Lazy editors

I've worked with copy editors who had a pat way of editing a story. They'd look for a little chunk of the story, perhaps an anecdote, that they could cut out.

Editors have done that to me many times. At least once, an editor cut out the reason for me writing the story. Another time that I recall, a different editor cut out the best anecdote in my story. In both cases, the stories were watered-down, weakened because of the editing.

Recently, an editor cut out three sentences from a quote to shorten the story. He'd have been better off just paraphrasing the quote. If I'd known he was going to do that, I'd have paraphrased the darn thing, since he cut out the best sentence in the whole story.

Other times, editors have end-cut my stories. And, often, they were leaving out the best part.

Lazy, lazy, lazy.

It did, however, teach me to put all of the good stuff in the first few paragraphs of the story, if possible.

More SpeedEditor blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Blog entries on The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!