Editing Pearls

Writers need editors. No question about it. Once, there was a NY Times Bestselling Author who decided he didn't want anybody messing with his manuscript at all, so he had it written into his next contract that nobody could touch it, save him.

Bad mistake. Not only were there typos and awkward phrases, there was one section that somehow got duplicated in the book …

Me, I'm happy for editorial assistance, copy-editors, too, though we sometimes disagree on what is appropriate secondary to my style. Once had a Texas Ranger character use the term "bidness," in dialog. To show the patois being used. CE changed it to "business," which was technically correct, but wrong for the idiomatic dialog. I changed it back.

My philosophy regarding the editing for content is that if the change makes it better, I'm all for it. If it changes something just for the sake of changing it but doesn't make it better, nor worse, I usually let those pass. If an editorial change makes something worse? I fight tooth and nail against it. Good editors can be convinced most of the time.

In the middle category, I once had an editor on my Conan novels who did some little touch up hither and yon that I thought were mostly unnecessary. I let them slide, until I came to one in particular that told me she was changing stuff just because she wanted to lay hands on the ms and do it.

Here's the set-up. I had my mighty-thewed barbarian enter into a ramshackle inn and order some food. What was a bloody slab of half-raw beast on a wooden platter was delivered unto Conan, along with some ale to wash it down.

The editor, bless her poor, departed soul, changed the line to read (italics mine) so that it was a bloody slab of half-raw beast on a piece of bread on a wooden platter …

I had to laugh. Are you kidding me? What, you think Conan isn't getting enough carbohydrate in his diet? And why didn't you give him, you know, a salad, some bean sprouts or kale or maybe Swiss Chard, hey … ?

Not to even mention that a bloody slab of half-raw beast is going to turn a piece of bread into a gooey mush no right-minded barbarian would eat unless he was starving …

Stay tuned, I will offer more of these as I recall them ...