While the author tends to be in the spotlight when people consider a piece of written work – whether it’s drama, fiction, journalism, or essay – the editor plays an equally critical and often unsung role. Like the director of a play or conductor of an orchestra, and editor can have an enormous influence in shaping the clarity, tone, structure, and flow of the final product. Often, when it’s done well, the editor’s work feels invisible – the reader is aware of responding to the writer’s wit, depth, and clever turns of phrase, just like an audience is captivated by a knockout speech or a virtuoso soloist, but the more subtle aspects of framing and context which make the work shine have been quietly established without drawing attention to themselves.
In a lot of amateur and everyday writing, editing tends to get thought of as basically some version of “fixing mistakes”; but at higher levels, editing is really about helping to bridge the gap between intention and execution. It requires insight, precision, and a strong grasp of core storytelling principles. Sometimes the editor needs to know the writer better than the writer knows themself, and it’s the outside pair of eyes that ultimately ensure their unique vision and distinctive voice are communicated directly to the reader.
Identifying What the Writer is Aiming For
The earlier an editor can become involved in the writing process, the better chance they have of truly grasping what the writer is trying to achieve with a piece of work. In many cases, this might be at the very inception of the idea itself, before anything has been put on the page. Writing is a pretty solitary pursuit, and having a trusted collaborator to bounce your thoughts of is almost always a welcome luxury.
Having a dialogue with an editor at an early stage can be incredibly useful in articulating what may just be a vague notion forming in the writer’s head, or in spotting holes or weaknesses in a nascent plot or argument. At this point the editor is faced with a delicate balancing act, acting as both critic and collaborator – they have to help the writer access and express what they have in mind without imposing too much of their own voice; they have to keep the writer focused on the core strengths of the piece without making them feel constrained or discouraged. If in doubt, the most important goal in these early stages is to keep the project moving, and guide it without suffocating it with over-thinking.
Making Choices
Writing is all about making choices. Very often, a writer will have 20 different ideas for how to approach a chapter, scene or article; they’ll have 20 different ways of phrasing the same sentence; 20 different paths a story of character could take. Narrowing these down to only one can be so difficult it’s painful – there’s a reason writers refer to it as “killing their babies”. This is where an extra set of eyes is invaluable.
An editor can help the writer distinguish between which choices best serve the piece, and which choices are being influenced by attachment to an earlier form of an idea which may not make sense anymore. Writing evolves as it grows and develops, goes through draft and re-draft. Sometimes remembering what the writer originally had in mind helps to keep it consistent and on-track; but sometimes an earlier, half-formed idea needs to be let go in order for a more mature version of the piece to flourish. An editor can be invaluable in determining which case applies in each instance.
Tone and Consistency
Tone can be notoriously hard to describe and analyze, but it’s a huge factor in determining how a piece of writing resonates with the reader. Is it light, serious, friendly, authoritative, nostalgic, hopeful, or some alchemical combination of them all? Equally as important, does the tone match the subject matter, or does it clash and feel awkward, drawing unnecessary attention to itself at the expense of what’s being said?
Here again, the editor can be a godsend in identifying and shaping the intangible feel of a piece. Writers are frequently prone to getting stuck in their own heads about their work, and what may seem like and obvious juxtaposition or a cute joke to their own ears could turn out to be baffling to someone without direct access to the intent. A thoughtful editor can help navigate the blurry line between how a writer thinks they’re coming across, and how the work is received from the outside.
Narrative Flow
It takes a long time to write a screenplay or a novel. What a reader may breeze through in a couple of hours could be the product of work that took place over a period of days, weeks, or even months. Maintaining consistency of plot, dialogue and style over time is key to ensuring that writing flows smoothly and consistently no matter how the reader ends up consuming it.
One of the key tasks for an editor is to help smooth any gaps, redundancies or abrupt shifts which may be the natural by-product of the writer feeling different when they wrote the beginning of a sequence to when they wrote the end. Refining transitions and reorganizing content is much easier to do when you’re a step removed from the initial creation of it, and can do wonders in fostering a seamless reading experience.
Embracing Collaboration and Feedback
One thing that editors generally try to avoid is simply rewriting what the original author has put down. To go back to the analogies at the start of this piece, that would be like the director stepping onto the stage to deliver part of an actor’s speech for them, or grabbing the instrument out of the soloist’s hand at the symphony.
Editing thrives on collaboration between the editor and the writer. While the writer has to, in some sense, embody their ideas in order to give them voice, the editing takes a wider, more external view, harnessing the writer’s gifts and guiding them to their most powerful expression.
Being able to give and receive constructive feedback naturally plays a crucial role in this process, and this can be tricky on both sides. A good editor helps hold a writer accountable for the completion and quality of their work, but also has to approach feedback with clarity, transparency and respect if they are to feeling like a teammate rather than an obstacle.
At the end of the day, taking the solitary activity of writing and turning it into a positive collaboration can truly enhance both the quality of the final work and the experience of producing it. A writer who doesn’t embrace the opportunity to work with a good editor just doesn’t know what they’re missing.