by Kitty Felde

When I started my little publishing company Chesapeake Press, I gave myself the title of Managing Editor. Little did I know that that’s exactly what I’d become: the person who helps my authors polish their literary masterpiece. Even more surprising: I’m pretty darned good at it!

Likely the skill has been instilled in all of us after all those years of weekly playwriting group meetings where we listen to other people’s work and offer feedback. We’re good little playwrights, learning to bite our tongues instead of honestly telling our colleagues that it was the worst play ever put to paper. Instead, we offer friendly observations and helpful suggestions.

I now offer those friendly observations and helpful suggestions to the writers I’ve hired to create 10,000 word biographies of “heroes of American democracy.” These former journalists and PR executives send me their chapters and outlines and I send back notes. Hopefully, kind and helpful notes (although I still haven’t heard back from a writer I’d asked to rewrite her first chapter and am fretting about her throwing up her hands and walking away entirely…)

But what do I know? What makes a good editor? How do writers work with editors to improve their work without losing themselves in the process?

I’ve asked the experts:

Jane Friedman, the independent publishing whisperer, says it’s not the job of an editor to fix someone’s work. An editor’s job is to help the writer fix it. A good playwriting group will outlaw suggestions of specific rewrites of plot or dialogue. Jane suggests an edit starts with praise, followed up by questions. A useful phrase is, “this just isn’t working for me.”

But how do we as writers use those suggestions? Which ones do we keep? Which ones do we ignore? Writer and editor of the small press Atthis Arts E. D. E. Bell say she has two rules: Consider all edits with an open mind and after a day or so of consideration, only make the changes you like.

Jessica Huang at The Playwrights Center has an editing mantra: Doubt yourself; trust your play. She says our scripts contain two things: our ego and the play that found us. Editing means identifying which is which and eliminating the things we love about our work that don’t serve the play. The challenge of course is identifying which is which.
When editing my own work, I look for the things that make my teeth hurt. These are the lines or bits of drama that I know in my heart aren’t working, but it takes me months to come to terms with ripping them out of the work. I need that time to come to the conclusion that those things must go if the piece is to survive at all.

What about you? Do you have editing mantras? How do you attack your own work? How do you ingest editing notes from others? I’d love to hear your editing mantra.

Kitty Felde’s newest volume in The Fina Mendoza Mysteries series Home of the Brave will be published in June 2026. If you are interested in writing for Chesapeake Press, contact us through the website.