John Lennon and Paul McCartney were lucky: they met young and they learned to collaborate—in spite of their near-opposite personalities—before they grew up and, eventually, let other things (particularly adulthood) get in the way of the creativity they had together. Author Joshua Wolf Shenk has written about them and about the intersection of creativity and collaboration in a new book (Powers of Two) and in this feature story in the Atlantic. Shenk points out that each person in the collaboration has his role; it’s a give and take.

It struck me that this creative collaboration is a lot like old-fashioned editorial work. The only difference is by the time many writers find me, they’re adults with ideas and attitudes and beliefs that—at first (and maybe forever)—preclude true collaboration. Seriously, who said an author’s relationship with his editor is going to be adversarial? Not me. And this article in the Guardian posits that it’s revisionist history at best:

This myth of the destructive editor—the dolt with the blue pencil—is pervasive … A good illustration of this antipathy is the Cambridge edition of DH Lawrence. “Here at last is Sons and Lovers in full: uncut and uncensored,” the editors crow triumphantly. Their introduction goes on to allege … the text was “mangled”; that the editor Edward Garnett’s censorship was “coy and intrusive”; that Lawrence … “exploded” with rage.

Read Lawrence’s letters and you get a rather different impression. “All right,” he tells Garnett, “take out what you think necessary,” and gives him licence to do as he sees fit: “I don’t mind what you squash out … I feel always so deep in your debt.” … And when Lawrence is finally sent proofs, he’s not unhappy. “You did the pruning jolly well,” he tells Garnett, and dedicates the book to him. (Emphasis mine.)

I know it’s hard, this editing thing, for you. I have been edited myself (sometimes without even asking for it, ha), so I get it. But listen to me when I tell you this: the best (most skilled) writers I’ve ever worked with were the ones most eager to collaborate. In an editorial relationship, this involves a willingness to listen (and to hear), to consider other ideas, to just try one on for a moment. For adults, this isn’t always easy.

In practice, this takes many forms but here’s one example. I offered to brainstorm with a client to come up with ideas for a book title. I disliked what she was using, for several reasons that I was able to articulate. She agreed my thoughts had merit, and so we met at a busy little coffee shop downtown. We went over what we were trying to communicate and discussed the audience with whom we were trying to communicate; we took out some of the words I objected to and substituted simple placeholders. Then my author said one word that sparked something for me, I responded with a phrase, the author tweaked the phrase—and boom! boom! boom!— in twenty minutes we had a title, subtitle, and series title that made both of us smile. It was a very gratifying experience. The title retains little of what the author started with; but she was willing to consider and “try on” other ideas.

Conversely, some of the least experienced writers I’ve ever worked with were also the least willing to experiment or to hear any other thoughts. Sadly, these writers will never grow, because they are too busy defending their masterpieces. When an author with a first contract refuses to even consider changes—in fact, insists I don’t understand what he’s trying to do, insists the acquiring editor loves his work (oh, how many times I’ve heard that one!)—my interest in that manuscript wanes.

And when your collaborator loses interest, my friends, the quality of your creative work diminishes. That’s the bottom line.

Don’t take my word for it, though. Ask around, ask your writing friends who’ve been edited. Or read this: “Five Writers Talk About Their Book Editors.” I recommend the entire piece to you—the contributing authors are Haven Kimmel, Calvin Baker, Emily Gould, Matthew Gallaway, Don Van Natta Jr.—but here are a couple of excerpts.

From Kimmel:

Her editorial letter was thirteen single-spaced pages … I was to revise two first-person alternating POVs into close-third, meaning that the interior voices … would be gone, and all of that would have to be conveyed through prose alone. And the ending had to be the opposite of the way I’d written it. And one character had to be amplified, but she didn’t say how, and she had gone through paragraph by paragraph and marked those that had gone on a beat two long and those that needed one, two, or three beats more, which—HELLO—you tell me what that means. … My response was to lie down on the sofa in my study and stare at the ceiling for nearly a month, until my husband called my dear friend Lawrence Naumoff, a southern writer of unmatched depth and overall talent who was about as sucker-punched by New York publishing as anyone I can name. … Lawrence said, in his superfine accent, “Well, what you have to decide is if you’re a real writer or not, and if you’re a real writer you’ll stand up and get something to eat, then sit down at your desk and start at the first word and retype the entire thing—no cutting and pasting—and you will do every last thing your editor tells you to do, and you will not argue or protect your darlings, and in fact you will never again protect a darling, or think being edited is a violence. Okay?” I blinked, said, “Gotcha.” And that’s what I did. And [she] was right on every point.

From Gallaway:

My own method of dealing with editorial criticism is a multi-step process: 1) I allow myself to get angry or bitchy or annoyed that the editor didn’t understand what should be perfectly obvious, and to steam about it for a few hours; 2) I reconsider the comment a day or so later and decide that maybe she has a point; after all she’s very smart and she wouldn’t have bought the book if she didn’t love it (and she wants it to succeed as much as I do); 3) I make a genuine attempt to address the issue without sacrificing anything I consider integral to the book. …

I made it through the revision process with a lot of work and the kind of (self-inflicted) angst inherent to any meaningful writing, but with essentially no drama or confrontation, which I think is ideal for all parties concerned … Before you pick up the phone or click send on an angry e-mail, take a day off and think about a more adult way to express yourself; if your editor doesn’t support you and your work (or thinks you’re an asshole for whatever reason), it’s going to introduce a lot more uncertainty into what’s already an incredibly nerve-wracking and precarious journey.

See? Adults. Listening. Behaving like adults. Collaborating.

Not too long ago I wrote about the author/editor relationship, a post suggested by a friend of mine who’s a managing/acquisitions editor at a publishing house. Like me, she knows the process of bringing a book from the author’s mind to the printing press is all about relationship.

But it’s also about collaboration. And if you’ll think of it that way—you just might be astonished by what happens.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”