Confessions of an Editor

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By Mark Alpert

I’ve spent the past week going over my editor’s suggestions for revising my next thriller (working title: The Furies). They’re great suggestions, I’m happy to report. I feel an enormous sense of satisfaction as I go through the manuscript, repairing all the inconsistencies and gaping omissions that my editor pointed out. I’m a lucky guy to have such a careful reader. And my gratitude is enhanced by the fact that I know what it’s like to have a bad editor. Worse: I know what it’s like to be a bad editor.

For the first fifteen years of my journalism career I was a reporter for newspapers and magazines, but in 1998 I became a staff editor at Scientific American. This is a fairly typical career path because editor jobs usually pay a little better. (I’d like to emphasize the world “little.” Don’t go into journalism if you want to make a lot of money.) The new job involved some writing, but my primary responsibility was editing the magazine’s feature stories about breakthroughs in science and technology, most of which were written by the scientists who did the research. It was fun work because the topics varied so much. One month I learned all about metallic hydrogen; the next month I became an expert on the sex life of orangutans (which, by the way, is pretty damn fascinating, but that’s a subject for another blog post).

The stories were usually between 3,000 and 4,000 words, which were spread across six or eight pages in the magazine. Although most of the scientist-authors had extensive experience writing articles for research journals (such as Nature, Science, The New England Journal of Medicine, etc.), very few had written for a consumer magazine before. Therefore, the stories they submitted were full of terrible writing: lots of incomprehensible jargon, egregious overuse of the passive voice. On the other hand, the scientists were usually so delighted to be published in Scientific American — it was a big ego boost for many of them, and often a career boost as well — that they would tolerate heavy editing (and sometimes wholesale rewriting) with little complaint. And thus a monster was born.

In short, I became a tyrant. Each month I would rewrite the entire story, altering nearly every sentence. I wouldn’t have discussions with the author. I wouldn’t give the author the opportunity to make changes to his or her first draft. I would make all the changes myself and send back the rewritten manuscript with a standard note: “Please correct any factual errors I may have inadvertently introduced.” My justification for this approach was that I didn’t have the time for a lot of back-and-forth. It was quicker and easier this way. And I truly believed that I was doing my authors a favor. I was making them look good, I thought, by commandeering their stories.

I took the same attitude with the illustrations that accompanied the articles. I would draw them myself, in pencil, and fax my sketches to the artists. If their illustrations came back looking significantly different from what I’d drawn, I’d force them to do it over. I was drunk with power.

Luckily, I was saved by a book deal. After selling my first novel and getting a contract to write two more, I scaled back my duties at Scientific American. I became a contributing editor who meekly suggests story ideas instead of a staff editor who shapes and packages them. And in my new career as a novelist, I was as powerless as a cub reporter. I could no longer give orders to anyone but myself. For instance, I could suggest titles for my novels and offer my opinions on alternatives, but the final decision was up to the publisher. The same rules applied to the cover art. Most humbling of all, I had to acknowledge the fact that I made mistakes too and that my own writing could be pretty terrible sometimes.

If we lived in an Old Testament kind of world, the gods of publishing would punish me for my sins. They would make sure that the people editing my novels were just as bad as I was. My editors would force me to rip out the heart of each book, to chop up the manuscript to the point where it became unrecognizable. But apparently I’ve been granted a dispensation. My editors have always allowed me to come up with my own solutions for fixing the problems in my drafts. And the process can be intensely gratifying, like working out your problems in therapy. There are lots of Aha! moments. “Of course! The answer is so simple!”

I really don’t deserve such good treatment. If I ever become an editor again, I’ll try to be more patient and open-minded. (Who am I kidding? I’d probably go right back to being a tyrant.)

 

5 thoughts on “Confessions of an Editor”

  1. Ha! Great post, Mark, especially since you have been on both sides of the red pencil. I spent most my pre-novelist life as a newspaper editor so I know the impulse. (Can’t remember what wag said that there was no greater urge than that of one man to change another’s prose).

    Also don’t recall who said this about editors but it’s so true: The good ones are like shrinks. They should be able to tell you that something is wrong but then guide you toward figuring out how to fix things.

    • PJ–
      Whichever wag it was, he had it right. For writers who respect language, the reflexive need to “set things right” in someone else’s prose is the best reason for taking pains to avoid picking up a badly edited/written book.

  4. Wow, Mark! I would think it would be more painful to re-write bad writing than to make suggestions for improvement. However, I see what you mean.

    You are accepting articles from experts who have no intention of ever becoming writers, so I think wasting your time on the back and forth is pretty much how I would feel. What purpose would it serve anyway?

    It would be different if you worked with the same writer each time, but accepting articles from many sources and attempting to train each on how to mold to the look and feel of your brand would be exhausting.

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