Ink and Paper
When I first started editing other people's writing, I never wrote on their manuscripts. It wasn't because manuscripts were harder to come by then--because they were: they had to be typed, corrections required the use of maddeningly tricky white tapes and sticky bottles of goo, and multiple copies were only birthed after someone's patient labor at the Xerox machine.
I didn't write on their manuscripts because it wasn't my job. My job was to make suggestions--better words, better connotations of words, better sounding words; to identify what must go--redundancies, non-sequiters, and passages that didn't measure up; and to point out where I thought things were missing--plot, character development, description. Their job was to do it.
If I had a beautifully organized mind and could have conveyed all that in a conversation, I would have rather done it that way. If they could have understood just what my vision for their manuscript was from that conversation and carried it out, we would have created great books in an ideal manner: writer and engaged critical responder. Two very separate roles. Two sides of good writing.
Needless to say, it didn't work that way. Being young and having infinitely more ideals and time than I am allowed to enjoy now, I developed an elaborate system of note taking: Page 14, para 3, line 2: use plural possessive rather than singular. Page 14, para 4, line 1, main character doesn't seem like the type to have a doberman. I would suggest something more friendly, like a spaniel or a red bone hound.Unless you think a cat would be better, or unless you feel that it is important for this aggressive pet to be here to suggest latent anger in your seemingly benevolent character.
It took a long, long time to get any books edited. And with the infinite time of my pre-motherhood days, I might still be editing that way. There is something very right about being so respectful of the author's primacy in a novel that the editor merely points out what works and doesn't work and makes suggestions for improvement.
But no one has infinite time, and many authors don't want sole responsibility for making the decisions about how to improve the parts that aren't working. So, over time, I began to gently write notes--small copyeditor type marks, and marginalia that would go on and on to the backs of several pages. Still suggestions, still to be taken at the writer's discretion.
Some writers respond very well to that approach, and some would beg for the insertion of the word or phrase that would do the trick I was asking them to perform. Eventually, I began showing what I meant, rather than only telling, and actually suggesting language. I would usually give several choices so that they could choose the one that had connotations most similar to what they were trying to convey.
And of course, the time came when, with no compunction, I would freely edit text, rewrite and insert my own interpretation onto the manuscript. And I don't think that this evolution was due to any slipping standards on my part, or any lack of respect for the author. It just became apparent that every book and every author are different and having different approaches to the editing process were very important.
Now, I talk with authors before I start: These are the ways I can edit your work. What supports your creative/writing process and time frame best? Do we need to plan for two passes, or three? Do we need to call in another editor or writer in addition to the two of us and the copy editor? Making the decisions about what process the material will go through to be shaped is an important part of the collaboration. Some writers welcome a "bleeding manuscript," dripping with red ink (although I rarely use red because I still don't want my comments to be interpreted as corrections, but rather as suggestions for a collaborative polishing.) Others are loathe to part with a favorite sentence. Every time, it's different.
If I have to, I will use track changes, but I far prefer not to. Track changes have no connotation of conversation to me. In fact, I see them as being quite dictatorial. I'm fine with Kindles, I'm fine with the printed word appearing in any medium it sees fit. But when it comes to editing, I find I'm quite old-fashioned.
Give me ink on paper. Give me the time to debate a word choice. Give me the ability to give an author the time their hard, soul-spilling work deserves. Give me the clear blue infinity-pool my mind floated in in my twenties.
And then I'll show you some real editing.
A true friend knows your weaknesses but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit; recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities.
~William Arthur Ward
The wonderful image above is actually a tee shirt that you can get at Imaginary Foundation!
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Now I am deep in the heart of New Mexico, in the snow—lots of snow.
