Let us now praise editors

They may be invisible and their art unsung. But in the age of blogging, editors are needed more than ever.

By Gary Kamiya

Read more: Writing, Editors, Gary Kamiya, Opinion, bloggers

Mignon Khargie / Salon

July 24, 2007 | I've wanted to write about editors and editing for years, but since I was one of that invisible tribe myself until a year ago, it felt unseemly. But now that I have switched full time to the other side of the desk, I can gush without stint. [That's what you think, bub -- Ed.]

To people not in the business, editing is a mysterious thing. (Actually, it's mysterious to most bloggers, who despite having been in existence for less than 10 years, probably outnumber every writer who ever wrote. But more on them later.) Many times over the past 20 years, people have asked me, "What exactly does an editor do?"

It's not an easy question to answer. Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, foremen, wimps, ditch diggers, mind readers, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoons -- sometimes all while working on the same piece. Early in my editing career I was startled when, after we had finished an edit, a crusty, hard-bitten culture writer, a woman at least twice my age, told me, "That was great -- better than sex!"

I make no such exalted claims, but there's no doubt the editing process can be an intimate and gratifying experience for both parties. Although, to pursue our somewhat dubious metaphor, there are also times when writer and editor, instead of lying back and enjoying a soothing post-fact-check cigarette, stare emptily at the ceiling and vow never to share verb tenses with anyone again.

When an editor's lucky, the piece comes in chiseled in immortal Carrara marble, every semicolon in place, ready to be wheeled into the Uffizi Gallery -- that is, straight to publication. (A very rare event.) A good editor knows when to leave a piece alone. Practically every writer has had the unfortunate experience of crossing paths with editors -- often inexperienced ones -- who feel the need to do something, just to show they're doing their job. This is almost as frustrating as the too-many-editors problem, in which a piece bounces from a senior editor to the managing editor to the executive editor, each of whom gives contradictory instructions, and finally ends up in the hands of the editor in chief, who after Olympian reflection pronounces that it was better the way it was when it started. It is experiences like these that lead writers to engage in one of their favorite pastimes: bitching and moaning about the lameness of editors.

Good editors work with and not against a writer. They calibrate how aggressively they edit according to how good the writer is, how good the piece is, the type of piece it is, the kind of relationship they have with the writer, how tight the deadline is, and what mood they're in. But an editor's primary responsibility is not to the writer but to the reader. He or she must be ruthlessly dedicated to making the piece stronger. Since this is ultimately a subjective judgment, and quite a tricky one, a good editor needs to be as self-confident as a writer.

Most good editors are tactful in communicating with their writers. Bedside manner is important. It isn't so much that writers are sensitive plants -- some are, some aren't -- as that there is a fundamental difference in what each party brings to the table. An editor needs to remember that writing is much harder work than editing. Sending something you've written off into the world exposes you, leaves you vulnerable. It is a creative process, while editing is merely a reactive one.

Of course, some writers are more vulnerable than others. Daily news reporters tend to be like old suits of armor, so dented and dinged by years of combat that they are impervious. When I was an editor at a daily newspaper, I worked with some reporters who had been so ground down by impossible deadlines, column-inch restrictions, and that soul-destroying newspaper specialty of cutting pieces from the bottom that you could replace every adjective in their stories with a different one and they would just shrug. I've also worked with writers who have reacted to my gentle suggestion that one of their precious, ungrammatical commas might perhaps be removed as if I'd insisted that Maria Callas perform "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" as the final aria in Bellini's "Norma." Like a savvy football coach, an editor learns which players need the stick and which the carrot.

Most writers understand that their editor is not a half-literate, envious wannabe who takes perverse joy in mangling their prose, but a professional who is paid to make their work better. Still, the moment when you -- and now I -- open the e-mail your editor has sent you in response to your story is always fraught with anxiety. You've exposed your soul, or at least part of your brain, to another person. What will they do with it?

The truth is, you have to learn how to be edited just as much as you have to learn how to edit. And learning how to be edited teaches you a lot about writing, about distance and objectivity and humility, and ultimately about yourself.

In an odd way, the exchange between writer and editor encapsulates the process of growing up. The act of writing is godlike, omnipotent, infantile. Your piece is a statement delivered from on high, a pronouncement ex cathedra, as egotistical and unchecked as the wail of a baby. Then it goes out into the world, to an editor, and the reality principle rears its ugly head. You are forced as a writer to come to terms with the gap between your idea and your execution -- and still more deflating, between your idea and what your idea should have been.

This isn't easy. You have to let go of your attachment to the specific words you've written and open yourself to what you were aiming for. You need enough confidence in yourself to accept constructive criticism, some of which can feel like your internal organs are being more or less gently moved around. More than just about any other non-artistic activity -- therapy and, yes, sex are possible exceptions -- being edited forces you to see yourself, or at least what you've written, the way others see you. It is a depersonalizing process in some ways, yet having to stand outside yourself deepens you as a person. You need to grow a thick skin in order to have a thinner, more sensitive one.

Next page: The art of editing is running against the Internet tide