EDITOR'S DESK by Cheryl McGuire
Never Fear the Ruthless Edit
While writing a personal essay not long ago I got carried away. Soon, I had no idea where I was, where I was going, or what I was trying to say. I called two writer friends to the rescue, and after we labored on my short essay for ten agonizing minutes, one blurted out: “Your essay is schizophrenic.”
Bam! She had nailed it. I cut 75% of my content. My friends felt terrible. Felt they’d been too rough. Felt I needed love.
But I was ecstatic! I could breathe, and I had found my bearings because of their honesty.
Wordsmiths spend hours looking for the right words. Sometimes, that work must be let go. I learned to jettison words (by accident) in the 1980s while polishing the ending of a feature story for a local newspaper. I was coming in just under the deadline when suddenly my nine-year-old son, standing at my elbow, tumbled forward. He thrust his hand out to stop his fall and landed on the corner of my computer right on top of the delete button. I froze, but the clock slapped me upside the head. I stepped on the gas. Going one-hundred miles an hour, I started over. I learned that day words are not sacred.
But not all writers welcome the slash and burn treatment.
From the documentary Founding Fathers, I learned Thomas Jefferson, having been assigned the task of putting the constitution down on paper, fumed in silence in the corner of the room as the committee of men tore his effort apart. Ben Franklin, sitting nearby, commented that he would never submit any writing of his to be analyzed by committee. And Jefferson’s rebuttal? He copied out by hand six copies, then painstakingly scratched out their corrections in each copy to show how badly he had been treated.
The movement of words is a writer’s business, painful as it can be. As Sidney Sheldon puts it, “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it is to be God.”
An online article called, “10 Deleted Chapters that Transformed Famous Books,” by Evan V. Symon illustrates just how tricky this word business can be.
At the last minute, Bram Stoker removed the last chapter of Dracula in which Dracula died. That stroke of genius created the never-ending, eternal vampire legend.
During the editing stage of The Time Machine, editors ordered H.G. Wells to write an extra chapter, causing Wells to create a new plot. Wells hated the new chapter and took a stand, successfully arguing for its deletion. “If undeleted, the public could have hated the book, spelling doom for the whole genre.”
The Autobiography of Malcom X is described as one of “the most important books of the twentieth century.” However, three chapters written during the last months of Malcolm X’s life (called “the most impactful”) showed Malcolm’s disillusionment with the struggle for civil rights, his struggle with depression, and his premonitions about his death. “The chapters were removed to give the book a more optimistic ending so that despite the threat against his life, his message would prevail.” Malcolm died shortly after, “but had the missing chapters remained in the book, his cause may not have had such enduring impact on American society.”
The message here is not to fear strong editing. Even your own.
