Comments on: On Editorial Advice

By: Jossan

Jossan — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 14:02:06 +0000

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By: Ann Aguirre

Ann Aguirre — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 23:03:00 +0000

I have admittedly limited experience in this milieu as yet, but I was really pleased with how editorial notes strengthened my book.

There was one spot where I had to do a bit of thinking because the straightforward solution wasn’t going to preserve something I felt needed to be there, but I devised a workaround that I actually think made the book much stronger.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 15:34:00 +0000

It can be difficult to break out of the "corrections on a student paper" mindset at first

I love this. It certainly DOES seem that way, doesn't it.

By: Celeste

Celeste — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 01:56:00 +0000

In the words of a Sheryl Crow song – the first cut is the deepest It still hurts to admit that you could’ve done something better, but not when you see how much better the finished product is because of your open-mindedness Hitting delete is tough to do, but I rarely regret it anymore once the rewrite is done.

By: aden

aden — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:54:00 +0000

Diana--I did, actually, read that post, and wasn't commenting about your choice of words. (In fact I originally ran across the phrase as "Murder your darlings," and I thought that was more insufferable.)

I also didn't mean to echo what you'd written there, but at 3 in the morning I guess I'm more receptive to certain ideas than I thought.

In college I worked at a writing center, and part of our mandate was to offer assistance on student papers. The common responses were of two flavors: "Awesome, I'll pick this up in twenty minutes when you've rewritten it," or "So you think that sentence doesn't flow? You can go STRAIGHT TO HELL."

I meant to suggest that for people who are not exposed to the editorial process as a large part of their professional lives, the perception that a critique of the work is a critique of the self probably won't budge.

(Meekly heads back to the "darlings" thread to make sure I read what was actually there...)

By: Marley Gibson

Marley Gibson — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:25:00 +0000

Good post, Diana. Perceptive and the signs of a mature writer. We writers do put a lot of ourselves into our work and want to protect it, but in the end, the finished product really is a team effort. Good advice.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:24:00 +0000

“too many people see it as adversarial or oppositionally defined”

it’s because a lot of times, it is.

By: Diana Peterfreund

Diana Peterfreund — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 13:05:00 +0000

aden, you should read my “When good advice goes bad” series about “kill your darlings.”

By: aden

aden — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 07:10:00 +0000

I always felt like the phrase “Kill your darlings” was itself a phrase that needed revising. Always sounded entirely too precious to me.

I think your comments about the perception of the editing process are on point–too many people see it as adversarial or oppositionally defined. I don’t think that will change, though (for people outside publishing, at least), since it’s a product of people identifying with their written output.