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From the iconic Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada to legendary editors like Max Perkins, editors have always played a pivotal role in shaping the literary world, guiding writers and fine-tuning their craft.
But editing isn’t just about gatekeeping—it's about nurturing voices and empowering writers to unlock their full potential.
In today’s Creator Briefing Q&A, go behind the scenes with Amanda Hinton, an insightful editor and creator of
. With a refreshing approach rooted in intuition and compassion, Amanda helps writers embrace their instincts, refine their message and create with confidence.In this interview, an exclusive replay from
, Amanda shares her expert advice on mastering your inner editor, writing from the gut and finding the courage to trust your voice.The following is an excerpt from the interview. Hit play above to hear it in full.
So often, the role of an editor really depends on who you ask. How do you define it?
That’s a great question. The role of an editor varies depending on the work and who they report to. I think there are three main types of editors to be aware of if you’re involved in content creation, self-publishing or managing a team.
First, there’s the proofreader, who focuses on spelling, grammar and style guide adherence. If your brand uses the Oxford comma, they’ll make sure it’s consistent throughout the work. Then, there’s the copy editor, who improves clarity and flow. They help organize sections and ensure your message is clear, but they don’t challenge what you want to say—they make sure it’s communicated effectively. Lastly, there’s the developmental editor, who’s more specialized. They deeply understand a niche and can challenge the concept behind the work. They shape the content’s direction, often working closely with the author on the overall vision.
It’s also crucial to consider who the editor answers to. A high-powered editor might answer to a board of directors or a major publication. But as an independent editor, I’ve designed my role to prioritize the writing itself, then the reader. This creates a more nourishing, creative process, where I work closely with the writer to develop something that resonates with them and their audience.
Yeah, there's so much nuance there. And like you said, there's a lot of care behind it. It's not just commas and everything being in the right spot. There's really a lot more thought behind it. What led you to this work?
Looking back, I’ve always been tuned into what people say. In college, I stumbled into journalism and discovered I thrived as an editor. Newspapers are very structured and then you get to kind of play inside the stories and finding sources and helping reporters.
I learned that my brain works well in keeping the boundary between the message, the writer and the delivery of the piece.
So we've talked about the editing side and how you see what the editor does. What makes for really good writing? How do you know as an editor when you have found it?
I look for a lightbulb moment—a break in the pattern.
After following certain topics for 15 to 20 years, I know when someone’s picking up on something outside the noise. And I really, really love that.
When I discover that, I want to know how did they know that? What else does the writer know that they don’t realize is a break in the pattern that people are going to gobble up? Where readers are going to be just as surprised as I am?
I really love writers who know how to balance intimacy and restraint. And I feel like that's a skill you have that an editor actually helps with is knowing when a moment in time needs less flourish and needs more showing because the emotion might not be so obvious. It might be more respectful to let the reader decide the emotion of the moment.
I like that feeling of not just being drenched in all knowledge, someone just talking at you, all restraint or all intimacy where it's really hard to join the piece.
I’ve heard editors say, “Write from your gut.” What does that mean, especially when you talk about restraint and emotion?
It’s really good advice because for so long, writers were encouraged to stay within their expertise and write from their head, write from what you know, what you’re an expert about. And I think we’ve seen a swing culturally in learning how to experience our own inner lives and then figure out how to translate that as writers.
The phrase “write from your gut” is a good reminder that your gut belongs in the process, too.
It takes a lot of time and kind of tripping over yourself to figure out your gut. But I feel like when I know someone’s writing from their gut, I’m like, that took courage.
You’re not apologizing for the tension. You’re not being problematic or just poking a bear but you’re standing up to tell the truth.
I don’t necessarily write from my gut, but I know I’m listening to my gut as much as possible. And I walk to my desk with my guts. Like I know when it’s time to sit down, it’s all ready to come out at that point. I’ve been listening very carefully for weeks or months to this idea.
You’ve been open about your own neurodiversity. How does that inform your work?
I feel like editing and writing as a profession sort of found me.
Now I understand more about what it means to be autistic in this world. It’s kind of opened up for me this place of acceptance that there’s a reason I’m at home in the written world.
Because reading is where the loud, exhausting world gets quiet and my inner world can come to life.
It’s the only world that hasn’t crashed down on me yet.
For those of us creating solo on platforms like Substack, where we wear many hats—writer, editor, publisher, publicist—how should we approach editing? How do you go about getting a piece ready to publish?
I think it’s helpful, first of all, to give ourselves permission not to edit as you go.
Once I know this layer of the essay sandwich, for lack of a more elegant term, feels really good, I’ll go back and edit for repetitiveness, for sound, for balance, until I feel like that part of the sandwich is really good. And then I’ll move to the next layer.
It can be a true form of writer’s block to think you have to write everything perfectly, with perfect spelling and all those things. So I give myself permission to need to tweak things.
In terms of the layers, I think a lot in terms of the message and opening, the transition, and the takeaway. So I do think in these blocks.
If you had a three-volume book, you would probably give a lot of attention to each volume individually, and then you'd have to step back and go, okay, does this connect? How can I loop it back to the beginning? How can I sort of connect beginning, middle and end?
I find it easier to create the throughline in the essay at the end rather than trying to do it mid sandwich building.
That’s really helpful to think about it in those blocks. How do you manage the tone of a piece, especially over time as part of a larger body of work?
The nature of what I'm interested in tends to be intense sometimes. And I've learned that I have to own that intensity and also offer a heads up of, OK, kids, we're diving in today. Here's where we're headed. But also just own it.
I feel like tone is also really important to balance essay to essay to essay as part of your body of work.
That's something that I think about a lot is readers' emotional bandwidth from week to week. And so I think there's a balance in how we treat the tone of our work, essentially.
I think voice versus tone can get us kind of stuck, but how you perceive the world informs that tone.
For most people, they're one in the same more or less. So becoming intimate with your inner life and your voice inside that wants to come out, I think, is valuable work if you're trying to create a distinctive body of work.
For a writer who wants to get better at editing their own work, what should they focus on?
I would say to read your first draft in as many settings as possible. So read it out loud. Read it in the car before you pull out of a parking spot. Try to change the sensory inputs around you and see what you hear differently.
And then, edit from there. I sometimes do it if I'm just in a drive-through. I know I have this paragraph that's kind of bugging me and I'll just see if I can pick something up in this different environment.
Outside of read it in as many settings as possible, I say learn how to format for online writing.
That's what we're all doing, right? We're all writing online. And just know that one of the best things you can do is become a student of the online reader's experience and realize that literary norms for a book don't necessarily translate to how a reader experiences it on their phone or their iPad or their desktop.
What do you find to be most tricky for writers?
I think giving themselves permission. I think that's a really tricky layer for most writers.
You know, we're introduced to writing a young age where the structure is there to help you create a foundation of writing and reading, but it's not necessarily the place where you're taught to listen to how you feel about writing and reading because you're young.
And so I feel like learning to work with your instincts as an adult when you've been trained and rewarded for fitting in, for answering a publisher's direction—that's kind of part of the package deal for most writers is they answer to a publisher. When you take that publisher away, things can get really tricky in figuring out what you're ready to say and not say.
I would agree for myself, having been trained to leave myself out of a story. How do you encourage someone to put themselves back into their writing?
I write about things that confuse me, and I own that I’m probably going to get it wrong at some point. It’s important to get comfortable stumbling and to follow your instincts anyway.
It’s pulling just a little more at that thread, just a little more courage each day. It’s recognizing that it’s a gradual process of unlearning potentially decades of conditioning to leave yourself out.
But how you relate to your instincts is a game changer when you realize they’re there. And that they want a voice too.
Yeah, a willingness to get curious. When you’re feeling stuck with your writing, how do you get unstuck?
I don’t wrestle it to death because I know we’re both going down at that point. This has been a practice too. I give myself permission to get away from it as far as possible. And just basically switch on a different part of my brain to let the writing brain relax and get some rest so maybe I can wiggle back into it later in the day or a few days.
I try to remember that getting stuck is a message.
I could be stuck because it’s wrong for me to write about right now. It could be that I’m dehydrated. It could be that my interest has been pulled in a different direction. And maybe I just need to pause and give my brain a chance to just play with this other thing that’s just kind of sparkly to me. And then I’ll come back to it. Or I won’t. I let things “sunset” when they need a sunset.
On the flip side, what are you currently feeling most inspired by?
You know, I've been sort of, I've been straddling the line between, and being very reflective on all of the work I did before I knew I was autistic, which came with bouts of silent burnout. Nobody ever knew about it.
But reflecting on that body of work, all these years of hard work of enjoying my work and also knowing that it wasn't translating to a private life that was satisfying. I didn't understand why. And now this post-diagnosis acceptance. And so I'm realizing I am discovering that all the advice that works so well for neurotypical clients or colleagues doesn't translate to me.
And so I'm just kind of energized these days about like, well, how can it apply? How can I help my mind work with it? Certain, you know, marketing concepts and just best practices that I can see on paper make sense, but when put into practice, just fall apart.
I'm just feeling really empowered these days to just tell people that it's not you. It might be the advice. It just might be framed in a way that just gets stuck in your brain and it's just not going anywhere.
I'm enjoying going back through all the editing work that I've done and gone, well, how would I frame this differently? What does it mean for me? What does that concept feel more in line with my conscience if it's reframed or put in a different light?
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