Cape Town Book Fair Discussion:

"Don't Kill My Darlings"

Lynda Gilfillian

This discussion took place at the Cape Town Book Fair, held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, during the Kwela Coffee hour, 11 am to 12 pm on Monday 19 June 2006. Editors and writers Henrietta Rose-Innes, Ken Barris, Simão Kikamba, Lynda Gilfillian and James Woodhouse discussed the editing process, the difference between killing and crafting, and the criteria for a good editor.

By way of introduction to the topic, I'd like to recall Michelle Magwood's comments in the Sunday Times a year ago about the sad state of local editing. A few months after Magwood's article appeared, Blake Morrison of the London Observer wrote an article, "Black Day for the Blue Pencil", which examines the parlous state of editing in the UK - and many of his comments bear repeating. For one thing, a culture that doesn't care about editing is a culture that doesn't care about writing.

The topic of today's discussion issues a stern warning to those who take on the task of editing: "Don't kill my darlings." In doing so, however, it conjures up a pervasively negative stereotype of editors: at worst, they are murderers, and at best, butchers (it was Henry James who described editing as "the butcher's trade"). Yet, as Morrison points out, it is not only butchers who wield knives, but also surgeons.

Nevertheless, let's explore the metaphor of cutting and killing. Byron associated editing with emasculation: he refused to subject himself to a process he equated with "gelding". For John Updike, being edited was "a little like going to ... the barber" - an awful experience if, like him, you "dislike haircuts" (Zadie Smith's recent prize-winning tome could have done with a bit of a trim, I feel - though for once, at the Orange Award ceremony for On Beauty, this rather prolix author confessed to being "at a loss for words"). In the light of sentiments such as those expressed by Byron and Updike, it is perhaps unsurprising that certain authors deny altogether not only the value, but the validity of editing. Nabokov dismissively declares, "By editor I suppose you mean proofreader."

It is probably safe, though, to say that every writer - even a great writer - needs an editor. When that inveterate reviser/editor of his own novels, Henry James, described the novel form as a "loose and baggy monster", he was surely implying the value - even for Tolstoy - of a bit of judicious trimming.

The metaphor of editor as killer opens an interesting debate: What is the psychology that underlies such allegedly pathological behaviour? Are editors simply brutish bullies who take out their frustrations on authors? Morrison reminds us that when that most eminent editor, TS Eliot, was asked whether editors are no more than failed writers, he replied: "Perhaps - but so are most writers."

At this point, let's return to the rather sly topic of today's discussion. Behind the command "Don't Kill My Darlings" lurks a subtly ironic dig - at writers themselves. The phrase "my darlings" suggests that to a writer, a literary creation is often like a child, and sometimes, perhaps, a rather indulged one at that. But who would actually choose to spend time with another's undisciplined and clamorous offspring - all "me, me, me", utterly oblivious to the desires and preferences of others? All too often, these "darlings" develop into self-indulgent, narcissistic adults who take themselves far too seriously, with no sense of self-irony, no wit, no capacity for self-critique. What reader would open the cover of a book that is just such a "darling"?

I suggest revisiting the metaphor of the topic: rather than editor as killer, murderer, how about midwife? - a professional who gently assists the writer in bringing the literary work into the world. For a good editor performs precisely this function, and does so by ever so carefully and respectfully listening to - and echoing - the work's unique story, its song, the very rhythm of its heartbeat.

Once born, a manuscript takes on a life of its own, quite apart from the author. Once a literary work is published, we may in a very real sense speak of the death of the author. For literature lives and breathes by the attention it receives from its readers. Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner" comes to mind here. The old seaman collars an impatient passer-by on his way to a wedding, then utters four simple words: "There was a ship" - yet the Mariner succeeds in holding the man's attention only when he fixes him with his "glittering eye". In telling his tale, the Mariner performs a kind of magic on the passer-by, so that the latter becomes helpless, seduced into listening to the rest of the story. The narrative seems to take on a life of its own - it has become something apart from the narrator - compelling the reader's/listener's attention. And the challenge for the Mariner - as for any storyteller or author - is to hold this attention, to ensure that nothing breaks the spell.

Having said all this, what exactly is it that an editor does? Yes, an editor does check facts (the more encyclopaedic an editor's knowledge, the better for the author). And a copy editor tightens up wordy prose, smooths awkward transitions, and generally fixes up problems such as those dreadful dangling modifiers. But editors also help map a route for hapless authors who may have lost their way in a forest of words.

Yet what is it that makes a good editor? The following are some of the qualities he or she needs:

• Integrity, an appreciation of the art of fiction, a love of language, of words. This love is a tough love: it courageously points out perceived flaws and failings during the collaborative process with the author.
  
• The ability to channel the author's "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings", so that the reader is not swept away in a deluge and knocked about with flotsam and jetsam and bits of debris. This involves, for example, pointing out repetition (such as pet words and phrases), inappropriate diction, and mixed metaphors; fixing sequence and structure; eliminating baffling ambiguities and unwitting contradictions; and reminding the writer of that important rule of the art of fiction: show, don't tell.
  
• Tact, above all, and sensitivity in attempting to clarify to the author what he or she is trying to say. Tact is especially necessary in instances where, for example, the preacher takes over from the artist, and where the writer may need to be reminded that her task as an artist is to delight as well as to teach. Finally, however, no matter how good or gifted an editor may be, or how ambitious she may be for a manuscript, she needs to remember that she is not the author, and that hers is neither the first nor the last word in the process of literary creation.

(For those interested in tracing the rise and fall of editing as a profession, Diana Athill's memoir, Stet, is instructive. Athill worked as an editor with Andre Deutch in London, and among the famous - and sometimes difficult - authors she collaborated with was VS Naipaul.)



LitNet: 22 June 2006

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