As a writer over these years, I have had the privilege of
training a number of editors. And though such a task is laborious, thankless,
and certainly daunting, somebody has to do it. Let me share some things I have
learned.
Editors have this bad tendency to project their feelings
onto others. For example, they want me to remove 48,000 words from my writing.
Why? They don’t want to read them, and they ASSUME that nobody else wants to either.
Of course this is nonsense; after all, why else would I have written them in
the first place? So when dealing with editors, one must overlook this, well
this oddity.
Next, for some reason editors believe that events happen
sequentially, one after the other, and that good writing should also follow
this ideal. Of course this is not true. Have you ever listened to your wife or
daughter recount an event? Sequential? Seriously?
But the most troubling aspect of editors is that they are
unimaginative people who are highly offended by any display of creativity. They are putout when I supply three
variant spellings for a single word, all in the same paragraph. They ask snotty
questions whether I have ever heard of spellcheck. They also don’t like it when
I use a comma instead of a semicolon. And they can’t stand my sentences that
run on and on and on and then continue with sentences added upon sentences and
then how I like to add even more sentences on top of those. Nor fragments. They
don't like. Them. Either. And though their harsh comments would appear cruel to
the thin-skinned, you must understand that their words were only generated from
hearts envious at such a display of creativity. Mind you, I’m not bitter over
this or anything. By the way, what’s a spellcheck?
Oh. Did I say I trained a number of editors? Let me restate.
Over the years I have worked with a number of editors. Because the only way you
can ever train an editor is simply within the recesses of your own imagination;
one can never really train such souls. But I have learned one thing in working
with them.
You must be kind for they mean well.
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