I've written a novel. I've edited a novel. These are different crafts. I have learned that the best tool for an editor is the writer's knowledge.
I asked a writer, for a project I'm working on, what they thought they wrote. What I got from the first pass...was not what he thought he wrote.
As a writer, be open to the fact that your editor can't read your mind (it is better that way). They don't know what you thought, or want, to write.
The moments it took me to read through the short decription I received from such a simple question, clarified everything that I had read.
I was immediately able to see what the writer was trying to do. I became excited (and jotted down pages of notes) on how to advise a loosening here, a tightening there.
Bringing the threads of a story together takes time and teamwork. But what is going on in that authors brain...one of the most valuable piece of any story because it is never all on the page in the first, second, even third draft.