That editorial relationship

There is no more cru­cial and cre­ative rela­tion­ship in the book mak­ing process than that which exists between writer and edi­tor. Note my blog of Feb­ru­ary 11, 2016, for an appre­ci­a­tion of my most impor­tant edi­tor, Richard Jack­son. There have been oth­er fine edi­tors in my writ­ing life as well. When the com­mu­ni­ca­tion and work input is high—on both sides—good work can and is created.

Bless them. If I have been suc­cess­ful as a writer it is vital to under­stand that I have had good edi­tors. No one writes a book alone.

In the world of pub­lish­ing, edi­tors estab­lish them­selves over a peri­od of many years to high degrees of qual­i­ty and judg­ment. Good edi­tors earn their good rep­u­ta­tions. Being an edi­tor requires high skills. Spe­cif­ic skills. One should think twice—and a lot more than twice—before reject­ing the advice and sug­ges­tions of one of these estab­lished editors.

But is there such a thing as poor or even bad edi­to­r­i­al sup­port? You might as well ask are there mar­riages that fail. I have worked with many edi­tors dur­ing my years as a pro­fes­sion­al writer, and while I believe I have worked with some of the best, some have not been so good.

What makes for a poor editor?

It can be that since the editor/writer rela­tion­ship is so per­son­al, requir­ing deep lev­els of mutu­al under­stand­ing and trust, the human matchups are just not there.

Writ­ers are not always clear about what they are try­ing to achieve. An edi­tor can sub­se­quent­ly mis­un­der­stand what the writer is try­ing to do and lead him/her in a wrong direction.

An edi­tor can impose a vision on the book which is con­trary to what the writer aspires. Such edi­to­r­i­al sup­port tries to rewrite the author’s book. The edi­tor may even be right about this new direc­tion, but it will be frus­trat­ing for all, and ulti­mate­ly the work will suf­fer. The book becomes work for hire.

Final­ly, pub­lish­ing is a busi­ness. The rela­tion­ship between art and com­merce is com­plex and is not often acknowl­edged or accept­ed. The writer/editor con­nec­tion is at the cen­ter of these some­times con­flict­ing val­ues. It is, how­ev­er, rarely talked about.

It is one thing to talk about writ­ing. It is anoth­er to talk about pub­lish­ing. The bridge from one to the oth­er is the edi­tor.  Nev­er for­get that.