My name is Victoria Elliott. I am a 29-year-old recent graduate from the University of Houston with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and former president of Sigma Tau Delta (International English Honors Society). I recently began my internship at the X as a proofreader/editor-in-training.
A little bit about me: I have a brittle bone condition, commonly known as Osteogenesis Imperfecta, and severe scoliosis. I was able to walk until I was thirteen, but my scoliosis progressed to the point of limiting my ability to stand, and now it has me confined to a wheelchair.
However, my life is not dull. I was blessed to have had an active childhood, and while my physical abilities have declined, my intellect has not. I have always enjoyed reading and writing. In Kindergarten, I would purposely get sent to time out so that I could read the books that were in the corner.
My love of books grew and by the time I got to college, I knew that I wanted to be an author. I took a writing workshop my junior year at U of H. There, I learned the two important traits of good writers; they were avid readers and diligent editors.
My biggest reason for not yet sending in a manuscript was my fear of editors. In high school, I loathed getting papers back with those dreaded red-penned criticisms. The workshop taught me how to embrace criticism and that no author is perfect on the first draft. My fear turned into respect and I decided that if I wanted to be a good writer, I should learn how to edit.
In 2011, my good friend and new X author, Ben Ireland, was working on his first manuscript and he allowed me to practice my developing editorial skills on it. Xchyler recently accepted his work and, in turn, he recommended me. I began my internship in May and it has been a wonderful learning process. My experience has blown the lid off of every assumption I had about editors and what they do. Three major lessons I have learned so far:
Editors are a team. I never realized how many people it takes to edit one story. However, the workload is much larger than I imagined. So many stories come in and every one of them receives an evaluation from a content editor, line editor, proofreader and the boss editor.- Editors read everything. I always assumed that editors were harsh critics who were extremely nit-picky about the material they read. That may be true of some editors, but the X is all about encouraging their writers and that means taking the time to dig through the rubble of a manuscript, in search of ideas that can be developed into a story.
- Editors don’t give the author a voice. At the writing conference in college, one of the visiting authors told us about sending in his first manuscript and how, when he finally got it back, the editor had practically rewritten his story for him. The X believes that every author’s voice should be preserved. Editors never decide for an author what they should say, but they give feedback on the strengths and weakness of a story and their writing, allowing the author to build upon them and maintain creative control.
There is so much I have yet to learn about becoming a good editor. Sometimes the reading is challenging and the workload is large, but the experience and knowledge I am gaining as a result is well worth it.
Victoria “Tori” Elliott (no relation to Amanda) recently graduated from the University of Houston. She lives in Texas and aspires to be a writer and university professor.