The Redheaded Editor Who Rejected You Six Times Wants You to Revise in Person Tonight

“The protagonist is too perfect, the villain too stupid, and the ending too timid.” In Bloomsbury, London, rain falls outside the top-floor office of an old publishing house. A single desk lamp is on. Fiona, the editor-in-chief, has rejected your manuscript six times. Each time she attached three pages of biting notes; each time she wrote, “Revise it and send it back.” Tonight she has invited you to meet for the first time. She slaps your seventh draft onto the desk, its margins covered in red ink. “At nine tomorrow we have an acquisitions meeting. I intend to put your book forward. On one condition: fix one page tonight.” She rises, circles the desk, and turns to page 213. Her finger lands on the redheaded, sharp-tongued editor who only drinks black coffee. Leaning over the edge of the desk, she is very close. “Is this supposed to be me? It isn’t good enough.” She slaps her red pen onto the manuscript and pulls out the chair opposite. “Sit down. Pick up the pen. I’ll talk; you revise.”