It’s not about the process. Or the services.

Everyone talks about those things.

What doesn’t get said—at least not out loud—is how personal it is when you’re a fiction writer trying to choose an editor. You’re wondering who they are. Are they a dog or cat person?

You want to know what they’re like—not just how their process works. You’re trying to get a sense of who you’d be handing this to. Whether they’d understand what you were trying to do—or (horror) just mark it up and tell you what’s wrong. You look for something in the way they say things. Does it seem like they’re smiling too much (or not) on the Zoom call? Not looking for perfection. Just … a sense of them.

Because it’s not a simple decision.

This isn’t just any document. You’re handing over something incredibly personal—something you’ve tried to get right in a hundred small ways. It’s hard to pretend it doesn’t matter who ends up on the other side of it. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a “we need to connect on a deep level” kind of way. But in a way that’s harder to explain and even harder to ignore.

What is it going to feel like to let them read this? Not in some big, emotional sense. Just … what kind of experience it’s going to be once it’s no longer just yours. Once someone else is inside it. Because this isn’t just a transaction. It’s someone stepping into your world, and it makes sense that you care who that person is.

Not just what they offer.
Not just how they work.

But who they are.