Hello, all! My name is Kathryn, and I am Sally's editor. Sally, my dear friend, has asked me to participate in a blog swap with her. Cue trumpets, and behold! My half of the swap.
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If you want to be able to call yourself a writer, you must
allow others to edit your work. You may write a little story, poem or essay and
feel that it is perfect just the way it is, and it’s okay to like your
creation, but it’s arrogant to believe
that you don’t need to spend time scrutinizing and editing your piece. Sally
and I giggle when we hear people say things like, “I’m a pretty good writer.
But I don’t need a peer editor or anything ."
If you’re writing in your journal or simply as a means to
express your feelings, with no real
interest in the art of writing, then go ahead and refuse editing. But if you
want to call yourself a writer--if you want to improve as a writer--you must
seek the help of others.
Often, you’ll write something and feel such an emotional
connection to it that you can’t imagine tweaking it, rearranging its words
or--gasp!--deleting extraneous portions. This is when an editor is useful.
When asked what my hobbies are, I usually respond by saying,
“I guess I like to read and write.” It’s easy to tell others that I enjoy
writing--they don’t have to know that, more truthfully, I like the idea
of writing. I don’t have to write consistently to say “I write.”
When
Sally asked if I would edit a manuscript of hers, I immediately agreed to help.
But I soon learned that editing is not like writing. I can’t fake it. I can’t
say, “Oh, I edit,” and then not edit. Sally was depending on me to thoughtfully
work through her first few drafts of the novel, and for the first time since
college English courses, I was held accountable. Which meant I had to stop thinking
about doing, and actually do.
I’d had
experience editing peers’ pieces in a handful of classes, and I used to help my
brothers with their papers in high school, so I was no virgin to picking apart
someone’s work, correcting grammar, and offering my critique. But I’d never
been involved in such an intensive, long piece of writing.
Sally
has asked me to share some advice for amateur editors like myself, and here it
is:
One: Don’t hold back. Never, ever, ever neglect to
offer your criticism. By withholding your thoughts and observations--even if
they are negative--you are doing the writer a disservice. It’s insulting to
neglect to disclose your complete thoughts, and ridiculous to say, “But I don’t
want to be mean!” When a friend asks you
for help, she is inviting you to apply your knowledge. Don’t be a timid
little bitch about it.
Of course there are tactful ways to express your findings. “Oh-em-gee,
this is like such a shitty sentence, bro” is obviously inappropriate. But
something like “That phrase is a bit overused and cliché. Consider something
more original” is absolutely necessary. I think it’s honoring the writer to
challenge him intellectually. It’s like saying, “I know you’re capable of
something great. I’m here to help your work reach its full potential.”
Two: Let her know what you like! Because I follow my “don’t
hold back” rule, the edited pages I would hand over to Sally were covered in
ink with my scribbling. I’d often ask her to rewrite sentences or whole
paragraphs. I’d write “not necessary--delete” by certain words, and I think I
crossed out nearly every single one of her semicolons.
She’d asked me for criticism, but she’d also trusted me with
a piece of writing that she’d spent hours of time working on. By showing me
such a raw, unedited piece of work, she was giving me the most vulnerable parts
of her--pieces from her imagination. Sharing a personal piece of writing is
arguably as intimate an act as sex because it’s giving something from inside of
one’s mind to another. Respect that.
It’s terrifying to create a unified piece of writing when
there are such genius literary works out there already--like The Grapes of
Wrath or Catcher in the Rye, for example-- setting the bar
unrealistically high. I often read an astounding novel or brilliant poem and
then try to write, and I hate myself, for I cannot create something with such a
degree of excellence.
Every once in awhile, I would come across a sentence in
Sally’s story that struck me as particularly well-written. It made me think of
something I’d read in a successfully published book. I made sure to star those
sentences and communicate to her that I was impressed. Because a writer needs
encouragement to continue writing, unless he’s nauseatingly confident or
dreadfully egotistical.
Bottom line: Offer all of your criticisms, but make
sure to tell your writer what has merit in her work.
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Thank you for reading. Please come visit me at stumblingbuzz.blogspot.com. And hey, while you're there, let me know what you think.
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