Firing a friend
January 31, 2020 11:08 PM Subscribe
A friend of mine offered to write a bio for my website. She turned in a bio that didn’t work. How can I let her go?
A few months ago I commissioned a friend of mine to write a bio for my professional website. I gave her a brief of how long I wanted the bio to be and the tone and style I wanted, as well as some biographical information.
The bio she turned in was very straightforward and utilitarian, and while it was very informative, the stilted, informational prose missed the style mark. I returned it to her with notes about how to improve it, and she sent me back a bio that was nearly identical to the previous draft.
I’m prepared to pay her a kill fee, but I don’t know how to tell her that I was looking for a different bio than the one she wrote. How can I tell her that I’m not going to use this bio but I still want to be friends?
A few months ago I commissioned a friend of mine to write a bio for my professional website. I gave her a brief of how long I wanted the bio to be and the tone and style I wanted, as well as some biographical information.
The bio she turned in was very straightforward and utilitarian, and while it was very informative, the stilted, informational prose missed the style mark. I returned it to her with notes about how to improve it, and she sent me back a bio that was nearly identical to the previous draft.
I’m prepared to pay her a kill fee, but I don’t know how to tell her that I was looking for a different bio than the one she wrote. How can I tell her that I’m not going to use this bio but I still want to be friends?
If you were contemplating canceling the job and paying a "kill fee" of anything less than 100% of what you agreed on, then I think it's only reasonable to go through at least one more draft with the writer.
Stress that you want the tone and style to be very different, and supply some examples of bios or other pieces of writing that you want to emulate. Unilaterally cancelling a job after a single round of notes and a rewrite isn't very professional.
But since you're the one who commissioned your friend, presumably based on some criterion, and it wasn't done on spec, I would just pay the full fee and then not use her again. She did turn in the work, and spent time and effort on it because she was promised payment.
posted by Umami Dearest at 1:00 AM on February 1, 2020 [13 favorites]
Stress that you want the tone and style to be very different, and supply some examples of bios or other pieces of writing that you want to emulate. Unilaterally cancelling a job after a single round of notes and a rewrite isn't very professional.
But since you're the one who commissioned your friend, presumably based on some criterion, and it wasn't done on spec, I would just pay the full fee and then not use her again. She did turn in the work, and spent time and effort on it because she was promised payment.
posted by Umami Dearest at 1:00 AM on February 1, 2020 [13 favorites]
Any time you hire someone for creative work, you're kind of rolling the dice -- what you receive is a product of your raw information/requirements/instructions and their creative essence and training. You might not get what you expected. You still pay for their time.
posted by amtho at 2:00 AM on February 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
posted by amtho at 2:00 AM on February 1, 2020 [28 favorites]
Yeah you have to eat this both professionally and because it’s a friend.
How complicated can a web bio be beyond the basic facts? Add the flourishes you want to the plain facts, friend can just know you edited it further.
posted by spitbull at 4:12 AM on February 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
How complicated can a web bio be beyond the basic facts? Add the flourishes you want to the plain facts, friend can just know you edited it further.
posted by spitbull at 4:12 AM on February 1, 2020 [7 favorites]
You can turn this into a positive with a 30 minute meeting. Say "I've changed my mind about what tone I want the bio to have, can we meet and go over some changes I have?". When you meet, change your earlier notes a bit, and go through the edits, and in the end, you'll have a collaboratively edited bio, you won't have to fire her, and you'll get the bio you wanted.
posted by at at 5:16 AM on February 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by at at 5:16 AM on February 1, 2020 [2 favorites]
I’ve done professional writing and it seems really weird to me that your friend isn’t more flexible about working with you on edits, even if they’re substantive. It’s very very common to go through a few rounds of edits or drafts and as a writer it can be annoying and time consuming but...that’s sort of the deal? Asking for additional drafts in a situation like this seems totally reasonable to me.
If I were in your situation I think I would be very clear about which sections I want changed with an example of style. If a third round draft is still not up to scratch or your friend is difficult to work with and doesn’t seem to be taking your edits seriously I think you do just have to consider what you had initially agreed to for payment (was there a contract with language about a kill fee?). Hopefully even if the draft isn’t what you wanted you now have something you can hire someone else to tweak and edit for you to get into publishable shape instead of hiring someone to write something from scratch.
posted by forkisbetter at 6:08 AM on February 1, 2020
If I were in your situation I think I would be very clear about which sections I want changed with an example of style. If a third round draft is still not up to scratch or your friend is difficult to work with and doesn’t seem to be taking your edits seriously I think you do just have to consider what you had initially agreed to for payment (was there a contract with language about a kill fee?). Hopefully even if the draft isn’t what you wanted you now have something you can hire someone else to tweak and edit for you to get into publishable shape instead of hiring someone to write something from scratch.
posted by forkisbetter at 6:08 AM on February 1, 2020
I write PR-pieces for a living. Before that, I was a journalist for 15 years. People say I'm good at expressing what they want to say.
But the very first text for a new client is NEVER exactly how they want it and it's always a tone issue. Providing concrete text examples of your desired "voice" helps. But really, it takes until the third text or so for me to know off the bat how they want things to sound, what kind of things they want to stress. Who they see themselves as, deep inside.
So the first two texts still require one or two big revisions. Then I have a feel for what they need.There's no way for you to explain it well enough beforehand to skip this learning process.
Plus, as my boss says, clients think they know what they want, but if you listen closely you find they actually value completely different things.
So yeah, I'd give it another shot to see if they can change the tone according to your specifications. If not, it's possible they're a one-trick-pony who can only do that one style of writing. In which case, yeah tell them it's not working and, since it's your friend, I would eat the cost or at least a major portion of it.
posted by Omnomnom at 12:29 PM on February 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
But the very first text for a new client is NEVER exactly how they want it and it's always a tone issue. Providing concrete text examples of your desired "voice" helps. But really, it takes until the third text or so for me to know off the bat how they want things to sound, what kind of things they want to stress. Who they see themselves as, deep inside.
So the first two texts still require one or two big revisions. Then I have a feel for what they need.There's no way for you to explain it well enough beforehand to skip this learning process.
Plus, as my boss says, clients think they know what they want, but if you listen closely you find they actually value completely different things.
So yeah, I'd give it another shot to see if they can change the tone according to your specifications. If not, it's possible they're a one-trick-pony who can only do that one style of writing. In which case, yeah tell them it's not working and, since it's your friend, I would eat the cost or at least a major portion of it.
posted by Omnomnom at 12:29 PM on February 1, 2020 [3 favorites]
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posted by Kitchen Witch at 12:35 AM on February 1, 2020 [12 favorites]