Don't Blame Me; I Didn't Write It

So I stumbled across this interesting little bit of editor/editorial gatekeeping this morning.

Basically, the argument is that if a reader has not seen the original manuscript or other obscure bits of manuscript-related matter that the editor saw before the work began, the reader does not have the right to criticize the editing.

As an editor friend put it on Facebook: "Hogswallop."

This editor writes:

I do understand the impulse. It’s a shorthand for saying the book is bloated or sloppy. In a famously conflict averse industry, it seems easier to blame a faceless editor than it is to pin it on the author. It’s a way of seeming savvy about the way the business works.

Here’s the thing: Unless you saw the raw original manuscript and the editors’ edits and editorial letter, you have absolutely no idea how well or poorly a book was edited.

Sometimes manuscripts arrive in total shambles and it takes a herculean effort to get them in even passable shape. You think the final book was rough? “Well,” the editor will likely say, “you should have seen it before I got to it.”

Here's the argument, summed up:

I will admit I'm reading a book right now that might fit that category: Terry Pratchett's last book, "The Shepherd's Crown." There's something missing from this novel. It feels empty and hollow. And while Pratchett's people have been open about the fact that the novel didn't quite get the polish Pratchett typically puts on his books because of his Parkinson's disease, the lesson to be learned here is that the exception doesn't make the rule.

But there's a real Hobson's choice here: Be responsible for putting out a mediocre last novel, or be the booger-brained editor who refused to publish the last novel of a granted literary titan because it wasn't up to snuff. Here, I might agree with Bransford in saying since the manuscript had trouble, it was not the fault of the editor or that the editor has little to no gatekeeping power once a manuscript is accepted.

But I have read plenty of books out there where the editing left in bloat, slop, and clutter that a braver editor would have cut out. And I can say this from the perspective of a writer who tends towards bloat, clutter, and slop -- a good editor can and should have more influence on the project's end result. And if the editor drops the ball on that, the reader has every right to say ew.

JK Rowling's writing, for example, became much more bloated as her popularity soared. The first books were tightly edited and I think were better for it. The latter books had a lot of fluff that no one dared cut about because Rowling.

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series is an epic example of bloat and clutter left too alone by editors.

John Crowley's "Little, Big" . . . the less said about this the better. A good editor would have said, "John, you can cut at least the first 100 pages of the novel and nothing's really lost from your story, bub." But apparently it wasn't said loudly enough.

Then there's Gentry Lee taking on the Rama "series" from Arthur C. Clarke. A good editor would have said, "Nah, this is garbage. Rama's fans didn't necessarily expect there to be two more ships coming, though Clarke hinted at it. And yikes, does EVERYONE have to die in Rama II?" I guess editors are called on to make silk purses out of sow's ears on occasion, but again I don't think the exception makes the rule. Bransford doesn't really make this clear -- if publishers are pushing for a book, it's the silk purse/sow's ear on occasion. But I don't think you can hold editors blameless. Maybe pity them in their trade, but other than that . . . 

And while authors might have originally made the typos, if they get past the editor, well, I'm going to question the skills of more than just the author.

And while I can find exceptions and exemptions, the idea that a reader may not criticize a book's editing because they didn't see the manuscript's original state is off. Writing and editing, in my experience, work together. They may not always want to work together, but it's part of the deal. And readers can and ought to recognize when the deal is broken. Maybe the news ought to get to writers that their choices are making the editor's job difficult, and that they -- the readers, the ones paying for the books -- notice.

Hope

I have a beta reader for Doleful Creatures who has no idea what she’s done.

When she finished reading the book, she said she wanted more hope for Jarrod and Aloysius, my two main characters. And that the beginning needed more of the “magic” of the ending.

So that’s what I’m doing.

And it’s doing wonders.

I hope I’m doing it with character – helping the reader to get to know the characters better as the hope and the magic arrive. That’s my goal, anyway. And it’s coming through simple means: Familial scenes, a tiny bit of philosophy, and the introduction of at least one other character. Plus more definition for what happened in the past, and how it’s driving the future – bits that were missing through thirteen revisions of the novel.

I hope I’m doing what director Peter Weir says he did (and I believe he accomplished it) when he was working on “The Truman Show”:

[The script by Andrew Nicol] was kind of perfect for what it was, but it wasn’t right for me. It’s an odd thing, and the only time I’ve ever had something that I did admire, but wanted to change, if I did it. And that fundamentally came down to one major sticking point for me. For me, Andrew’s draft was like a brilliant speculative science fiction. If I looked at it as a movie, it had to be light where he had it dark. I wanted to make it real, not science fiction. I wanted to make it just the near future, if you like, which it turned out to be.

Not that Doleful Creatures is the near future – but it is an alternative look at a philosophical reality. I hope by adding hope and magic that I can bring that philosophical reality out of the fringe of the book and to the fore.

Editing note: Editing today was hard. I had to cut about 300 words. They had to go. And it hurt to cut them because they were part of the original novel. But they no longer fit. They had to go.

Edit, don't Analyze

As I’ve mentioned before, I read a lot about the “art” and “craft” of writing. I tend to like the simpler, Neil Gaimanesque advice that basically says if you want to be a writer, start writing. Start writing words down on paper, one after the other.

It’s rare to find editing advice that’s as valuable and pithy as that. May have found some today, in the form of a letter sent from historian Bernard deVoto, sent to H.G. Merriman, a University of Montana professor, concerning the craft of editing.

Here’s the pithy bit:

I suppose a born editor has a faculty of judgment that is not analytical.

That really seems counterintuitive, given what most of us think about editing, and, indeed, given what Mr. deVoto himself writes about the craft in this same letter. He does offer a few tidbits into what he means, however:

[A good editor] must know good stuff when he sees it, and good not only absolutely but also relatively to the magazine he works for and its audience. What is more important, he must be able to see the good elements in a manuscript that may be obscured by the bad elements or by inexpert writing. He must be fertile in suggesting areas and subject which are topical, or which can be interestingly written up, and he must eventually develop skill, or perhaps intuition, at knowing who can write about them or get interested in them.

Yes, absolutely there is a lot of the analytical in this passage. But I like what he says and what he intones about intuition – a good editor, like a good writer, just knows what works and what doesn’t, and aims his or her craft at winnowing out what doesn’t work and preserving what does.

He also says this:

People who talk a hell of a lot about writing, and especially those who talk about exquisite perceptions, style, or, in general, “the esthetic” are likely to be neither [a writer nor an editor], and are pretty certain to fail if they try to be editors.

Interesting, interesting. He sees writer-editors as separate beings – indeed, cautioning would-be editors not to associate with would-be writers, but rather with musicians, artists, the learned, and “important passersby from the great world” where they can hear and interpret the news and the world not through the eyes of writers which, I have to confess, are typically accompanied with blinders the size of Dumbo’s ears.

This, of course, makes sense. Writers tend to congregate, as do artists and musicians, but that tends to bring us into echo chambers where the mediocre continue to wallow in mediocrity (unless you can find that rare group, such as the Tolkien/Lewis Inklings where brutal honesty is the norm). So. Wide and broad associations.

Get the Protocol Droid

Once in a while, I’m reminded just how powerful words can be and why, as a writer, I should take more pains to make sure I’m using the right ones.

Here’s my latest reminder. To sum up, President Obama, in awarding a medal of freedom to a deceased World War II Polish resistance fighter, said “resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself.”

Poland is in a tizzy over Obama’s wording. As Slate’s Abby Ohlheiser points out, Poles in the past have objected when any Nazi death camp in their country is referred to as a “Polish” death camp. I can see why they would choose to quibble over such a distinction. The death camps were not instigated by the Polish – the Polish streak of anti-Semitism aside – by the Polish government, but, rather, by the Nazi occupiers. These are rightly Nazi death camps, not Polish ones.

So let’s take a look at how this likely happened: Editing.

I’m not sure how much of President Obama’s words were scripted beforehand – his reliance on teleprompters aside. If they were scripted, I can see easily someone looking at the more correct phrase “Nazi death camps in Poland” and thinking, “Let’s tighten that up a bit. Polish death camps. Much better.” Much better, but much less correct. And if the words were not scripted – which I think is the most likely scenario here – President Obama meant no disrespect, but was just looking for the shortest way to get himself from A to B in awarding the medal. Again, choosing a phrase easier on the tongue but one, in the eyes of the Polish, that is more than incorrect, but that is slanderous.

This is an excellent exercise at looking at tailoring your speech to the audience and the advantages of considering that audience not only when writing, but also when editing. We as editors should realize that as we deal with sensitive subjects is would be wise to put on a sensitive editing hat – difficult as we don’t have a C3PO-like protocol droid at our elbow, reminding us of the offense taken at such slights in the past. We are after all, fallible and not capable of retaining – let alone discovering – such gaffes so we can avoid them.

What can we do?

We can read our words carefully.

We can read a little history and try to figure out what might happen if we phrase things in a certain way.

We can look at things like Camp Westerbork, a Nazi transient camp in The Netherlands that started out as a refugee camp for German Jews fleeing the Nazis but ending as a transient camp for “undesireables” the Nazis shipped to Germany, and throw up our hands in despair at trying to know every nuance.
Or we could find someone Polish – or, better yet, some several people of Polish nationality – and ask them, “So, how is this phrasing going to go over in your homeland?”

And then pray they’re representative of their countrymen.