Mystery of the Edit

[hmmnmm]

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[sr71plt]

For starters, how well can one trust their editing eye when editing one of their own pieces (children, creations, poems, tales)?

Not much. On the technical level (punctuation, grammar, spelling, word usage), many of the mistakes are habitual ones, and if you've made the mistake to begin with by habit, chances aren't good you'll catch it in review. The habit is the habit. Beyond that, on both the technical and concept levels, your mind will understand clearly what it intended your hands to key--and your hands won't always get the message as intended. And then you mind will read right through the mistakes/lack of clarity your hands keyed into the work because, in more than a few instances, your mind will see what it intended to see when it reviews what was written--not what was actually keyed. And if your mind didn't forumlate something that would be clear to a reader not privy to the depth of your mind's processes in the first place, it won't be able to sweep all the "understoods but unsaids" out of the way in review, leaving the reader scratching her head on what you are trying to convey in the incomplete rendering of your thought.

Everyone can use another set of eyes/mind scrutizing the work.

 

[hmmnmm]

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[sr71plt]

I'm thinking less along the lines of mistakes and more about different ways to express any one thought or a fragment of a thought.
Also, as I explore this terrain I'm coming to believe that the conscious part of the mind may not have a clear intent at the outset. Sometimes a meaning can be developed out of what may originally appear to be something without clear meaning.
Sometimes.


Meaning, that an intial piece having undergone some reworking, something may appear that calls for further development, in which case the development may distort or confuse the original intent. Maybe extract that new piece and work it as a separate idea?

Hmmm. (no pun intended.) I thought I'd covered that in my last post (which may be a good illustration of what I was trying to convey). The only way you can be sure that whatever you wrote was what you were trying to convey is to have a reader repeat back to you how they understood what you wrote. Much of the time (most of the time, if you haven't formed the thought yet yourself), what you wrote won't convey what you had structured in your mind. This goes back to the "no, you can't really fully edit yourself."

Sometimes what the reader got (and they often will understand what you've written in terms of what separate thoughts were already going through their own mind) will be more profound than what the writer was trying to convey, which I find can be great fun.

In an earlier life I directed plays (and designed sets, costumes, posters, etc., for them myself). For a production of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, the set wasn't delivered until dress rehearsal and it was a disaster. In that play, there's a fire escape outside the apartment window at one side where the character Tom escapes occasionally to give some narration. The construction crew got the dimensions wrong, and this platform jutted out threateningly at the audience. But it was dress rehearsal, so we soldiered on. The review in the biggest-circulation newspaper of opening night started out, "Like the prow of a tramp steamer carrying the character representing the playwright out of dispair and into the world, the imaginative, bold set of the Bangkok National Theater's fresh interpretation of The Glass Menagerie guides the audience to a new appreciation of . . ." Needless to say I didn't write a letter to the newspaper correcting the drama critic's interpretation.

So, not only can't you edit yourself, if you let someone else read it and tell you how they understand it, at the minimum, you might be comforted you succeeded in what you set out to do. Alternately, you might find that your thoughts can be polished even better for a better outcome.

 

[champagne1982]

<snip>
So, not only can't you edit yourself, if you let someone else read it and tell you how they understand it, at the minimum, you might be comforted you succeeded in what you set out to do. Alternately, you might find that your thoughts can be polished even better for a better outcome.

I needs must disagree with at least part of your take on self-edit. As far as harsh critique goes, I believe the developed artist will be his own worse critic. The creator can never be completely happy with the imagery and thus, sometimes, the endless tinkering can lead to something better or even directly back to the first, initial off-the-cuff analogy being the most effective and illustrative example of the metaphor. This makes you the most ruthless of all editors, the dissatisfied one.

When we write and manage to avoid the immediate self-editing trap, what has essentially happened is we've created a concentrated chunk of passionate expression, while that can be good, it is also best left until cool before the author attempts to edit it into a usable piece. Only the author can self-edit this to deem it worth the effort of further development or not.

So, although we may not be able to self-edit to perfection, we'd certainly better do some form of the same or else our proofreaders and editorial staff would never read any offerings by us and simply throw them into the trash.

 

[sr71plt]

I needs must disagree with at least part of your take on self-edit. As far as harsh critique goes, I believe the developed artist will be his own worse critic. The creator can never be completely happy with the imagery and thus, sometimes, the endless tinkering can lead to something better or even directly back to the first, initial off-the-cuff analogy being the most effective and illustrative example of the metaphor. This makes you the most ruthless of all editors, the dissatisfied one.

When we write and manage to avoid the immediate self-editing trap, what has essentially happened is we've created a concentrated chunk of passionate expression, while that can be good, it is also best left until cool before the author attempts to edit it into a usable piece. Only the author can self-edit this to deem it worth the effort of further development or not.

So, although we may not be able to self-edit to perfection, we'd certainly better do some form of the same or else our proofreaders and editorial staff would never read any offerings by us and simply throw them into the trash.

OK. I don't know what that has to do with what I posted, but it looks like a valid perspective. I think needs are individual, though. The more I "self-edit" my own writing the more stilted and "like crap" it seems to become, though. Not to say I don't review it immediately and then set it aside and review it again later before I think of submitting it anywhere.

 

[champagne1982]

OK. I don't know what that has to do with what I posted, but it looks like a valid perspective. I think needs are individual, though. The more I "self-edit" my own writing the more stilted and "like crap" it seems to become, though. Not to say I don't review it immediately and then set it aside and review it again later before I think of submitting it anywhere.

You have said it yourself, that we can't edit our own writing. I simply stated that with regards to self-editing, we'd danged well better do some, or else we'd have countless submissions of drivel out there and not one of them worth reading, in our own view.

The only critic an artist needs to please is himself, in that spirit I offer that the best editor of your work is YOU, since, until such times as you release a piece to the public (even one fresh from your professional editor) it belongs to you and you have the final say in what it presents to the audience.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

As a side-note, one of the things I find most helpful in the editing process is to read a piece aloud. Read it yourself, to someone else, and you'll find all sorts of things, both in idea and in actual technical correction, that you may have missed. Then have someone else read it aloud to you, and you'll probably hear an entirely new poem.

I was in a writers' group for a while which used this technique frequently. It's really powerful to hear someone else read your work.

I fall all over the map where the editing process is concerned. Some pieces really want to be accessible, and will demand to be edited by other people and assessed for their ability to communicate a specific idea. Others just want to be left alone, to say what they're saying, and they aren't attached to being understood by a whole audience. It depends on the piece.

bijou

 

[hmmnmm]

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[champagne1982]

I think everything is evolving. I watched Alan Alda speak about the now and how now is a definite period of time, not lasting more than five seconds, outside of that period, time is either past or future, but not now.

So, I agree, Tihmmnmm, nothing can ever be finished since our reality is constantly shifting from one now to the next. How I feel about something presently, may not be how I interpret it later. The factors affecting my perceptions are as fluid as time so, how I perceive completion will be totally different in a new now.

 

[hmmnmm]

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[champagne1982]

That's beautiful.
Takes a lot of pressure off, too.
Creates an excitement.

Reminds me of Bergson - one of the few philosophers whose meaning I ever comprehended. What was it? Creative Evolution? Something like that. All that stuff about time and how it can't be divided up into clear sections?

So if I (or anyone, not just me) present a poem or a prose piece or a prose poem piece, I (or we) am (or are) saying, "this is where this general (or more specific) idea is at this flexible moment that work on it was discontinued for presentation to other eyes - or minds.

Oh.
Hmmmm.

That's a fair statement. To consider how a piece becomes frozen in a particular now is to accept that it will morph into something new to fill its space as we free it from our present. The next change we make will create a new object to flow into the time we release it to, bringing a satisfaction that what is out there from us was the best we could offer at the time.

sign me the very mystical and transcendental champagne.

 

[hmmnmm]

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[foehn2]

Interesting thread. I know it doesn't speak to the main question, but of interest (possibly) is a Washington Post article I found about Ralph Ellison. He wrote "Invisible Man" and then never finished his second novel... Interesting to read, and not completely off-topic...

(the article)

 

[hmmnmm]

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[sr71plt]

I needs must disagree with at least part of your take on self-edit. As far as harsh critique goes, I believe the developed artist will be his own worse critic. The creator can never be completely happy with the imagery and thus, sometimes, the endless tinkering can lead to something better or even directly back to the first, initial off-the-cuff analogy being the most effective and illustrative example of the metaphor. This makes you the most ruthless of all editors, the dissatisfied one.

When we write and manage to avoid the immediate self-editing trap, what has essentially happened is we've created a concentrated chunk of passionate expression, while that can be good, it is also best left until cool before the author attempts to edit it into a usable piece. Only the author can self-edit this to deem it worth the effort of further development or not.

So, although we may not be able to self-edit to perfection, we'd certainly better do some form of the same or else our proofreaders and editorial staff would never read any offerings by us and simply throw them into the trash.

Ah, so, then we do have a basic disagreement (which is fine; OK with me if you believe otherwise). Since my main point was that writers can't see all of the problems in their work through either not knowing what's proper/relevant, and/or having bad habits about applying what they do intellectually know, and/or "knowing" in their minds what they meant to write but didn't write, I, of course, couldn't agree that a writer's "best" editor is him/herself.

Beyond that--and because of that--despite the book and course titles using the term, I believe that "self-edit" is a contradiction in terms. I think edit is something someone independent of the original writing does and that writers can only review and revise their own work, not "edit" it.

(But, of course, we are only talking about the margin. Of course an author can clean up her/his own copy themselves by knowing what to do and doing it. That usually will take care of most of the issues--and sometimes all of them, I'm sure.)

 

[hmmnmm]

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[Angeline]

It's all too easy for me to overedit a poem. I fix the spelling and typos in a minute, but I can spend hours tinkering with a word or phrase, so I have forced myself to consider a poem "done" for the immediate future once I publish it. That, I think, helps me avoid making the unnecessary changes that can render a poem sterile: so "perfect" that it's devoid of the magic that makes a poem lyrical and exciting to read.

If I want to write a new poem, I write a new poem. There are all sorts of things, from the sublime to the ridiculous, that can inspire something new.

I do, however, like to reconsider some poems months or even years after I've written them when (hopefully) my growth as a poet from the time of the first writing will give me a new perspective and allow me to make meaningful changes as opposed to um changes.

 

[champagne1982]

Ah, so, then we do have a basic disagreement (which is fine; OK with me if you believe otherwise). Since my main point was that writers can't see all of the problems in their work through either not knowing what's proper/relevant, and/or having bad habits about applying what they do intellectually know, and/or "knowing" in their minds what they meant to write but didn't write, I, of course, couldn't agree that a writer's "best" editor is him/herself.

Beyond that--and because of that--despite the book and course titles using the term, I believe that "self-edit" is a contradiction in terms. I think edit is something someone independent of the original writing does and that writers can only review and revise their own work, not "edit" it.

(But, of course, we are only talking about the margin. Of course an author can clean up her/his own copy themselves by knowing what to do and doing it. That usually will take care of most of the issues--and sometimes all of them, I'm sure.)

The disagreement between us hinges on purely the word choice in our arguments, don't you think? I don't deny that someone else should read, look and opine on any piece of art or shite I may produce. But, I still have the ultimate red pen beside me... trash or envelope? Only I can decide the fate of my stuff.

 

[sr71plt]

The disagreement between us hinges on purely the word choice in our arguments, don't you think? I don't deny that someone else should read, look and opine on any piece of art or shite I may produce. But, I still have the ultimate red pen beside me... trash or envelope? Only I can decide the fate of my stuff.

Yes, right. If you, as a writer, have a professional editor, you will have ultimate choice anyway (except for house style rules set for consistency across the house work offerings and for anything that the publisher feels so much in disagreement with that the choice of not publishing it if agreement can't be reached arises).

But, no, you don't decide the "fate of your stuff," I don't think. The reader does (and as noted elsewhere on the thread, the understanding of your work can change over time and from reader to reader). This moves into the realm of who is more important in terms of conveying the material, the writer ("I understand what I wrote") or the reader ("you're writing it for me to understand, not for you to understand"). If its being offered to readers, the reader is more important. If the writer is more important, the writer might just as well not bother writing it--it can stay in his/her mind.

 

[champagne1982]

Nah.. it's a partnership. I can't entertain unless the audience consents to be entertained. I still determine the quality of the entertainment. They can always leave.

I can still write panty drawer stuff but I'm the one to have edited it into there. I'm not saying a bitter professional isn't under constraints, just that even so, the professional still writes and still, through some kind of self-editorial process, determines what gets shown to the publisher.

 

[sr71plt]

They can always leave.

And thereby control the quality of the entertainment. Wheels within wheels.

I can still write panty drawer stuff but I'm the one to have edited it into there. I'm not saying a bitter professional isn't under constraints, just that even so, the professional still writes and still, through some kind of self-editorial process, determines what gets shown to the publisher.

But the publisher determines what gets shown to the reader (after they've had it edited to their specifications, which is based on their estimate of what the reader will buy.)

 

[champagne1982]

And thereby control the quality of the entertainment. Wheels within wheels.

But once it is out there for their opinion, it has passed beyond my editorial control.

But the publisher determines what gets shown to the reader (after they've had it edited to their specifications, which is based on their estimate of what the reader will buy.)

Again, once it is beyond my control it is no longer owned by me. I have given it to the audience and in the process, have satisfied my interior critic, else it would never have made it past the panty drawer filter.

 

[The_Fool]

But I don't have a panty drawer.


All I have to do is wait a week and it is like i am editing somebody elses shit. I never remember what I write. I know Carrie, shit happens when you get old...

 

[hmmnmm]

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