I promised you a case study – lots of you got in touch about how helpful the last one was – but I have to admit that this is a different kind of story. That’s the thing about this work: you never really know what you’re going to be dealing with from one day to the next and some sessions are tough – the majority of them are perfectly straightforward, but then someone will come along and take the wind from your sails. And that’s how I felt about Laura.

Laura got in touch through Reedsy. She had a romance novel she wanted developmental help with, so I offered her either a traditional dev edit or a coached one and she chose the latter. When I read her manuscript, I immediately got the feeling that it was autobiographical, and it certainly wasn’t a romance. It gave me Colleen Hoover vibes but more authentic, more emotion less drama, but it was all told (along with other common dev issues) so there was significant work to do. There were sections that she skimmed over without adding detail and I got the sense that these bits were too painful for her to write. During her first session, I addressed this quite early on. Asked her directly if it was about her before I gave any kind of feedback that could be taken as criticism. She admitted that the majority of it was true. When I said that some of her story was vague, like it was too hard to address, she folded in on herself and her eyes filled. I figured at this point that we had a key decision to make before continuing: did she really want to do this? So we explored her motivation and discussed how prepared she was for the emotional rollercoaster of the process of taking what she had written so far and actually making it a publishable piece. And how I could help her do that. I obviously can’t go into any personal detail here, but her motivation was clear: she wanted her story to help other women, for something positive to come from it. And she wanted to keep it as fiction not memoir (for a variety of understandable reasons), so I explained autofiction and sent her an article about it so she could decide if that was the right choice. The first session was heavy for us both, and I was drained, but I felt that I’d done the best I could to stay professional while supporting her and made a note to take it to supervision.

I was more prepared for the following session after supervision – where we talked about keeping my boundaries and not being tempted to counsel – and we made plans for the plot, I explained show vs tell and we agreed that she would rewrite the first scene. For the next couple of sessions, she was doing really well; she’d picked up the idea of creating a scene and her first few chapters were looking much better. The sessions had still been emotional at times, but we were focusing a lot more on the writing.

Then we got to a point in the book that I had made a note about, where I honestly wasn’t sure what was happening – she’d written it nearly in coded imagery. I told her what I thought it was about from what I’d read, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the story she told me. I found to my surprise that I was tearful as she told the story* (she was too). When we discussed it after she told me she appreciated my empathy. We were able to compose ourselves enough to talk about how she would approach this particular part of the story so the reader could understand and empathise.

*I also discussed this at supervision – the content of the story was something I’d gone through in the past but was much worse than my experience, and I was able to talk about how it seemed bad enough without her added trauma, how the empathy had overwhelmed me and that I’d never had this reaction in a session before. Turns out I’m human!

And the sessions after that were less heavy, but she was struggling. Working on the book was making her relive things from the past over and over again when she was in a more positive place now with a busy life and young family etc. She was avoiding it. I could sense her motivation waning, and she had a lot of work still to do to make the book publishable. She needed permission to stop. To get on with enjoying the life she has now and leave the past behind: that she didn’t owe other women her story. So she decided to take a break and if she feels differently about it, she knows she can go back to it.

I guess the reason I’m telling you about this particular client is that coaching doesn’t always end with a book. It doesn’t always end with a ‘win’. But that doesn’t mean you’ve lost either, or that you haven’t done your job or the best for your client. Sometimes the best thing you can do for them is let them go – whether that’s because you aren’t the right fit, or they push your buttons, or because, like Laura, writing the book isn’t necessarily the right thing to do. I have a feeling I’ll hear from Laura again and I’ll be happy to help her, but if I’m wrong, I’m equally happy that I was the person who got to read her story and support her when she needed it.

Another valuable takeaway is that you can’t always predict what’s going to come out during a session. Going by the brief, this was a romance book that needed a developmental edit. Obviously once I’d read it, I knew it wasn’t and could have bowed out then if I felt I needed to, but we can’t foresee everything a client is going to mention and that can leave us a little vulnerable – so be kind to yourselves if you don’t react how you think you should. 

Aimee

Aimee Walker Editorial (AWE)

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