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Un extrait d'une des newsletter de Tracy Hickman, parlant du processus
d'édition. Ca peut être un peu valable aussi pour un dessinateur (avec les
petites différences significatives qu'a justement signalé Mario)
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So you say you have slaved over your story for months? You say you
have produced a masterpiece of unsurpassed beauty and power? You say
your text is destined for a Pulitzer Prize?
Well, friend, you need an editor.
Every writer believes his prose to be the perfect rendition of his
thoughts and that no other person in the world understands more
perfectly the intent of their words. That may be true in terms of
INTENT ... but the ability to communicate those thoughts to a reader
is where an editor serves a book much better than the author.
Why are writers blind to their own text? Part of it is that authors,
being creating individuals, have a tendency to think that they have
put everything in their minds onto the page. I cannot count the number
of times Laura has pointed out to me in our current book places where
things I THOUGHT were in the book simply never made it onto the page.
I was absolutely certain that I had written those words ... but they
only existed in my mind.
Another reason for this blindness is, after having lived with this
129,000 word creation for several months, the writer is simply too
close to the work to judge it well. We may have wondered why in those
high school classes where our teachers told us that our term papers
all needed to be left alone for a few days before being rewritten.
Now, take that term paper and multiply it by a hundred times or so
and you get the idea of the massive block facing a writer looking to
rework their text with any objectivity.
No writer, I believe, no matter how ‘best selling’ or ‘acclaimed’ is
above the absolute need for an editor to give a text perspective and
clarity.
Personally, as a professional writer for nearly two decades now, I
have nothing but grateful praise for editors and their economy-sized
vats of red ink. Although they may not think of it in these terms,
their job, essentially, is to make me look better than I am. That is
something that I should be grateful for every day.
For a writer approaching the editorial process, perhaps the first thing
I can pass on to you is something Margaret Weis passed to me. I believe
she had an instructor who told the class she was attending to pick up
their manuscript in one hand. They then were told to hold the manuscript
out at arms length. Then, with their free hand pointing back and forth,
they were required to chant, “THIS is my manuscript ... THIS is me! THIS
is my manuscript ... THIS is me!” over and over until they could really
believe it. The point is that your writing – your labor of love – is NOT
attached personally to you. You are not your book; your book is not you.
If you do this long enough and with enough conviction, you can come to a
place where the red ink from an editor does not look like your own
blood.
This is important: editorial criticism is not intended to make you feel
small or inferior. It is not an issue of ego. It is not an issue of who
is a better writer. It is entirely a question of what will make your
book better ... and the more red ink on the page the better job your
editor is doing.
If the editorial on your manuscript IS about the editor’s ego or who
is the better writer ... then you need a different editor!
For a related reason, your friends and relations are TERRIBLE editors.
They may not understand that your manuscript is an entity completely
separated from you. They will be afraid of plunging their daggers into
your book for fear of striking too near your heart. Their comments on
your manuscript are perhaps the least truly helpful of all ... for they
will not be critical enough to do you any good and will more likely
reinforce any bad habits that you have picked up.
When you finish your wonderful manuscript (as Laura and I have just done
last week) you then send it away to your editor. Laura observed that it
feels like mailing your baby away in a FedEx box. She is only partially
correct: it is more like mailing your baby away in a FedEx box to people
you know are going to mail it back to you with a note telling you it
is ugly and deformed.
The editor will then make a ‘pass’ over the manuscript and, if you are
lucky, bleed all over the book with both red ink on the pages and
copious, voluminous notes of just where your book has gone completely
wrong. “What does this mean?” “What are you trying to say?” “I’ve lost
the picture of what is happening here.” “I thought these clerics all
had blue hair with yellow stripes and now they have yellow hair with
blue stripes ... which is it?” My personal favorites are of the
following ilk: “I thought Rodrigo died on page 215 but now he’s alive
on page 429.”
When you get this dripping red monstrosity that was once your
supposedly perfect book, you have two options: believe yourself to be
above editorial comment (wrong answer) or roll up your sleeves and get
to work fixing the problems (right answer). I find in my own experience
that it is helpful to take the approach of ‘why’ with editorial
comments. Most editorial things are simply to fix and painfully obvious
once pointed out. Those you breeze through. Others ... such as
questions that go right to the structure of the story ... are more
complex and require a thoughtful ‘why’ examination. ‘Why am I not
communicating this properly to the editor?’ ‘What is it in my words on
the page that caused the editor to make this comment?’ ‘Why am I not
communicating this properly?’ You must start with acknowledging that
the problem is NOT the editor ... the problem is on the page.
There is a reason why it is called a ‘rough draft.’ It has edges that
need to be knocked off and surfaces that need polishing.
So now that you’ve cleaned up your manuscript, you see that is it much
improved and you send it back to the editor with confidence.
Then you get it back from the editor bleeding again. This may only
happen once – if you are brilliant. On the other hand, I’ve heard of
writers who have had their manuscripts returned upwards of six times
for rewrite.
If the editor is so good, why don’t they just FIX the problems and
leave you alone? Because it is YOUR book they bought; it is YOUR words
they want on the page. If they wanted a book from the editor they
would have bought the editor’s book instead of yours. You have to be
responsible for cleaning up your own mess; the editor just points out
where the mess exists.
There are several editors by the way who may look at your manuscript.
There is a specific editor who looks at the text for grammar, spelling
and punctuation ONLY. I, personally, have wondered if these unsung
heroes every actually know what the book is about when they finish it,
so intent are they on sentences and language structure. It is a job
which I could never do. I praise them for this frightful service.
When at last your book is on the shelf for your anxious public to buy,
it will be a polished gem. It will NOT be the same as that completed
manuscript you mailed away with such trepidation almost a year before.
What it WILL be, however, is a much better book if the editor has done
your book service.
It is a good thing, too. Your public will never know just how rough
and flawed your writing was in the beginning. All they will see is
the polish and clarity ... and they’ll think that is entirely your
doing.
Editors are the unseen guides that help a writer find a voice and
clarity in communicating their dreams.
Be thankful for every drop of their red ink. |
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