Between Author and Editor
by A. D. Coleman

Awhile back, a prestigious magazine commissioned a 750-word book review from me. The money was good. I worked hard on the piece, made a few suggested revisions -- and then found myself spending over an hour on the phone with a clearly young line editor whose concerns extended beyond grammar, syntax and factual accuracy, into the territory of critical opinion. I began to balk at the point that this novice asked if I minded substituting the word "result" for "offspring" to describe the outcome of a long collaboration between the book's two authors. He continued to press, on that point and others, in a way that indicated deep discomfort with strong position-taking on my part.

I acceded to a few of his suggestions, simply to placate him, but held fast on those I considered essential to the points I made. Nonetheless, this struck me as overstepping the bounds of line editing, and I told him so. Aside from that, it proved both tedious and time-consuming. So, when the galley proofs arrived accompanied by a note from the magazine's managing editor that reiterated some of those earlier suggestions, I drafted the following response.

October 26, 1995

ABC, Managing Editor
XYZ Magazine

Dear ABC:

Herewith the typescript of my review of Colin Westerbeck and Joel Meyerowitz's Bystander. I accept all your proposed changes (with the caveats below). I've made one of my own, as noted.

"Result" is a decidedly flavorless word. Having a 28-year-old son of my own, I do indeed know that "offspring = child." It does not strike me as an inappropriate word to use in describing a work that's been some seventeen years in the birthing, especially in conjunction with such other related words as "emerge" and "hybrid." I specifically wanted to suggest (on a metaphorical level) both the birth process and the genetic mingling of bloodlines that word denotes. I hesitate to ask what "odd implications for the collaboration here" this word evokes for whoever edited this. Do you truly believe that any reader will be so literal-minded as to think I'm insinuating that Meyerowitz and Westerbeck are gay, and that either of them impregnated the other with this book? (FYI, it's not uncommon to hear authors talk about their works as their children.)

Moving the parenthetical comment is your call.

I used both soupçon and hommages because the book is heavy with French literary and film references and French photographers; because Westerbeck uses a number of French words and phrases as seasoning (thus I'm hoisting him a bit on his own petard); but -- in the case of hommages -- primarily because the English version of the word applies more broadly to many kinds of respect-paying, while the French version is used more specifically (at least by Anglophones) to refer to tributes in the arts. (You wouldn't expect anyone in this country to speak of an hommage to a fallen comrade in World War II.)

I admire editing that insists on accuracy and clarity, and don't at all mind engaging with such professionalism, which seems increasingly rare. At the same time, there's such a thing as over-editing, and what I've gone through with you folks on this short piece has come perilously close to stepping across that line, if it hasn't actually done so. Some of what's been proposed to me has clarified (though, I think, minimally). One bit of fact-checking improved accuracy. Several suggestions simplified syntax (not necessarily to anyone's benefit; people generally don't find me hard to follow). But a number of alterations have made me feel as if I'm writing for Time magazine: toning down, blandifying, and conforming my prose to a house style. Why hire an eccentric, opinionated prose stylist if that's what you want?

Beyond that, there's a problematic level of patronization and preumptuousness at work here. "Offspring=child." (Really?) "Did you want to use the French word [hommages] here . . . ?" (No -- I accidentally mistook it for homages.) Would it not strike you as appropriate to assume that a professional writer who's spent three decades in the field wants to use exactly the words he's used, and knows the meaning of "offspring"?

Nowadays, I find myself frequently in the peculiar position of being edited by people young enough to be my "results." Their credentials are never presented to me. My writing has been polished over a 27-year period by editors at the New York Times (120 essays), the Village Voice (170 essays), the New York Observer (180 essays), and many other publications. At the risk of sounding arrogant, who has edited this piece of mine? How old is that person? How many essays has that person edited for publication, and by whom, and for which publications? What are his or her professional qualifications? Is he or she aware of mine? What have the journal's editors done to clarify and negotiate any disparities along those lines?

I don't say any of this to antagonize you or your colleagues, nor to trivialize your efforts to put out the best publication you can. But, putting this (I hope) last version of the piece next to the one I sent down to you to start with, I don't see that it's been much improved -- just changed. It's a little less pungent and sardonic, a little less idiosyncratic: that is to say, a little less me, a little more you (or whomever). Even if you're getting the editorial labor for free, what's your actual return on it? And what's mine? Do you think it's fitting that I should have to spend fifteen minutes arguing with an editor about whom I know nothing over my use of the word "pathological" to describe Garry Winogrand's making a third of a million negatives he never bothered to have developed and/or proofed, without receiving any background on that editor that would allow me to gauge his obvious anxiety over the use of so strong an adjective? What's the magazine's responsibility to the writer in this situation?

I've taken the trouble to write this on the assumption that we'll work together again in the future, and that in any case the feedback may prove useful to you and your colleagues. The contract is enclosed, and I look forward to seeing the piece in print.

Regards,
/s/ A. D. Coleman

This letter is previously unpublished. Postscript: I received an apologetic note from the Managing Editor, but never received any new assignments from the magazine.

Copyright © 2001 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. For reprint permissions contact Image/World Syndication Services, POB 040078, Staten Island, NY 10304-0002 USA;T/F (718) 447-3091, imageworld@nearbycafe.com