Writers vs. Editors
“Writers, you are not what you write. Editors, you are not what you edit. Neither writer nor editor should take the other’s disagreements as a personal affront.”
These wise words come from Judith A Tarutz from her book Technical Editing: A Practical Guide for Editors and Writers.
Today, I’d like to share with you one of my favourite excerpts from this book:
What Writers Say About Editors and What They Really Mean
1) The editor changed the meaning of my words.
That stupid editor doesn’t understand the story.
2) The editor flip-flopped on his or her decision.
I had to redo a lot of work, and it’s the editor’s fault.
3) The editor made arbitrary changes.
The editor’s power trip is cutting into my own.
4) The editor knows the arcane rules but won’t share them.
Editors deliberately keep writers in the dark.
5) The editor made too many changes too late in the process.
I’ll never finish the book if I have to make all these changes. Why couldn’t that meddlesome editor leave well enough alone?
6) The editor reversed all the decisions the previous editor made.
I had to undo all the work I did earlier. This proves that editors are just out to make more work for us writers. Or that one of them doesn’t know what they are doing.
7) The editor didn’t catch several errors.
Why bother to have the book edited at all?
*lol* Is there a reverse of this, a what editors say about writers and what they mean?
I think writers who are secure enough in their ability and story will be open to suggested changes.
Writers need to realize that there may be better ways to tell their story. Just because someone suggests deleting a sentence, or adding one, doesn’t mean that the editor is trying to revamp the whole thing.
Editors, on the other hand (and I speak as one who has edited) should make sure they are helping the writer tell the story the writer wants to tell, as opposed to the one the editor thinks should be told, if they differ. (As an aside, I find this a problem in film reviews a lot, where the reviewer seems miffed that the film not the one they wanted and they review it on that basis.)
Both sides need to be open to the other. Compromise is cool, and could lead to a better story.
This is a funny set of statements. However, I think the main stuggle for an editor is in editing young writings (new writers). When it is very easy to perceive a writer’s style, it is easy to be an editor, instead of a co-writer. When a writer’s voice is spotty, and not strong, it’s very hard for an experienced editor to avoid the desire to ‘make something solid’ of the piece. To try and give it a more cohesive and sturdier form.
Personally, I would relinquish a significant amount of my royalties to a good editor. I could really use one. At the end of the day, both the writer and the editor need to care about the piece itself more than they care about their own egos. If either party can’t do that, there’s trouble.