Note: Have you weighed in yet on the “Writing for Snob’s” poll? You still can.
Let’s assume for the purposes of this post that writing — writing fiction in particular — is an art. Let’s also assume that I’m going to be playing devil’s advocate, asking impertinent questions, and making outrageous statements….
Is writing a solo art or a collaborative art? And by collaborative, I don’t necessarily mean two or more writers working together. What about collaboration between a writer and an editor? Is it necessary for a writer to have someone else edit their work before it is published? Do we expect artists in other disciplines to use editors? What about painters? Sculptors? Musicians? Ooh, is writing a performance art?
Editor to Michelangelo re:David — Shorten the hair, give him bigger biceps, and put a fig leaf “down there” so we don’t need a parental advisory.
The genesis of this post lies in three recurring themes I’ve been seeing a lot recently. 1. Surveys about the quality of what we read and how much we are bothered by errors in spelling and grammar. 2. Advice to aspiring authors on the necessity of editing [and other services such as cover art and page layout] especially when self-publishing. 3. Rants about the lack of proper spelling and grammar skills among the general public.
Every one of the surveys I’ve seen about the quality of writing has been posted by a writer, agent, editor, or publisher on sites where the responses come from other writers, agents, editors, or publishers. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of us think accurate spelling and grammar are very important. [Note: I did not actively seek out these surveys; they are on sites I was reading anyway because of my interest in writing. There may very well be similar surveys posted somewhere with replies from a broader cross section of the reading public.] Sometimes these surveys are coupled with a post wondering why some books — self- or indie-published books — that are filled with spelling and grammatical errors sell very well.
Let’s consider that in the light of #3 up there. If most people don’t know or don’t care about spelling and grammar in what they write [one person in a Google + discussion suggested, "Have you been on Facebook?" for evidence of poor language skills] then I have to conclude that they either don’t know enough or don’t care enough to be bothered by poor spelling or grammar in what they read. That would certainly take some of the mystery out of why those books sell well. Presumably those books have very compelling stories or some other quality that attracts the readers.
And if it is true that there are a large number of readers who don’t know or don’t care about proper spelling and grammar, then doesn’t that mean it’s okay to publish work without the services of an editor? If we want to sell books and there is a market for books that include poor spelling and grammar, why bother? By eliminating the editor, you decrease the time and cost of getting your book to market.
Editor to DaVinci re: Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo — The smile is ambiguous and the title is way too long. How about just “Lisa” for the title?
So let’s get back to the question of whether we expect artists in other disciplines to use editors. I think not. When I see a painting, for example, I believe I am seeing the expression of that artist at a particular point in time. I don’t expect someone to have been looking over their shoulder while they paint saying, “What the hell are you doing?” or “You missed a spot.”
We may see an artist’s technique evolve [improve?] over time if we compare several of their works. Some artists get so popular/famous [usually long after they are dead] that even preliminary sketches, studies, and unfinished works become valuable. Beginning painters require training and practice [and might indeed have someone looking over their shoulder], but they still might offer their work for sale while they are learning.
At some point though, we expect them to become “professional” or a “master painter” and produce high quality works without supervision. They might even become a “visionary” and veer far from the mainstream, producing work that critics, the public, even other artists do not understand or appreciate [until long after they are dead]. Still, we usually end up respecting them for following their vision and making those “mistakes” despite the lack of support. Perhaps especially if that meant their work did not sell well [until long after they are dead].
Writers though — even the biggest-selling, most talented, most experienced writers — we expect to consult with an editor before releasing their work to the public. Is writing more complex or more difficult than painting? Is there some fundamental difference between the art of writing and other forms of artistic expression?
Editor to Vermeer re:Girl with a Pearl Earring — Good start. I’d love to see this when it’s finished.
Let’s not forget that, while telling stories is a very old human activity, publishing books is a relatively new activity. And let’s not forget that publishing is a business and, despite all the claims of “gatekeeping” and maintaining high standards, like all businesses it is mostly concerned with making a profit. So, is requiring editing just another way for publishers to justify keeping a percentage of the profits [if a book even makes a profit]? Would an art gallery tell a painter, “We’d like to display your landscape, but first put more blue in the sky and a different shade of green in this foliage.”? Is every written work essentially a work for hire?
How do you think the art of writing compares to other forms of artistic expression? How much of writing should be aimed at creating great art and how much for simply entertaining the masses [and selling lots of books]? Are you a writer and if so do you consider yourself to be an artist? Feel free to tell me what you think in the comments. Next week I’ll compare book publishing to music publishing.
Let's do Something Cheap and Superficial 
Some random thoughts:
-Isn’t the need for an editor partly to do with quantity? A single sentence or a 50 word flash would be easy to check on your own. However a 100000+ word novel is a much tougher job to check for consistency and errors.
-Graphic novels have editors, is that just for the text? Because here there are multiple images that collectively tell a story and need to work cohesively as a whole.
-Film is another good example of visual storytelling and we all know how powerful good editing is there.
-On the subject of poor spelling/grammar being ok if the reader doesn’t mind, I agree up to a point. If it doesn’t impede understanding or enjoyment then ok (and that’ll have a lot to do with the readers opinions on spelling and grammar!) but sometimes errors actually damage the storytelling by jarring the reader or simply by not making sense!
So I think a good editor is important for those of us not gifted and patient enough to do it for ourselves.
Thanks, Peter. Some interesting points. I think you’re right that quantity makes editing more difficult. So does that mean that longer forms like novels should be collaborative rather than individual works?
Film and other graphic media are almost exclusively large group collaborative endeavors and I’ll address those in another post.
~Tim
Well, I’m torn on this issue. At the end of the day, some writers need editors more than others, and all could benefit from them.
So I won’t say that editing is going away, or that it will or should go away. But it’s definitely changing as a consequence of the writing process becoming more transparent. You still have traditional editors at publishing houses, of course, but fiction presented less formally on the web undergoes a different sort of process. Anyone can suggest changes. It’s less like copy editing and more like peer review. And I think that’s an exciting prospect.
I never liked that dichotomy. It isn’t useful, especially to writers themselves, who shouldn’t even worry about such things — they should write things they’d want to read, and that’s it. All art is functionally entertainment, and which art is “great” depends upon which mode of entertainment is dominant among the elite opinion-setters (right now, that seems to include irony and a kind of classicism that extends forward into the middle ages).
On that note (and to make my little rant relevant), grammar is also an ever-changing social contract, which is why I think a “peer review” kind of editing could be inestimably useful. A single editor can only be so caught up on linguistic trends.
Thanks, ZJW. I agree that peer review for web-based content is exciting. How about for e-books? I think that’s controversial now, but if a work can be easily corrected/updated, why not take advantage of that. And if your audience is a participant in editing the work, isn’t that the ultimate in collaborative work?
I also love that you pointed out, “grammar is also an ever-changing social contract,” and I’ll be addressing that in a future post.
~Tim
You have a good point about the collaborative aspect. We still wonder and debate over how much influence Max Perkins had over Wolfe, Fitzgerald, Hemingway and others. In the more casual case, is the author 99.999996% responsible, with the miniscule amount of credit going to someone who grammar-checked it. Why that little? Because while competent usage of the language is paramount, almost no manuscripts are that devoid of sound English. The errors make up a minority that only look numerous when that’s what you’re preoccupied with. Additional decimal point points would go for feedback, beta reading, etc., people brought into the creative process to collaborate, even if their roles are always secondary and as support. I’d still call it an independent artform, though, barring the few people who actually manage to compose by committee. The gross amount of the work is done on one’s own, as opposed to a film, where the gross amount of the work is done in some size of a group.
As Peter already expressed, something the length of a novel is far too complex to compare the experience of it to the experience of a painting. The author can’t step back from his canvas and survey the whole work. We need to graph approximations and abstracts. One might compare it to the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but that leaves me very uncomfortable (and dubious over how much we know of Michelangelo’s real process).
Thanks, John. You’re absolutely right that we can’t step back and survey a novel the way we might a painting and I think that’s an important distinction. Also, a comment on my link to this on Google + pointed out that many great classic painters employed apprentices and journeymen to do part of the work and they added final details. So painting is not necessarily a solo art either.
~Tim
okay, I’ve read this twice, and like it . . . that said, grammar/spelling also functions as a sort of lens or filter that affects one’s ability to perceive or understand a piece of writing . . . reductio ad absurdum: if the grammar/spelling used in a sentence degrades too much, it would become impossible to understand the sentence at all . . . so maybe the takeaway is one of degree. Maybe it’s okay for there to be some “flaws” as long as there are not so many to interfere with the readers’ ability to ingest what is being communicated . . . so yes, I think you’ve found another publishing industry idol that needs to be knocked down. kudos.
Thanks, Kirsten. I think you’re right that the point at which spelling and grammar errors affect the reader’s ability to understand the material is one we need to keep in sight. I plan to elaborate on that in another post.
~Tim
I remember reading everything a certain writer (who I’ll call X) put out and thinking what tightly knit, well-paced writing it was. After one title went to the NYT bestsellers’ list, X switched publishers because the old publisher wanted to heavily edit the next opus. When I read this masterpiece, I was disappointed by how wordy and redundant X’s writing had become and continued for the remainder of X’s career. From this experience I learned a valuable lesson in not letting ego get in the way of quality. Having a third party look at one’s work is invaluable. Even if I end up self-publishing all my work, I would pay for an editor to clean up my work. Better to get constructive criticism now than before the whole world sees it.
There’s also something about the professionalism involved in having your work grammar checked as well as read for clarity, cohesion and readability. Writing that isn’t well edited is painfully obvious – whatever the genre. It’s difficult to take the message seriously when one has to reread it to figure out what it says. If you care about your work being the best product possible, get an outside party to edit it for you and give your work the best chance at success.
Thanks, Ana. Can’t all that — constructive criticism, checking grammar, clarity, cohesion, and readability — be provided by beta readers? [Still playing devil's advocate] ~Tim