Editors on Editing: What Writers Need to Know About What Editors Do (43 page)

First, I talk to other people I know and trust in the field. As a “general interest” editor, there are a few areas I know a lot about, and many I can’t pretend expertise in. One of my talents (or maybe just a trick of the trade) is knowing how to get good advice from people who do know. Second, I try, if possible, to meet with the author in person; I find that if the author-hopeful seems to be calculatingly eyeing the size of my window rather than investigating the contents of my bookshelf, brain, or in-box for clues to my identity and status, that tells me something about our future relationship. Where necessary or appropriate, I also explain where my personal opinion diverges from his or hers, and where I think the potential weaknesses or danger zones of the book’s argument might lie. Obviously, if you’re only working with an outline, there’s much detail to come, but a good free-ranging but directed conversation will reveal most potential bugaboos.

The point isn’t to be best friends with each and every author, but if there isn’t a common basis of trust, I won’t be able to do my job; I can’t engage in the necessary dialogue with a writer I don’t respect, even as we disagree. I also believe the author has as much right to “discovery” vis-à-vis his or her editor’s position as the editor has of the author, because once the decision is made to go ahead—once you do your numbers and decide what to do with your numbers—and you give an author a contract, there’s no waffling. Wrestle your angels to the ground here, in Stage One, before commitment, because once you have accepted the book’s premise, body,
and conclusion, your commitment is to work to make it as perfect a piece as your collective energies and personalities will warrant.

Thus we enter Stage Two, where the editor’s role, to my mind, is blindingly clear: to dog, torment, torture, question, challenge, pry, invade, coax, cajole, praise, and attack that work and its creator until its argument is airtight, or until it has reached the goal of acceptability you mutually have determined upon embarkation. This mutuality of assumption is a critical, if weasely, aspect of Stage Two, since it’s the vexing decision of whether a work is “acceptable” that has the most profound legal, moral, and financial repercussions; it is, in fact,
the
critical breakpoint for many a controversial or risk-taking book. This is also the stage during which I must constantly keep in the front of the discussion whose book this is—the author’s, not mine. Where am I challenging the author to defend his position against my dissenting argument, and where are we agreeing to disagree?

In romantic fashion, I like to imagine all our arguments being over deep political truths, but in fact, the issue is usually not what is said but how it is said—its manner of expression and, in particular, who the readership will be or what it will do in reaction to the writer’s choice of words. This can be turned into an issue of ideas and censorship by an aggrieved author, but that’s usually self-deception. I think the realm of language, expression, and simply choices in words is one where the sensitively blunt editor can perform the most heroic duty in helping a manuscript toward completion.

I don’t subscribe to a fixed lexicon of political correctness; I do think the minutiae of language and rhetoric are hugely significant, and I try to impart a respect and sensitivity about that belief to my authors. But it’s been my experience that actual language usually flows from the ideas, that if the thought is sensitive, it’s not difficult to make the expression of the thought equally so. I try to help writers, for example, see the impact of words like
mankind
versus
humanity
, or sort out difficult vocabulary decisions—determining whether to use
Native American
or
American Indian; Black, African American, people of color
, or a more “retro” form, perhaps in a historical context or to make a specific dramatic statement. I try to explore the political implications of controversial name changes like Kampuchea or Myanmar, where what we (or the
New York Times)
might casually presume to be the currently popular or P.C. choice is in fact the expression of imposed will by a small group of tyrants, and hardly the people’s term of choice.

You can tie yourself into linguistic knots trying to accommodate the various needs and demands voiced by special-interest groups regarding how they would like to be described. In many cases I think it’s a matter of the disenfranchised, being powerless to control the more substantive issues determining their condition, at least asserting themselves over labeling. We
know from the experience of schoolchildren that labels have powerful and enduring social effects, but at some point you’ve just got to apply some combination of sensitivity to both politics and the language and good old-fashioned common sense. In many cases you can avoid cumbersome labels for groups by simply rewriting the sentence, avoiding those “portmanteau” descriptive phrases and using plain nouns and verbs instead. I think of this as combing the knots out of tangled prose.

The choice of gender in pronouns can be deliberately provocative and can also be alienating. I don’t think there’s a slide rule of implications that will automatically determine what’s right. I do think that author and editor together can discuss why (or even if) a choice has been made, and whether it’s been an informed and directed one. Is the author trying to conform to a vocabulary mutually agreed upon by a preselected readership? What if a term is comfortable to the writer or to the person described, but not to readers outside the preselected group? Who should prevail?

I often think of myself as playing the role of Gentle Reader with an author. That is, my job isn’t to
correct
his or her words, but to alert the author to the impact of his or her phrases: “This is how I read this sentence; this is what it says to me. Is that what you
want
it to say? Is that the most effective (or most direct, or most evocative, or most provocative) way of accomplishing that end?” The run of issues is usually similar from project to project. Is the argument well documented? Is the evidence there? Is the presentation effective? Is the language sensitive and accurate? Is its effect what you want? It’s not always easy to listen with an open mind to the author’s answers to my questions when I still may profoundly disagree with aspects of his argument, assumptions, or conclusions, but my job isn’t to impose my will and worldview on every book I publish, just to give them the benefit of my skepticism.

When are we through? Obviously, every book takes a different course, but they all wind up in somewhat the same place. A book is done when the author can say to me with absolute conviction: “This is how I want to say it, damn it, and I stand by my words!” (Or sometimes, “This is the best I can do, and I think it’s good enough.”) In a reasonable world, that is also the place where I believe the manuscript does what I wanted it to do in the beginning, and I stand by it as well.

At this point, I (perhaps in conjunction with a battery of attorneys, expert readers, and colleagues) must make the decision whether to accept the manuscript or not. This is of course the second key moment in a book’s life. Once a book is accepted, the publisher is under legal, contractual responsibility to publish it within a specific period of time, and I firmly believe publishers should be held to that legal obligation, regardless of shifting winds of opinion within or outside the house. The fact that many publishers’
contracts already contain language covering the publisher’s failure to fulfill that obligation indicates that not everyone agrees. I recognize that the changing contingencies in the fragile marketplace can place a publisher in an awkward bind, but face up to those realities at the moment of acceptance.

Stage Three is the preparation for publication once the manuscript is complete. With potentially noisy manuscripts, I believe it’s part of my job to pave the way for the book in-house by preparing the sales and marketing staff; this might include alerting them to the nature and extent of the controversies in which the book engages, what kinds of reactions we might expect from reviewers, and whether the author belongs to one camp or another in a particular academic or political battle. Forewarned is forearmed; if I can keep a publicist from being caught by surprise by a hostile interviewer, or give the sales department the essential context from which a book was written, there are likely to be fewer unpleasant surprises or unmet expectations. This is as important a part of “positioning” the book as is trying to predict the size of a book’s audience. While, as I’ve said before, it’s the unanticipated breakouts and breakthrough books that in the long run generate the greatest profits, I don’t think you do anyone—author or publisher—a favor by unrealistically overselling a book. The clearer we can all be on why a book is important, and what our expectations are, the happier we’ll be when the book goes on to exceed them wildly.

…

The assumed neutrality—that supposed value-free stance that publishers like to claim they are taking when publishing controversial materials—is worth examining closely. It works in two directions—when we’re asked to publish works that, in all likelihood, the larger part of the book-buying audience will find disturbing (and therefore not buy), and when we’re asked to publish works that we ourselves find disturbing, but that we believe people “out there” will agree with, will embrace, and will buy. The argument is generally made that publishers are not complicit in any crime simply by “giving the world what it wants,” that in fact they are under obligation to provide books across the board or spectrum. Therefore, publishing the distasteful-but-popular is seen as a neutral position, with the editor as a mere cipher passing along public taste. In fact, no part of a book’s publication is neutral. Choosing to publish, at least the way books are published today, confers an inescapable kind of legitimacy on a writer or public figure by the act of a commercial presentation of his or her argument.

I think we are, more often than not, disguising our moral responsibility with market-oriented camouflage. We do not just present undigested documents to the world for the world at large to read, analyze, and respond to.
In every aspect of the packaging, presentation, and in the language with which we describe books, we are attempting to influence and control the reception of that book, by reviewers and critics, by booksellers, and by readers. We aren’t saying, “Read these words, judge for yourselves,” but “This is the truth.” We grant authenticity and legitimacy by our imprimatur and, equally important, by advertising, author tours, and the other usual mechanisms of the marketing apparatus. We deliberately attempt to control the debate or reception with our labels, covers, copy, promotion efforts, and even with our name and logo on the spine.

The book was once (and sometimes still can be) a source of celebritydom, but book publishing is increasingly embedded within a vast network of media events and exploitation of material—star in a movie, do the talk shows, film an exercise video, endorse a spaghetti sauce or perfume, write a book. Publishers would be fools not to cash in on their portion of this exploitable market, but we should also not let what was once a
by-product
of publication (fame) become a necessary
prerequisite
for a book contract. While not everyone agrees with me, I believe that in fact it’s part of a publisher’s obligation to give voice to just those people who don’t qualify for the nine-city tour, that balancing big and little books is a sign of a publisher’s healthy recognition that we, in fact, are not mere merchants of cultural artifacts.

…

Naturally, I’m attracted to writing that already reflects my own set of beliefs, but I’ve had my mind changed many a time, just as I think I’ve changed the mind or at least the temporary orientation of some of my writers. Sometimes I come across a book that I know will play a key role in moving a debate along because of its extreme position. I might find that the argument, be it about feminist psychology, national drug policy, black capitalism, or colonial Indian policy, strays much further than I personally find acceptable. But if I feel confident that giving voice to this extreme point of view will make a concrete and positive contribution to a debate, then publishing the book is a responsible act. Is this imposing on the world my will, my prejudices, through the act of selection? Of course. But so is signing up a book because you think it will make money.

The powers of persuasion of a book, and of a publisher, are large and terrible, and none of us should ever lose sight of that. If you truly believed numbers tell the only truth, then compared to the awesome audience draw of a single television show or movie, our impact on the world should be almost undetectable; instead we influence debate, thought, individual self-image, public policy, national conscience and consciousness. With that influence comes an inescapable obligation to attend to the unpopular as well
as popular, the troubling as well as the conventional, to give voice to those who would be silenced by the majority of opinion-makers or by purveyors of fame. I know I have an obligation to those who pay my salary to give them a return on their investment in me. I like to believe that they understand this return can come in more forms than hard currency, and I try to confirm for them that it’s true. Changing the way we think has its value, and books have proved a durable vehicle for such social change.

This does not mean I advocate the indiscriminate publication of provocative materials just
because
they are unpopular. Difficult ideas have to pass scrutiny so that their arguments hold up against the evidence amassed. But we can’t surrender our responsibilities either from fear of the bottom line, fear of associating ourselves with a disturbing thought, or fear of mere dissent from the prevailing wisdom. Writers may owe us a great deal, as their stalwart editors and defenders of their faith, but we owe them something, too.

The Question of “Political Correctness
”