Thomas Way Editor and writer thomasway@thosway.com

s

Home My résumé Some examples of my work

How an editor contributes Every writer needs an editor. There are no exceptions. All writers have occasional blind spells—times when they express themselves less than perfectly. That’s why every writer needs an editor. This page presents recommendations for you, the writer, to keep in mind as you deal with an editor. If it sounds like the work of an editor justifying his own existence, there’s good reason: That’s part of what it is. It’s important to remember that you and the editor are on the same side. You both have the same goals: You want accuracy. You want clear, understandable expression. You want the principles of good English to be observed. You want your book to be professional in appearance. The path by which you reach those goals depends in great part on the knowledge, abilities, and preferences of the two of you, and the interaction between you. But some generalizations about the process of editing and reviewing can be formulated. First, your job is to write your book or article and polish it to the very best of your ability. It’s more efficient for you to sort out your ideas yourself than to leave the job to an editor. If he has to guess at what you mean, he may sometimes guess wrong and rewrite wrong, and then you’ll have to take the time to notice and correct his mistakes. So work on your book until it is absolutely as clear, accurate, and well written as you can make it, and only then submit it for editing. When the editor gets your best-effort manuscript, he reads and studies it and decides whether he thinks what you’ve written is what you want or should want. He makes sure that the organization is reasonable; that the train of thought is always clear; that each sentence is clear in context; that all the words are spelled correctly; that the rules of grammar are observed; etc., etc., etc. He finds all the faults he can. You might say that one function of an editor is to serve as a professional fault-finder. When he finds a fault, he corrects it if he can, or he asks you to correct it, or he works with you to correct it. The editor believes, as you should believe with respect to writing, that the person who deserves the most consideration, first, last, and all the time, is the reader. If you’re not writing for the reader, why write at all? So the editor may make little changes, touchups, whose need isn’t obvious to you, and that you may not even like. He makes them because his knowledge and his feeling for style, acquired in years of reading, training, and experience, lead him to believe that they will nudge the reader inconspicuously in the desired direction. The ability to recognize the need for such nudging, and do it, is one main qualification of an editor. You may find a lot of things you like in the editor’s work. You may be glad that the editor has noticed and corrected some dumb things you wrote. (If you’ve never written a dumb thing, excuse me while I regain control of my envy.) You may like a brief expression of something you expressed too lengthily. Or you may not. Some of the changes the editor recommends will be self-explanatory, and some won’t. Some of them may even be (whisper this) wrong. Every one of them should get your close attention. If you don’t understand why the editor has made a particular suggestion, of course you should ask him about it. He'll be happy to explain, and you might find out how to avoid repeating a mistake. So examine the editor’s work suspiciously. If you have written less than clearly in any passage, the editor may have to guess at your meaning. He may guess wrong, and write something that’s clear but incorrect. It’s better to make a guess, and base a change on that guess, than to do nothing. Even a wrong revision may not be a complete waste: It may demonstrate, perhaps painfully, that what you wrote was subject to being misread. Too often a writer, especially an inexperienced one, gets defensive and rejects changes that, as anyone else could see, are for the better. Don’t let your ego stand in the way of improvements to your book. If you’re wise, you’ll listen with an open mind to every suggestion an editor makes, and give it fair-minded, mature consideration. If the editor is good at his job, most of his suggestions are probably worth listening to, especially the ones about how to express things. You’re good at your specialty, and a competent editor is good at his. If you find that the editor has made errors, reject them by all means. But don’t let one error, or several, lead you to reject everything the editor does. Ask yourself whether his misreading was actually your fault; it just might be. And, most important, work with the editor to arrive at a revision that no attentive reader can misread. If you and your editor cannot reach agreement about something, the final say is yours. The editor has to accept this principle—though he should and will nag you mercilessly if you insist on doing something that he knows is bad and will make you look bad. Close study of an editor’s work can have an unexpected side benefit. The next time you write, you just might find yourself applying his suggestions, and therefore writing better. Seeing you do this is very satisfying to an editor. Finally, a good editor keeps in mind that the work and the writing are yours, and he tries to leave your style intact. If he finds something that he thinks needs to be improved, he’ll try to revise it in a way that sounds like you. One of a dedicated editor’s favorite things to hear is an author’s voice saying, “Why didn’t I write it that way?” Editing is not an easy job. Neither is your review of an editor’s work. But if all the tasks are done well, the quality of the result is worth your while. If the writing is good, after all, the credit will go to you. Thomas Way thomasway@thosway.com