When I first started working at my current newspaper, one of my colleagues, observing a pained look on my face while I was editing something, once said: “Reading raw copy is like seeing people without any clothes on.”
I saw plenty of "naked" writing – some a little “flabby,” loaded up with too many little “darlings,” others in need of dressing up and styling – in the decade that followed. And I’ve worked to cover them up. My own writing, too, has been through a few makeovers, each a much-appreciated improvement from the original.
But some of the best editing, I find, often comes from the writers themselves, through extensive rewriting. Sometimes it is at the direction of the editors, other times before a piece is even turned in. (Few writers get it right on the first try; practice makes perfect, or, at least turns the raw into the more refined.)
Louis Brandeis, a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939, known for drafting and redrafting arguments, famously said: “There is no great writing, only great rewriting.”
A good editor can certainly guide a writer, and help, for example, to pinpoint the angle of a piece through the “nut graph” – or as was said in the lecture, “a killer sentence at the start” that “brings everything together.” But there is only so much the editor can do. It is up to the writer to find his or her own voice, or style, and make the argument. (Or else the editor will be forced to make one up.)
As the lecture said, it is that voice that will draw an audience.
Sadie-
ReplyDeleteAgree with your ideas here. The first draft will always be naked but I also think that some sentences work best that way and have to be 'undressed' to get at their core. I guess this would be the simplifying process where we get to our 'bare bones' sentences that say exactly what they should say with no fancy clothing. ??