Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
Time to break out the red pen again. An edit is in the door and needs some work.
One of the things I will say, many times is – “this is just a suggestion.” or “It needs fixing, here is an example so you can see how I think it is wrong, but you are the author.”
David B. Coe paraphrased his editor in the Magical Words post from November 29, 2010, “Revisiting Revisions” with:
“You don’t have to use my wording,” he said with maddening equanimity, when I complained about some change he had made to a previous manuscript. “You’re the writer; I’m sure you can come up with something better. I changed it because the original wording didn’t work. It wasn’t clear, or it didn’t work with the rest of the scene. I was just trying to draw your attention to it.”
And that is the horrific thing editors do. They point out what is wrong. Maddening cruel and loving essential, every red mark.
And it isn’t always “wrong – wrong”. It could be “not as good as you are capable of”. Sometimes I think that is the worse, because wrong is an easy fix – “make better” oh boy, that is going to take some effort.
This particular Magical Words is mostly a reminder for ME on how to be the best editor possible. Sometimes ruts happen. Tired happens. And people need to be reminded of best practices. This post by Dr. Coe is full of them.
Again, the URL is: https://www.magicalwords.net/david-b-coe/revisions-revisited/