tag me with something like “this is a sentence fragment,” and like I don't care. I legitimately don't care. I care about does it work or not. And when I'm working with a freelancer, like, I feel very free to be myself and be more interested in whether I'm getting the effect that I want and conveying the meaning that I want.
But I think when I'm working with an in-house editor, I don't feel like I have that wiggle room as much. They're trying to like make all their books by all their different authors conform to the Chicago Manual style standards.
Ariel: You don't love Chicago?
Skye: I don't know Chicago.
Ariel: Oh! They’re not your friend. You wouldn't say hi to them across a busy room.
Skye: Chicago is just some guy. Okay? Like I don't know that guy. And I'm not saying that anytime my editor brought up anything and was like “CMOS rule,” that would be like, “Well, I don't care. Power to the people.” And I just know that there's given take there and it does not feel as comfortable to me.
Whereas, you know, I had my book that came out in March. I had a copy editor who was amazing and who actually I think went far beyond copy to like line, edit, and she's brilliant and it was wonderful and I was so grateful. I really felt completely free to look at every change and be like, okay, what is she trying to tell me? And I wasn't like accountable to anyone for that except myself.
Ariel: Well, the downside of that though, is that you have to be sure in advance that the freelancer that you're working with is gonna know those standards to advocate for them to begin with. Right? So having to find your own freelancer versus working with whoever the publisher gives you, there's power, and there's peril.
Skye: Yes, and as a self-published‑especially writing in queer romance, which is not the same as writing in, you know, mainstream Regency romance where you have a million people on Amazon falling all over themselves to read five more books like that—it's expensive, it’s really expensive, and like it's hard to know ahead of time like is this really gonna click. Even if somebody does a sample edit, like, something might turn up later in the way they approach things that you just couldn't tell from that small sample. At the end of the day, this is my artistic product that reflects on me. And this is the effect that I want.
Ariel: Yeah, that's exactly how I feel about it too.
Skye: I think there are some amazing in-house editors. I may at some point want to explore that again. But I think if I do, I am going to be a lot more savvy and then working with them to see how they can make it better, which was not where I was with the first one, even outside of kind of sensitivity reader type issues. Before I had submitted it. When I was a baby, baby author.
Ariel: Yeah, that whole growing as an author also comes in growing into yourself. I love it. So let's move on to the questions that I asked every author I talk to. Are you ready?
Skye: I'm ready.
Ariel: Okay. First, what do you hate about the editing process?
Skye: Okay, I have learned about me that I absolutely have to let things sit and not look at them for periods in between edits where I cannot see them with fresh eyes. I really have to let it sit for like a month. And the reason I hate it, is that I feel like that makes everything take so long. I can't just be like, “Oh hey, look, it's May. I'm gonna put a book out in September. Let's go.” Like, that's never gonna happen.
I don't want there to be this many steps, I think is what I'm whining about. Especially because like I already know 30 books I want to write, and like it's gonna take forever.
Ariel: Yeah, right? And then what's the most common bit of feedback you receive on your writing?
Skye: Run-on sentences.
Ariel: Mmm, like whole paragraphs that are one sentence with one comma somewhere in the middle? And a few ellipses and five em dashes.
Skye: You can't take my em dashes, that's not kind.
Ariel: I would never try.
Skye: I get it, I know. I got a comment from a professor in college. And it said, “Nice sentence, could have been three.” And that is just how I write.
Ariel: What a cheeky comments too.
Skye: We had a good relationship and he was a really funny guy, I don't think he probably would have said it to all of his students but he knew that I would get a kick out of it and I did. So yeah, run-on sentences, that's the most common piece of, like, suggestions.
I'm still trying to figure out like what are the things people tell me that are positive. One of them that has been emerging is people telling me that my secondary characters feel like they are entire people who have lives, as opposed to just, they show up to do their part of the plot. And I have really appreciated hearing that. I don't know exactly how it is that I have conveyed that they are whole three dimensional people, but I really did enjoy hearing that.
Ariel: You know, I think this is episode 20 and you're one of the first who has ever said anything positive in response to this question, and I love it! Do you have any last words of advice?
Skye: I have a couple. I think my first thing would be find those Ride or Die people, those beta readers, those critique partners, those other authors who make you excited to work on your project. Because writing is hard. Editing is hard. It can also be fun. It can also be joyful, it can also be deeply meaningful, and I hope that it is. but you just have to have those people who are going to cheer for you. You’re gonna go into your little chat space, or you're going to call them on the phone and say, “Look, I quit, I don't want to do this anymore,” and they're going to be like, “Nope. Not today.”
And my other piece of advice is to start promoting yourself as an author and building your author network and building your social media channels or whatever way you're going to want to be promoting yourself at least a year before you publish. And I know this is kind of off topic of what we've been talking about today, but it just breaks my heart every time when I see an author show up on Twitter and they're like, “I just started my Twitter because my book is coming out next week, how do I sell it?”
Ariel: Ah, oh no!
Skye: And I’m like, ouch, ouch, ouch. Okay. Because the truth is that like you're always going to care more about helping your book find its readers than anybody else will. And so like, give yourself as much help as possible.
Ariel: And there is a lot of help to be had on Twitter.
Skye: Oh, huge amounts.
Ariel: People say bad things about Twitter all the time but I just love the writing community.
Skye: Twitter could be a total dumpster fire. And I honestly have a hard time believing there is a writing community on Twitter. I think there's a lot of overlapping groups, and finding your people is super importantly, not just like anybody who's writing a book. But yeah, it's crucial for me. I would say the same thing about Goodreads.
You know, and people sometimes say like they struggle with how do I connect with people on Twitter, how do I connect with people? The most important thing you can do is support other people, is to hype them, not in a cynical self-serving way, but like, find the people whose work you really are passionate about and amplify that, because then people will look at you and say, Oh, that's the person who likes the same kind of things that I like. It's a way that you communicate who you are and your writing is part of who you are.
Ariel: Yeah. Well, that is the best possible segue into the last portion of our program, which is a Hot and Wholesome Gossip Corner.
Skye: I love that concept, I love it.
Ariel: Are there—I know there are! Are there any other writers or creators doing something you're excited about? Any shoutouts you want to give or people you want to lift up?
Skye: Actually, instead of like focusing on writers and creators, because there's so many of them that I would have to name check like 100 people. That doesn't work, we'll be here all day. I wanted to highlight two resources for helping find amazing writers and creators.
Ariel: Mmm, yes please.
First of all, the site LGBTQReads.com, which is this just amazing site all about queer books—new releases, cover reveals, recommendation lists, like the whole deal—that's just such an amazing resource, and the gal who runs it and her team, they just do an amazing job of supporting authors and really keeping everybody's To Be Read lists exploding with just all the books. I'm a romance writer; it's not just romance. It's YA, it's memoir, it's poetry, it's fiction, it's everything. So LGBTQReads.com
And then the other resource is Women of Color in Romance, which is this huge directory of romance novels by women of color authors. Anybody who wants to be reading more diversely in romance, that is a great place to start. They have it all broken down by tropes, themes, characters. Totally sliced and diced, you can find exactly what you're looking for, it's fantastic.
Ariel: Now you have to tell me what your favorite trope is.
Skye: This is so specific and I don't even know why I love it so much. I love a meet cute where two characters run into each other and spill somebody's coffee.
Ariel: No, not the coffee!
Skye: Okay, I don't even like coffee.
Ariel: Skye, I thought we were going to be friends!
Skye: I'm sorry I'm a very picky eater. For whatever reason like coffee and chocolate I just do not care for them. My philosophy is, that's more for everybody else, so that's fine. But yeah, I love the story that starts with two characters like physically running into each other and somebody’s coffee get spilled. The character who spilled it goes and gets them another one and that's how they end up talking. I know, like, most people, when you ask them their favorite trope, it's much more general. It's like only one bed, which I totally love by the way.
Ariel: That’s my favorite. Oh my gosh. And then there was one other if you wanted to shout that one out too.
Skye: Well in terms of like if there's any authors out there who are LGBTQIA, and you want to maybe try to make some of those connections, make more of those connections with beta readers, critique partners, I do have a hashtag thing that I do once a month. It’s #QueerAuthorsNeedBetas. People can post like, “hey, this is my work in progress, I'm looking for a beta reader or critique partner,” or they just want to post and be like, “hey, I want to read,” you know, we had somebody who was like, “I want to read nonbinary characters in adult science fiction fantasy. You got one, talk to me, I want to read it.” It's been super fun. Gonna make it a permanent thing, it's like one Sunday every month.
I know it can be super scary to talk to strangers on the internet about your books. But honestly, most of my most beloved critique partners have come into my life when I talked to strangers on the internet about my books. So I encourage people to take that step, whatever way they can make those connections. Find those people, like we were talking about, who really are there to support you.
Ariel: Yeah. If you want to check out Skye's work, you can follow her on Twitter @SkyeKilaen. You can read her book blog Planet Jinxatron for more recommendations for romances, graphic novels, web comics, sci fi/fantasy, and maybe even a little YA. Or you can go to her Goodreads page or her author website, SkyeWritesRomance.com, to keep up with her fabulous queer romance. I can't wait to get my hands on her next book, Tell Me Anything, coming out in September. Thank you so much for talking with me, Skye!
Skye: Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast.
Ariel: If you loved this episode of Edit Your Darlings, why not share it with a friend? Remember to rate and review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast fix. For show notes go to edityourdarlings. com, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @editpodcast, or I'm @arielcopyedits. Until next week, cheers!