Your editor is your friend, but not your pal.
Your friend knows your strengths and your weaknesses, and is able to tell you a few home truths.
When I first took on the authorship of The Sun’s monthly copy desk newsletter, I inherited the title “Sgt. Friday’s Report.” The gimmick was that it came out on the last Friday of the month and led with a short narrative in which Sergeant Friday and Officer Gannon discussed various writing and editing misdemeanors.
I thought that I handled the device adroitly, with some very droll passages. But when I took it to Dudley Clendinen — then an assistant managing editor — he shook his head. A little puzzled by it. Not sure how it worked or was meant to work. Maybe try something a little different.
I went away, and as I looked at my text, a terrible light dawned. It was not droll. It was labored. And, worst of all, not funny. I realized that Dudley had done me a great service. He had, in the friendliest way, told me something that I badly needed to hear.
Often when editors fail, it is because they misunderstand the relationship with the writers and want to be pals rather than friends. “Hey, buddy, anything you do is A-OK with me. Everything is jake.”
This does not do the writer any good. Buddy-editing lets just anything slide through, and the writer is not held to any particular standard. A colleague on the copy desk once marveled at the low-grade writing of a veteran Sun reporter: “Why, he’s had twenty-five years’ experience!” I muttered, “No, he’s had one year’s experience twenty-five times.” Not one in a succession of editors had held him to any higher standard.
There’s a degree of moral cowardice in slack editing, too. Editing done properly is hard work, but it is even harder to confront people with things they don’t care to hear. If the writer is inept or temperamental, it’s easier just to pass the stuff along — what on a different occasion I referred to as peristalsis rather than editing.
A friend expects the best of you, and you exert yourself to do your best to honor that friendship. When you need an editor — and all of you do — look for a friend. If you want a buddy, go to a bar.
