murder on the page

It’s intriguing to guess what Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch would have made of writing in a post-truth world. The Englishman who famously advised writers to “murder your darlings” might have wreaked homicidal havoc on any flowery prose purporting to represent a greater reality.

Herein lies the task of the modern editor that sets him/her at odds with the Edwardian purist: to be unsentimental – ruthless even – yet still sympathetic with the client’s sensibilities and needs.

I mention Quiller-Couch to make the point that good editing is not a matter of high-minded culling; rather, it’s about paying careful attention to every element comprising the whole.

Removing repetitions and redundant phrases, for example, can have a dramatic effect on the clarity and accessibility of the entire manuscript, story or blog. Transforming passive voice breathes life into timid prose. Inspired new angles break any tedium. And that’s before ensuring the writing flows logically towards the aims of the work.

The final point, though, is that sometimes less is more, and explanation can get in the way of understanding. A good editor knows when to have a light touch and when to insist on a bit of old-fashioned common sense, even if the subject matter roams far from conventional logic. When the writer has earned the right to break the rules, the reader is set free from their unconscious moorings.