Published September 17, 2024
In the “Game On” episode of “The West Wing,” President Bartlet says, “Every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts.” Minus the casualties, on my last viewing, this reminded me of big-league editing.
Every once in a while, there is an important edit that anyone could make, involving a basic, immutable rule, whether they learned it from their grumpy first editor, in Mrs. Smith’s sixth-grade English class or from Strunk & White. The rest of the time is when you earn your keep, whether the people paying you seem to know that or not.
Bartlet’s comments come as he explains that his staff had prepared him for a debate by trying to give him 10-word answers to questions sure to come up.
“Other than that,” he says, circling back to the body-count days, “there aren’t very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for 10 words.”
Editing at a high level is almost all nuanced moments. Anyone can point out a misspelled word on a sign in the produce section.
I edit for today and tomorrow, not 40 years ago
The people I edit for live in 2024, not in 1924 or 1984. They are, in fact, still alive. Though I am grateful for my grade school teachers, they are not the people reading the stories I edit. I take into account many factors in shaping sentences for those who do read them. A few are the genre and its vernacular or register, appropriate tone, pacing, and whether I think it’s my job to suck the life out of a story or to let the reader enjoy the fun of a playful or graceful sentence. I never want to make a phrase clunky for the sake of following some “rule” whose time should be over.
It’s fair to point out that the episode I referenced is from 2002. It’s from this century, though, which is more than I can say for a lot of the guidance that runs the house in many newsrooms. It also strikes me as speaking timeless truth.
I remember every conversation I’ve had with readers in my career. On the phone. In the mall. At basketball games. By email. In chance encounters. If I become aware of the potential for someone to misread something, I work to avoid it. Every time you slow them down and take them out of a story is a risk you don’t want to take.
Nuance is one of my favorite words and most important tools. I try to take it with me into every assignment or usage debate.
A version of this post first appeared on LinkedIn. Editing tips here are mine unless noted. I chose that photo because it’s my favorite one of the White House.
Photo by Rena Schild via Shutterstock.