If my Golden Retriever Josie was choosing a freelance editor, what would she look for? Although I can’t know for certain, I believe she would look for someone who understood and cared about dogs. The editor wouldn’t have to be a Golden Retriever or even a dog herself. But the editor would have to understand just how fun it is to be a dog. The editor would appreciate going for long walks in all kinds of weather, playing with friends, and enjoying three meals, plus treats. Even if the editor didn’t enjoy rolling in mud, she could understand and share the feelings of someone who did. In other words, Josie would want an editor with plenty of empathy.
Empathy, as Josie would tell you, is the capacity to recognize, understand, and share the feelings of another.
What, you might wonder, does empathy have to do with freelance editing?
We all have different experiences, backgrounds, ideas, and messages that we want to convey in our writing. But what unites us is our capacity for emotion. We love, like, lust, hate, dislike. We are joyful, happy, content, amused. We are angry, irritated, grief-stricken, sad, unhappy. It is in our emotions that I believe we truly can recognize one other. In a writing project, I look for the honesty of emotion. Of course, I evaluate many other things in a piece of writing. But feeling is where I begin. When a potential editing project comes across my desk, the first question I ask myself is, what does this writer feel? Next, I ask myself, what does this writer want me to feel? I think about what the writer feels, rather than what the writer thinks, first and foremost. I do so because that’s how I interact with the world—as an empath—and I believe it’s a superpower. I can’t ski, do math, understand French or sketch. But I can feel deeply. My superpower helps me identify emotion, and the lack thereof, in a piece of writing. It’s crucial—even necessary—to the success of the writing. It will bounce right off the reader if it’s missing.
Emotion is not just for personal writing. I’ve helped a cookbook author add emotion to her debut offering. I’ve written and edited a law school alumni magazine profile that speaks of the subject’s passion for a new career as a kindergarten teacher. I’ve helped an author add personal experience and great depth of emotion to her self-help book for new moms.
Whatever you are writing, emotion—both yours and the reader’s—is the magic match that lights a spark for your reader. We don’t share all the same experiences (how boring the world would be if we did!), but we do share the ability to feel.
When you’re choosing a freelance editor for your project, look for one who understands how important it is to convey feeling in your writing.
