Years ago, a writer came to me and complained that I was changing his newspaper articles. I was taking out words, he said, and he wondered why. After all, he said, I didn't need to shorten the story, so why cut words?
I explained that, if he said the same thing with fewer words, the story would be better. Shakespeare wasn't great because he used a lot of extra words; it was because he used EVERY WORD so eloquently. This guy was no Bill Shakespeare, and I couldn't turn him into one. But I could make him better.
Later in the week, the same writer came back and wondered if I could cut something out of the high-school sports page to get more of his story in. I showed him the page and asked what we could cut. Nothing, he said, after looking at the page carefully. I waited, and he asked if he could cut the story himself. Sure, I said, not revealing that that was exactly what I wanted.
Twenty minutes later, he came back and said the story was done. It was tight and exactly the way he wanted. And it fit.
Thereafter, he came by every Saturday and told me his story was in the sports basket in the computer. I put it on the page, and he went away and trimmed it to fit. He jammed every bit of information into each of those 16-inch stories.
The moral? When I was cutting his stories and tightening them, he complained. When he realized they HAD to be that length, he cut and tightened them himself. It was a great collaboration between writer and editor, a rarity in any business.
Even rarer, we were both happy.
Twenty minutes later, he came back and said the story was done. It was tight and exactly the way he wanted. And it fit.
Thereafter, he came by every Saturday and told me his story was in the sports basket in the computer. I put it on the page, and he went away and trimmed it to fit. He jammed every bit of information into each of those 16-inch stories.
The moral? When I was cutting his stories and tightening them, he complained. When he realized they HAD to be that length, he cut and tightened them himself. It was a great collaboration between writer and editor, a rarity in any business.
Even rarer, we were both happy.
Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.
More EDITOR@WORK blog entries
Entries from The Dog Blog
Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)
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