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Topic: My article rewritten and now has a shared byline!
| Author | Message |
| paperclip | Posted – 11/17/2008 8:20:17 PM | show profile I wrote a freelance article for city shelter mag. It was the first time I'd written for them. Basically, I had one week to research and write an 800 word piece. I wrote it then sent it to the editor. I met with him the day after I sent him the piece and he gave me some vague suggestions and notes. I rewrote the piece and sent it back. Never heard another thing about it. Got paid. Today, the issue came out and not only am I sharing the byline with a staff writer, but it is completely rewritten (though some of my original paragraphs were left untouched). So I'm upset because a.) I never had the chance to rework the piece myself, which b.) makes me feel like I must not be a very good writer. I want to say something to the editor but I don't want to burn bridges. I just think that if you're going to have a staff writer redo the whole thing and then add her name to the byline, you should let the original writer know. Thoughts?? |
| Letterbox | Posted – 11/17/2008 9:54:08 PM | show profile This happens all the time and sometimes has more to do with schedule and story length than your ability as a writer. Don't take it personally. Just take notes on what the editor changed and try and adjust your own writing to fit what they want. |
| Marie | Posted – 11/17/2008 10:53:52 PM | show profile Right. There was probably not enough time to go through another rewrite with you. It takes a while to learn a magazine's style and what it wants. They used a lot of your reporting, and probaly had to rejig it quickly. Stop making judgments about yourself and your abilities. All this means is that time was short, or they're morons. Either way, there's no need to beat yourself up. If you want to continue with this publication, pitch them again, and use the rewrite and the editorial comments as a guide in your next piece. |
| abqwriter | Posted – 11/18/2008 1:24:19 AM | show profile If this was your first 800 word piece, consider this a generous learning experience. You not only got paid but a shared byline for a piece that needed additional work for publication. Look at the parts that were edited, try to understand what was missing and then try to emulate the style, voice, etc. the next time around. Congratulations on the byline and publishing credit. |
| WordyBird | Posted – 11/18/2008 10:56:28 AM | show profile I'm with ABQ. Also, if there had been more time, who is to say they wouldn't have canned the piece entirely, paid you a kill fee (which is only a percentage of the regular fee), and done it themselves? You were short on time, but you did rewrite the piece and it still was not what they wanted. For an 800-word piece, that was their call, and they were generous with you. |
| Ronasaurus Rex | Posted – 11/18/2008 11:29:24 AM | show profile I've never had to share my bylines but I certainly felt the slice-and-dice of editing. As said before, don't take it personally. You were paid and your foot is in the door. Perhaps they didn't contact you for the second round of rewrite work because they wanted to change the angle, but I'd guess they just got too close to the print date and passed it off to a staff writer to make last second changes. If you're still getting assignments, you're doing fine. If you write for them again, however, you should definitely ask the editor how you can do a "better" job next time! |
| abqwriter | Posted – 11/18/2008 11:57:46 AM | show profile I want to add one thing, because I think it is the difference between growing as a writer or not: you said this upset you because it made you feel like you weren't a very good writer. You were a good enough writer to pitch the piece and convince the editor you could do it. You were good enough to have entire paragraphs untouched. But you will never be good enough that feedback or correction from someone else isn't useful or necessary. Even the best of authors and writers have editors, and editors are there to put another layer of excellence on what is produced. Correction is vital in this business, so you have to grow tough skin. Without it, you won't grow as a writer. But never mistake correction for a vote that you are not a good writer. If you don't believe in yourself, no one else will, either. |
| bjoconnorfla | Posted – 11/18/2008 12:03:31 PM | show profile I second the above post -- Hey! We all need to remember this! -- and note that you should also take solace from getting paid in full. If the editors really felt the piece was lacking essential info that you should have found on your own and had to add a lot of new reporting, chances are they would have cut your fee, too. Follow up by pitching more to this publication and see what kind of response you get. If no new assignments are forthcoming, then I'd bring this up. But if you get a new story, make sure to use what you learned from this go-round. Good luck. |
| JimmyG | Posted – 11/18/2008 12:09:54 PM | show profile Also know that there are a lot of editors who are "hands on" in the sense that they can't keep their hands off an article. I'm not saying that's bad, because a lot of it has to do with a publication's style and sometimes because there may be a couple of people who feel the need to lay hands on stories to justify their existence. And some editors have a hard time letting writers know ahead of time what they actually want and expect out of an article. Adding a second byline for editing is rare, however, and seems a bit out of whack unless someone had to do substantial additional reporting. I wouldn't take it personally, but it may be worth an email to your editor to ask what you might have done differently in the first place. |
| Marie | Posted – 11/18/2008 1:57:47 PM | show profile I also meant to point out that you should rejoice in getting paid in a timely manner. My feeling is that you probably did a fine job (otherwise it would have been completely rewritten or canned), but perhaps it wasn't exactly what they wanted. That doesn't mean it was bad. And as someone else said, they may have decided on an additional -- or slightly different -- angle or tone after you submitted it. It was easier and faster to have a staff person do this. As other posters said, I encourage you to continue to pitch this publication, and see what happens. I wouldn't go to the editor all self-effacing about how you can do a better job, but when you get an assignment, try to get perhaps a better sense of exactly what's wanted. I find editors' comments when they assign very helpful That's the time to ask a lot of questions. If something is vague in the assignment, speak up. Ask what the reader needs to "take away" from the piece -- the answer to that question is what I find the most useful. Good luck. |
| mae | Posted – 11/18/2008 2:18:26 PM | show profile An editor once asked me (then assistant editor) to rewrite a piece submitted by a freelancer and gave me a shared byline for my effort. The piece had good information, but it was just not well written. |
| slink | Posted – 11/18/2008 5:53:17 PM | show profile You Must Move On. |
| MDSAL | Posted – 11/18/2008 6:58:59 PM | show profile Many editors don't give writers a clear idea of what they want and expect writers to have ESP. The staffer had the advantage of knowing what the editor wanted and the style of the magazine--and had your very strong piece to work with. It's much easier to edit than write and report. As an aside, I sometimes think that the commenters on this board love to make posters feel like sh**t. A lot of this business, and the decisions made, are arbitrary. Keep that in mind. Celebrate the fact that you were paid and keep pitching (and writing). This can be a nasty business, but you'll also have moments when you're working with a fantastic editor, or writing something that really sings, and it will all be worth it. Really make an effort to avoid the killjoys and the know-it-alls. |
| frantic | Posted – 11/18/2008 11:02:27 PM | show profile I agree with the other who say "don't assume you did anything wrong." You said the editor gave you vague notes. Let's face it, not all editors are great at editing, or at clearly communicating what they want. I used to be an editor myself, and I've seen all kinds of craziness pass as editing at mags. As a writer, I've had editors change their minds about what they want for a story several times in the course of an assignment; I've had editors have in-house people do additional reporting (sometimes contradictory to my own) to add to a piece without letting me know; I've even had editors tweak quotes from sources to make them more "fun." Shelter mags, in particular, can play rather fast and loose with the whole editorial integrity thing. Certain mags I avoid like the plague because that's their MO. If I do write for them, it's for the $$-- I never even look at my pieces in print anymore b/c it's painful. But the good news is you got paid. Best to move on to the next pitch, and don't take it personally. |
| mae | Posted – 11/19/2008 12:13:44 AM | show profile You have realize that you're not just dealing with the assigning editor. There are usually a whole slew of editors involved in working on your piece (and many others). Their goal is to have a cohesive voice throughout the magazine. In-house stories are frequently rewritten, too. |
| ttwin | Posted – 11/20/2008 1:58:40 PM | show profile I'd echo what a lot of other said, and add that you don't know how many layers there are above the editor your worked with. There may be several other editors (top editors, deputy editors, executive editors...) who also read the piece and want to put their handprints on it, and sometimes that translates to a piece that, in the end, doesn't look a whole lot like it did at the outset. |
| paperclip | Posted – 11/26/2008 4:41:28 PM | show profile Thanks for the wisdom! I really appreciate the advice & encouragement. Once I wrote down how pissed I was, I felt much better. I used to think that I was good about separating my self-esteem from my writing, but evidently I needed a refresher course. This was also a good reminder that there are all kinds of editors out there and not a ton of time to hold our little freelance hands! So, I'm feeling much better about the whole thing. :) THANKS! |
| tmartin | Posted – 11/26/2008 7:28:35 PM | show profile Was this your first paid writing credit? I didn't get the impression it was and yet some people are writing "Congratulations" as though you should be celebrating a messy situation. In fact I read it as you being upset because you're seasoned enough to be taken aback by the first-time experience of suddenly having a piece re-written without your being notified in any way shape or form in advance. So you were justifiably also taken aback by the fact that your name was attributed to words not in fact composed entirely at all by you. That could reflect injuriously on you if you consider the piece of work which they've attached your name to, to be damaging to your reputation. The only learning thing I can see in this is that they hold you in rather scant regard, consider returning the favor and parting company asap. They wrote you a check, not a pay check. |
| Letterbox | Posted – 11/26/2008 8:00:58 PM | show profile This doesn?t sound like good advice tmartin. Rewrites like this happen all the time. It?s not an injurious situation. This is a learning experience. The best thing to do is stay unfazed and keep pitching. Keep the client. |
| abqwriter | Posted – 11/26/2008 8:15:40 PM | show profile I wrote for the business editor of our paper for several years. He didn't have time to hold my hand and walk me through all of his edits, revisions, additions, or changes. If he needed to remove a quote or needed a new one, he called. Otherwise, I saw the final draft in the paper the next day. Injury seems a bit extreme of a description. Seasoned or first-time, it's always a rude awakening to realize that our copy has been changed. But it's also a very real part of the business, and if this is a business, paperclip said it best in that sometimes it's hard to separate out the feelings from the work. Good for you for moving on and changing your perspective of the incident, paperclip! |
| paperclip | Posted – 11/26/2008 9:24:21 PM | show profile Good question! I have written for a number of magazines (all regional) both FOB pieces and features. This is the first time that I've experienced such dramatic editing but I do think that in the end, the piece that was published was quite good. So the fact that my name is on the byline is not going to affect my reputation--just my pride a little bit. :) |
| tmartin | Posted – 11/26/2008 10:19:17 PM | show profile I doubt whether there's any so-called "learning experience" for paperclip whatsoever, except insofar as you can see what this particular editor and publisher will do when the chips are down. It doesn't "happen all the time" to anyone - unless they're very third-rate, then of course it might happen all the time because they're incompetent writers which doesn't seem to be the case with paperclip's amount of experience. Do they pay well to put up with the grief? Otherwise they're just another fish in a big pond, which is exactly how they regard you anyway. Also sometimes this type of incident is like them testing to see what you will put with further down the line. |
| abqwriter | Posted – 11/26/2008 11:36:57 PM | show profile tmartin - third rate, huh? them's fightin words... if it was worth it, which it isn't. You're welcome to your own opinion. |
| Letterbox | Posted – 11/27/2008 5:12:56 AM | show profile I'm not saying it happens all the time to the same writers (at least the ones I know). I'm saying every writer gets rewritten at one time or another. Editors have their own ideas of what they want. |
| jcpatterson | Posted – 11/27/2008 11:33:38 AM | show profile Agree with some of the other posters who suggest that this happens to all writers. It happened to me once: I was doing a story that required the input of two specific sources, A and B. No one but A and B would work in this story. A's office replied immediately, set me up with the interview, got me background information, sent me photos, everything. B's office was disorganized and couldn't seem to deal with my request. I called daily for a month, faxed, emailed, and couldn't get them to get their act together. I told my editor, who was sympathetic and extended the deadline, during which I called, etc., daily. Finally, we agreed that I could submit an article with just A, and I was paid. The article ran some months later under a shared byline. The editor could get B's office to talk. I think it was something about saying that the editor was on the line, not a freelancer whose Google profile (at that time) didn't show much writing. Of course I was happy to share the byline, and even happier that someone got B to talk. Moral: See if what was added to the piece was something that only the other person could add. If they contributed materially to the piece, they deserve the shared byline. |
