Editorial fingerprints

Ideally, editing is invisible. Typos are corrected, small errors of fact pointed out, plot howlers averted, and the end result is a seamless, polished work that doesn’t betray any hint of multiple minds at work. Usually when I read books that I didn’t work on, I see text that seems to have sprung fully formed out of the author’s mind, but once in a while I see, not a scar exactly, but perhaps a band-aid.

In an excellently edited, smart, well-written thriller, the protagonist releases the safety catch on his Glock. Aha! I said. The Glock doesn’t have a safety catch. But a few pages later, there’s a passing reference to the gun being “modified.” What do you think? Author’s original vision or editorial band-aid?

I laughed out loud when I came across a sentence in another book that read, “Some people say insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome.” I bet there was a query on that manuscript that said, “Actually, [Albert Einstein/Mother Teresa/Benjamin Franklin/Leonardo da Vinci] probably didn’t say this. This quote seems to be attributed to various people without any evidence. I’ve edited to read ‘some people say’ instead. OK?” Dubious quote provenances are the bane of fact checking.

And on rare occasions, a disagreement bursts right out into the open. On the copyright page of Garner on Language and Writing, the eight-line American Bar Association policy statement is supplemented by an exemplary plain language rewrite titled “How Bryan Garner wanted the statement to read.”