Apr
28
The Lost Art of Editing
I just came across a guest post called “Do Editors Edit Anymore?” by Caroline Tolley on the blog Writer Unboxed. Her piece is a superb analysis of the state of editing today, and it has prompted me to post one of my own that I’ve been meaning to write for some time.
(Read Caroline’s post first, as mine is a direct response to it.)
I’ve been concerned about the lack of serious editing for years. Naturally, many great editors out there are still holding the line against bad writing, but many more of them are not.
This was true even ten years ago, when I worked full-time in the managing editorial department at Penguin. One military adventure title we cranked out back then included an ending that made no sense whatsoever in the context of the first three quarters of the book. When asked how this had escaped his notice, the editor sheepishly admitted he had not read the entire manuscript before acquiring it, and his solution to the problem was to publish it as is. (After all, we had a schedule to keep.)
As a freelance proofreader for several publishers, I’ve found that the problem has only gotten worse since then: the art of line editing is on its deathbed. Publishers are more concerned with speeding up the production process and marketing their most commercial titles, to the detriment of their lists. It seems, as well, that agents are now left to do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to revising an author’s writing (when their main concern should be their author’s business interests). A majority of the titles I’m sent to proofread, whether good or bad, appear never to have been properly line edited. Popular bestsellers with large budgets, too, are often passed through the system—from agent to editor to copy editor to proofreader—without anyone giving them the sort of deep editorial attention they deserve.
Even Fitzgerald and Hemingway relied on the talents of Maxwell Perkins to make their books the masterpieces they would ultimately become. Thomas Wolfe’s novels as we know them would not exist if Perkins had not hacked away with such ferocity at his author’s crates full of manuscript. But where are the Perkinses of the world today?
I’m happy to see that his spirit, at least, lives on in places like Writer Unboxed. So thanks, Caroline, for writing a wonderful post, and for remaining dedicated to the art of editing.
Do you have your own editing stories? Or any experiences with books you wished were better edited? Share them in a comment!
