Editors. Pink Elephants. Enivrez-Vous.

More thoughts about editors…

Involved with any text are three individuals, who are sometimes the same and sometimes very different: a writer, a reader, and an editor.

Each of the three has an equal but different claim upon the piece in question. The writer wants to express something unique to his or her own intellect. The reader wants to hear something which impacts directly on his or her experience of the world, or lack thereof.

The editor…and again, remember, I was one…is an equal partner of the other two, but the least honest of the three. The editor believes, or pretends to believe that he or she knows what the author should be saying and what the reader should want to hear, even though they may have quite different ideas about their preferences.

In fact, of course, this is a carefully planned exercise in self-delusion. The editor has no clearer idea of what ought be written or read than anyone else. But that is in no way to suggest that the editor is valueless. Quite the reverse. Delusion is vital to creation. It adds a note of chaos to a situation that might otherwise be crippled by its own perfection.

Thus the real purpose of the editor. Not to smooth but to roughen. Not to confirm but to confuse. Not to clarify but to intoxicate. To be, in other words, the White Rabbit. The Green Fairy. The Pink Elephant.

Enivrez-Vous.