I know I’ve never seen an ad for a copyeditor that listed creativity or cleverness as the required qualifications. But not everyone understands that our work offers a great deal of potential for . . . fun.
If they only knew! While it’s true that we usually aren’t the originators of whatever we’re editing, that doesn’t mean that the creative effort is finished before we start in. Rather, we’re part of it. I often think we have the best part.
Creating ex nihilo is tough work; polishing someone else’s work and pushing it to the next level can be challenging and joyful. Improving a text is all about problem solving, and the more creative we are, the better our solutions.
People who tinker with cars, adjust recipes, alter clothes, or copyedit have in common that we start with something that’s not perfect yet and use our minds and tools to bring it into alignment, give it more flavor, make it fit. The best of us are masters of improvisation. And when we’re in the midst of concentrating and things are falling into place—in the midst of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi made famous as “flow”—well, don’t let anyone tell you that’s tedium or drudgery.
It’s fun.
Last week in this space I talked with novelist and editor Clifford Garstang; in occasional future posts, I hope to continue to engage with writers, artists, and others in the creative community who have something interesting to share. I hope you’ll join me here.
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Photo by Colin Behrens, courtesy of Pixabay.
I've done a little copyediting (at a non-pro level), and I occasionally ran into the problem of taking the creative tinkering a little too far, which is to say that the author didn't like my recommendations for their text. How do you, as one of the top pros, balance the creative nature of copyediting with the author's ownership of the text? Is there a good way to avoid overstepping your bounds? Are authors (thinking mostly fiction here) ever wrong in their possessiveness, or is this not even much of a problem when you're working with professional writers?
Posted by: Melissaipsa | 07/12/2010 at 11:54 AM
Thanks, Melissaipsa—this is an excellent question. I'll answer it next time. —Carol
Posted by: Carol Saller | 07/12/2010 at 12:09 PM
I feel that you're conflating "fun," and "creative" in this post, without providing a lot of support for your claim that copyediting work is creative.
I know that a certain brand of creativity within the constraints of the project can be an asset in a copyeditor. A copyeditor who can suggest a snappier subheading or re-write a sentence to solve copyfit problems so that the sentence preserves both the author's meaning and voice is an awesome asset to have on a project. A copyeditor who takes it upon herself to "fix" the author's style or voice, or rewrite approved text can display rather too much creativity, and might be better off selling her services as a writer or developmental editor.
Posted by: jennie | 07/12/2010 at 12:27 PM
Jennie, thanks for your thoughts. But I'm not talking about silly fun—I'm talking about the deeper joy and satisfaction that comes with meeting a challenge creatively, whether physical or intellectual. I can't think of anything more "fun" than that. —Carol
Posted by: Carol Saller | 07/12/2010 at 12:49 PM
I work with an academic author who writes exactly as he talks. When I edit his work, I do use creativity to turn his words around a bit and help him capture what he is actually saying. He's brilliant. I help him by switching around his modifiers a bit, and suggesting different text when he repeats words in a sentence. It seems to work well, and it's satisfying, creative work.
As for going too far, I find that if I always approach from the perspective of "I'm here to help *you* sound like *you*," things usually go well. I also tend to make actual changes to the text for only grammar and style edits. Anything else, I consider a "suggestion" and I share those in comments or a cover letter to the author.
Posted by: Julie Stella | 07/12/2010 at 03:09 PM
I'm utterly bemused that anyone would think otherwise. Journalists usually have to conform to house style and no one would say that they're not creative.
Posted by: Kaite | 07/15/2010 at 03:19 PM