5 Key Questions to Ask Your Editor When Getting Feedback

As an author, receiving feedback on your manuscript can be both exhilarating and nerve-racking. While it’s exciting to see your work take shape, it’s natural to feel apprehensive about criticism! Still, it’s important to remember that your editor’s feedback always comes from a good place — you’re both on the same team working to make your story as good as it can possibly be. These key questions will help you make the most of your editor’s expertise and take your manuscript to the next level.

1. Does the inciting incident grab readers’ attention?

In a world with unlimited entertainment only a few clicks away, the strength of an opening act is more important than ever. If your story doesn’t captivate readers from the beginning, it’s easy for them to move on and find something else to occupy their time.

For those who may not be familiar with the terminology, the inciting incident is the narrative hook that propels your protagonist into action — so making it as unique, dramatic, and compelling as possible will go a long way toward getting readers invested in your story! An editor can pinpoint areas where the opening might currently fall flat, and suggest ways to ramp up the drama.

Whether that’s through more vivid descriptions, heightened stakes, or clearer emotional beats, your editor will articulate the issue(s) and help make your opening much “grabbier” for readers.

2. Which details ground the reader in your world, and which feel unnecessary or distracting?

When you’re trying to construct an immersive world for your story — particularly for a fantasy or sci-fi story — it’s easy to get caught up in describing every little detail. But sometimes less is more, and there’s a delicate balance between using details that are going to pull the readers into your world vs. going overboard and disrupting their immersion.

Remember, your setting should be more than just the backdrop for the plot; it should also help establish the mood and reinforce the themes of your story. If you get too into the weeds with describing the nitty-gritty of, say, a building’s architecture and layout, you shift the focus away from the action at hand and towards an exhaustive list of specific details. This distracts the reader and slows down the narrative pace.

If you want to refine your setting and make sure it works for your story, ask your editor which of these details are more immersive and which are more distracting. They’ll be able to help you cut down your purple prose and distill certain descriptions to the essentials — without sacrificing the unique atmosphere of the world you’ve created.

3. Do any scenes feel arbitrary or out of place?

Legendary novelist Elmore Leonard once said that he “[tries] to leave out the part that people skip.” In other words, your writing should grab readers by their throats and refuse to let go! To that end, every sentence should either serve to advance the narrative or contribute to characterization.

Before sending out your manuscript for editing, ask yourself what the reader is supposed to infer from each scene, and if what you’ve written is the best way to get that across. Particularly if you have long stretches where no one speaks or where little action occurs, see if you can shorten (or remove!) those scenes to minimize the chances of readerly skippage.

Of course, it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees; as an author, it can be especially difficult to detach yourself from your work and decide which scenes would be better off left on the cutting room floor. So when in doubt, ask your editor! Applying their feedback and trimming any scenes they think are drawn-out or awkward will definitely sharpen up your novel in the long run.

4. Do the characters’ voices sound distinct?

Dialogue is one of the most important tools you have in your characterization utility belt. Think about how much of someone’s personality is conveyed through their tone, word choice, and speech patterns. By giving each of your characters a unique voice with their own quirks, you can craft captivating dialogue that both builds characterization and keeps the reader engaged.

Each of your characters should have a manner of speaking that reflects their background, personality, and motivations. Say you have a detective attempting to pry information out of a potential suspect who, in turn, is trying to discern how much intel the police have on them. In a scenario like this, it may be difficult to draw a distinction between your characters with their dialogue choices, as they are having a one-on-one conversation with similar aims.

If you’re unsure whether you’ve done enough to separate your characters, ask your editor whether or not they think their voices blend together. If their answer is yes, have a further conversation about how you can bring out your characters’ personalities more effectively in their dialogue — again, using tools like vocabulary, preferred phrases (maybe even “catchphrases”), and distinctive speech patterns.

5. Does the conclusion feel satisfying, or does it fall flat?

The quality of your ending can make or break your story. The conclusion is the last point of contact that readers will have with your book, and they’re much less likely to look back on your story fondly if it leaves a sour taste in their mouth.

Unfortunately, the ending is often the most difficult part of a book to get right, as you need to wrap up every hanging plot thread in a way that feels satisfying. Your conclusion is allowed to be “predictable,” but the specifics of how your protagonists achieve (or fall short of) their goals shouldn’t be too obvious. For example, most Star Wars fans would have expected the Rebel Alliance to ultimately succeed in Return of the Jedi, but Darth Vader’s surprise character turn in the final act added an exciting extra twist that elevated the finale from great to iconic.

If you’re concerned about your ending feeling satisfying, keep a list of plot threads that need to be resolved by the end of your book. Present them to your editor, and ask them whether or not they’ve been wrapped up in a way that feels authentic to the rest of the story.

With these questions in mind, you should be well-equipped to ask your editor for specific, useful input on your manuscript. Remember, getting feedback from your editor isn’t about tearing down your work, but rather about building it up to be the best it can be. So don’t be intimidated as you embark on this exciting new journey!

Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors with resources and professionals to help them write a book. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction, writing short stories, and analyzing literature into the ground.