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Re: Editing issues

This has been an interesting thread. As a full-time journalist (not in gardening) for over 20 years, I know many professional writers who feel that editors are their enemies. And I know many professional editors who wring their hands about writers.

I think that young, just-starting-out editors often rewrite authors when simple editing is more appropriate. I know that I did that, and I've joked with other journalists who, in hindsight, are horrified at how they treated writers early in their careers. I also think that people who function as editors but who have had no training for it (on-the-job or otherwise), such as those working on corporate reports or putting out hobbyist publications from their living room, tend to be heavy-handed. There are also magazines--Reader's Digest and much of Time, Inc. come to mind--where the corporate culture is to rewrite articles, whether they need it or not. Finally--and this is where I used to get angry--there are magazines with so many levels of editors (big women's magazines are like this) that copy gets flatter and flatter and duller and duller as it works its way up the masthead. (I stopped writing for these last places--not because of the editing but because they sit on commissioned articles so long that I can't make a living.)

On the other hand, a great editor is a wonderful being. Great editors brainstorm with you, make your copy more graceful, point out things that are unclear, suggest sources you wouldn't have thought of, and say nice things to you.

All writers need editing--and some need rewriting. "Experts," as was recently pointed out, often have no ear for language or aptitude for organization. A lot of writers can report facts but can't relay them artfully. (There's something to be said for the Time Inc. model where one group of people does the research and another does the writing.) And I think that someone who is constantly getting rewritten by staffers at established magazines ought to take this as useful feedback--rather than a random insult.

Nancy Stedman

At 09:02 AM 10/21/2003 -0400, you wrote:
Marge writes,

"Let us assume the given that the "author" has the ability to write in good
form and an interesting manner to begin with."

Sorry, Marge, that's too large an assumption. In the green industries
especially, many publications prefer working with someone who really knows his or her
subject, be it orchids or hydroponics, over a good writer who doesn't. That
involves a LOT of editing.

"What do you all see as the purpose of an editor?"

Editors are necessary evils who serve many purposes, e.g., making sure their
readers get their money's worth from the articles they publish, and keeping
their publications and their writers from getting sued more often than necessary.

"The two articles I have had published in print media..."

If you ever decide to try selling more than those two, you'll have to see
magazines and editors for what they are: Customers. And then you have to learn to
produce a product that the customer wants to buy.

Writers write. Editors edit.

Get over it and move on to the next story.

JF
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