I Love A Good Editor

And I fear I stand alone. It has been said by too many writers too many times that the relationship of an editor to author is knife to throat, but I disagree. I have been writing for magazines and newspapers for well over 47 years and although I often chafed at what some editors did to my copy, I was always grateful for what they pointed out about my text.

Let me explain: To me, writing is communication. I am trying to use my words to get my meaning into the reader’s mind. Each of us is unique and each of us sees the world in our own colors. When I say something is beautiful, you, as my reader, need to know how I define beautiful. When I say something disturbs me you cannot agree until you know exactly what makes me disturbed. As James Thurber says, "Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, “How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?” and avoid “How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?"”

This isn’t an easy task and it is always tempting to edit out the writer’s tone of voice and the rhythm of his speech. The true, professional editor suggests phrase changes to the writer to clarify each sentence. As a writer, I know that if my editor questions what I have said, I am not accomplishing my job: I am not communicating my meaning to his mind.

The other major test of every writer is how well he sells what he is saying to his reader. The reader has so many other demands on his time both on the internet, on the television screen and at his dinner table that he will only stay with your prose if you compel him to do so. If the editor who is considering your material is bored or confused by what you are saying, your reader will be, as well. Once again, the good editor will comment and suggest and let the writer do the changing. “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.” said Ernest Hemingway.

When you write, you need to fortify your shit detector as you re-read your prose and you need to use it to evaluate what your editor tells you. You do not need to make the particular change HE suggests, but you need to make some kind of change to clarify your meaning. If you do that, you will have a stronger piece of writing than it was when you first composed it.

Everyone writes to be read. If you cannot tolerate an editor’s remarks, chances are your writing will not see the light of day and if it does, there is even a better chance that it will be ignored no matter how wonderful you believe it is. When I was at The Atlantic Center for the Arts, my writing teacher told me about a writing instructor who said, “When you write, you must make your story believable to your reader.”

She listened to him and wrote him a story about a miracle she had actually experienced. He returned the paper and said, “This is total nonsense.”

She was incensed. She went into his office, waved the paper in his face and said, “But this really happened.”

He said, “So what?”

I have never forgotten that story. She had given a true account of an event she witnessed but she hadn’t worded it so that it was believable to that teacher. She had not developed her shit detector.

In all these years I only had one editor that was unpalatable. She is the editor at COASTVIEWS MAGAZINE, so watch out for her. I can give you many reasons why she is truly a bad editor but my major one is that she is so ego sensitive that she accuses writers of things they have not done and inaccuracies she imagines. When she was corrected, she ignored the facts and stuck to her alterations. After she accused me of plagiarizing an attributed quote from a book, I stopped writing for the magazine. It is as important to recognize a destructive editor as it is to welcome a constructive and capable one. And it is just as important not to fight your case because even if you win, and with this editor you will not, she will butcher your next submission. You owe it to your readers to preserve the truth of your ideas so that they will look for your by-line in the future. That is one of the rewards and sometimes the only one of the modern writing game where writers are underpaid or encouraged to submit for credit.

Remember, however, that was THE ONLY BAD AND ABUSIVE EDITOR IN ALL THIS TIME. Furthermore, she had no training in editing and it was her first few months on the job. I would be willing to suspect that she is gentler and more humane now although I must admit I have decided not to give her another chance. I write features and I am too jealous of my obligation to the person I interview to let some insecure creature change his quotes into what she believes is truth.

Most of us hate to have our writing altered because we have offered our readers important ideas that come from our hearts not the editor’s. Most of us go along with Gene Fowler when he says, “An editor should have a pimp for a brother, so he'd have someone to look up to.”

But we need to curb the impulse to snap back and instead ask ourselves, “What words did I use that said something different to that editor? Why didn’t he get what I thought was perfectly clear? What words could I use to convey my meaning more accurately?”

Dr. William Rivers was my teacher at Stanford and he said, “There is only ONE word that says what you mean.”

I was incredulous. “There are hundreds of synonyms for the word I just used, “I said and he nodded.

“Yes there are,“ he said . “But only one says it the way you want it said.”

And so I go with Quintilian, a writer from the first century who said, “One should not aim at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.”

That was written long before printing presses were invented, but it holds true today. Very few people can accomplish such clarity on their own. It takes another mind, be it a professional editor, your partner or the guy next door, to let you know if your idea got across to someone other than yourself.

And that’s the whole point of writing, isn’t it? You have this marvelous thought and you want to share it with the world. What a letdown if the world doesn’t get it. You have to believe it is an equal loss for the world or you wouldn’t have written it, would you?

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