Let’s talk about the word NO. I write that in all caps, because that’s how the word feels in my head. NO! As a writer, I don’t like to hear it. But as an editor, I have to say it all the time. In my day job as Technical Editor, I work with engineers who don’t like to be told NO, either, but I spend a lot of my time thinking, “NO, what the hell does this even mean,” or “NO, that sentence makes zero sense,” or “NO, one sentence cannot go on for seven-plus lines with absolutely no punctuation.” But I spend even more of my time trying to figure out how to make the all-caps NO sound less grating and more positive, sugarcoating it as much as I can—more like a lowercase “no,” if you will—so “NO, what the hell does this even mean,” becomes, “I see what you’re saying here, but what if you said it like this instead?”

Interning as an Acquisitions Editor, I expected to have to say NO. What has surprised me is that I didn’t expect it to be so hard. I find my writer self, who wants everyone to succeed, looking for the positive aspects of any submitted writing, often at the expense of trusting my first instincts. On my first manuscript, I tried so hard to focus on finding something positive that I ignored my gut feeling about it, which told me that it was a good story but needed more polishing than our SFWP editors could give it. I sugarcoated my recommendations when I gave them to my editor, as I would if I were talking to the writer. I’m realizing that with the editor, the all-caps NO is not just okay; it is appreciated. I can trust my instincts, because I’m realizing that my instincts are usually better than my second-guess-and-try-to-be-positive thoughts. I’m learning as much about myself as I am about acquisitions. I’m about to start on my third manuscript now, and I’m going to trust my gut feeling with confidence.

Where this sugarcoating has served me well, however, is in writing rejection letters. Now, my writer self does not enjoy writing these letters, because I know how much the rejection hurts, even if you know it’s not personal. But that sugarcoating I’ve been doing with my engineers translates incredibly well into rejection letters. (SFWP tries to give feedback when they reject a manuscript, which I really appreciate.) Being good at writing rejection letters is another thing that has surprised me about this internship. I didn’t expect to be writing rejections at all, much less that I would have a knack for it. But my editor wanted to test my sugarcoating skills, and as it turns out, my empathy for writers combined with my ability to give my engineers a lowercase “no” has served me well. My hope is that when writers read a rejection letter from me, it takes away some of the sting and they can take something positive from it.

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