An editor is someone who transforms the writer’s raw
prose into something other people want to read.
It is so easy for new writers. The sheet of paper or phosphor screen becomes the archetypal good listener, who never interrupts and always nods in the right places. We sit at the keyboard, tapping away, filling the screen with our thoughts, letting them rise in our subconscious, tumble down our nerves, flow into our fingertips and finally, gush out onto the screen in front of us. We look at them, and read them, and tell ourselves, “Yeah, that really says something to me.” And the screen nods in silent approval, reaffirming our skill at telling our stories.
The editor takes a look at this river of words, this stream of consciousness, and builds a dam here, constructs some lock gates there. She cuts this bit and changes that. The stream is channelled and directed. The flow is varied. Here rushing past as the tension builds. And there, where we have more time to spend, the rhythm changes to a soporific, calming flow, reminding us of long summer evenings and time to spare.
She finds the source, the idea, the kernel, and decides where to place it. At the beginning? Is this hard news? Do we want our readers to discover the secret and then move on, knowing a mere fish pool, but thinking they have learned everything our watercourse has to offer? Or perhaps she puts it in the middle, as a hook, tempting the readers in with excitement, and suddenly catching them on the barb, before drawing them on to the end as if by force. Or does she set up a conflict, arguing first for death, and then for life, keeping the reader on tenterhooks, desperate to find resolution, only at the end choosing one. Or simply leave the story unfinished? A puzzle with no solution except that which slowly finds a fragile existence in the reader’s mind.