Operation: Editor By Ann Kempner Fisher

What exactly does an editor do?" is a question I've often been asked ever since I began editing books (fiction and non-fiction) fifteen years ago. Rarely at a loss for words, (pun intended) I usually go into my lengthy explanation, during which the potential client, workshop or class member becomes enlightened, then nervous and worried. This is followed by the response, "Uh-oh, are you going to do that to my book?" Translation: "Will I recognize my book when you're finished with it?"

Although I thought I had been explaining my work rather well, I recently read Michael Korda's new book, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, and discovered that he has written the definitive explanation of what editing is all about, as well as those who practice this profession. Korda is the author of several books, including a few best-selling novels, and is editor-in-chief at the publishing giant, Simon & Schuster. He's a man of literary taste and talent, knowledge and wit, and very quotable.

Korda sees editors as "a curious combination of cheerleader and story doctor, fixers-up of lame prose, inventors of the dramatic ending to a scene (instead of the one that fizzles out) ruthless cutters who don't hesitate to challenge everything the author has done in the attempt to make the book work the way it could, or the way it was supposed to, and who can sometimes guess what the author was trying to do and show him or her how to get there…"

"Real editors, if they're any good, also know when to leave well enough alone. ‘If it's good, don't touch it' might be the first rule of our oath, if we had one."

"Editing is something of an art, and something of a mystery as well. Nobody teaches it, of course; you're born to it, the way a good surgeon is born with the right hands; it's something you either can or can't do, though apprenticeship doesn't hurt."

Real editors don't necessarily have to spell or articulate the rules of grammar," but as Korda points out, they do have to know how to "reshuffle the chapters to give the book a drop-dead beginning and a surprise ending…cut a manuscript from seven hundred pages to four hundred…the best editors slash, cut, change, and rewrite boldly in ink." Amen.

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