Editor's choice: A rare white sperm whale attacked a ship ...

There's a story I wrote that is in this new Iditarod book that has quite a history with editing. And, thinking about it brought up a whole thought train about the editing. It's a vital part of the publishing process, but often demeaned by the very people its sole purpose to help and unknown to most of the public, even the reading public.

First of all, every writer needs an editor. You can read books about a fellow named Max Perkins who worked for Scribeners in the mid 20th century. Among others he edited Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Wolfe and Erskine Caldwell. He turned down William Faulkner saying he couldn't handle another genius. Every one of those authors credits Perkins for making their work better.

As an editor myself at times, I have tried to live up to that standard.

Overall in my experience writing, the editors have done a great job. I only had two bad experiences and one misunderstanding well over-balanced by so many good ones. One of those editors has even become a lifelong friend.

Coincidentally two of the negative ones happened at a newspaper where I have worked several times over the years. It is a publication that has always held editing in low regard, and as a result discourages good editors. But that's another story.

The first, the misunderstanding, came in a story written about me. As a newsman I have always bridled at people saying they were misquoted or taken out of context, but then it happened to to me and now I look at those complaints a little more sympathetically. The arts editor at the time wanted to interview me about the creative process after my first book came out. In the course of the interview he asked me how much the book was edited. I told him it didn't get much editing, meaning to keep going about every writer needs an editor and I thought my book could have used more editing, but he moved  on quicker than I could respond.

When the story came out, the guy had written that I got a good editing because the editor didn't touch the manuscript very much. which was something I did not intend to say at all. What this guy did was apply his own attitude toward editing (read no editing is good editing) and then projected it onto me. I vowed never to be interviewed again. Now that's a laugh.  Believe me, it has never been an issue.

The other two were much worse. At least one of them didn't make it into print. An editor going over my first rhymes book actually rewrote a whole rhyme, in the process changing the metaphor to one of her own. I complained about that and suggested if this editor wanted to do original work she could write her own book. Fortunately this was changed back to the initial version before the book went to press.

The other one made it into print and that's the one that now, in its original form. is in the new Iditarod book.

I had showed it to the editor of the newspaper's Sunday magazine and she liked it and wanted to use it, which I agreed to hesitantly because I thought it might have a bigger audience. Now this was a story about an incident I observed on the Iditarod Trail and not being limited to a newspaper style of writing, I wrote more in the form of a fictional short story even though it was all true.

What came out in the paper had been totally rewritten more in the form of a news story. The climactic moment which I had carefully led to by the end of the story, was now the lead and in inverted triangle format – the standard news style putting the most vital information in the lead. The result was a bland account of what had been a dramatic if subtle drama.

So as I was thinking about this when the new book arrived, a comparison occurred to me that would explain what that editor did without having to post the story here and ruin a surprise in the book.

See if this sounds familiar to you, even if it is in the inverted pyramid style. It is how I would envision the result if this particular editor had gotten her hands on Melville's manuscript:

A rare white sperm whale attacked and sank a whaling vessel in the mid Pacific this week. Only one member of the crew survived, a man identified as Ishmael who was found drifting and clinging to an ornately carved coffin.

So much for the images of black and white signifying the combatants in the constant battle between good and evil. And so much for a dog musher subtly confusing another musher to gain a few minutes' lead in a thousand-mile race.

Max Perkins
The lost art of editing