Being a writer there’s a natural egotism involved that leads you to believe what you have to say is important. That people should stop what they’re doing and hear you out. And if you’re a good writer, there are plenty of times when that is absolutely true.
But every writer from Hemingway and Dostoyevsky down to the person who covers sports for their high school paper has their failings. A sentence won’t read exactly right. Some grandiose truth the writer aimed for falls flat on its face. On a more mechanical level, comma splices, make the writing, awkward, and choppy. When those moments of writerly weakness arise a good editor becomes a godsend.
Because egotism is involved though, even the best editor can be challenged by the writer their working with. I’ve been guilty of this myself while working for Vox Magazine over the past several months. Having spent several hours writing the review, I failed to see why 1000 words on the terrific Michael Fassbender film Frank might be 500 too many. I hemmed and hawed with my editor on minutiae, like what fairly insignificant quote should or shouldn’t go in. There was no real reason for this and deep down I knew that they were probably right, but personal pride prevented me from seeing it their way.
While there’s no one prescription for this sort of myopia there are plenty of options. Arguably the best is just learning to let go. When you hit send on a story tell yourself that “this is no longer mine.” There’s a lot of truth in that statement. What once started as yours is now out in the world for people to see. There’s nothing fearful about that shared experience, it’s a part of process. The sooner you can work that out, the better you’ll be.
Off the Record 