Trawl through my blog posts and you’ll see I’m very much in favour of editors and the criticism they offer. Because my life is almost devoid of beta readers, I often use editorial feedback to improve what I’ve written. It’s not an ideal system – each unsuccessful submission all but kills off a potential market, plus rejections featuring useful criticism have become fewer and fewer – but an objective eye from a professional is invaluable.
I offer the above as a caveat to temper this next statement: some editors are too strict.
By strict I don’t mean harsh or honest. Those are the qualities you want (need) in an editor. What I’m talking about are those editors who think their preferences should be enacted without question.
Prescriptive editing usually stems from an over-zealous adherence to a particular ‘law’ of writing. These laws, most of them outlined in The Elements of Style, are designed to be amino acids for the budding writer. Staying away from passive voice and keeping adverbs and adjectives to a minimum, for instance, are two skills a writer must learn if he hopes to have a modicum of success.
If an editor becomes an extremist in policing these things, however, he runs the risk of A) only publishing authors that are to his taste and B) overlooking amazing storytellers who could go on to make a motza for him or his publisher.
The early Harry Potter books are riddled with adverbs. Many are the worst kind of adverbs, too: those attached to dialogue. When I first picked up a Harry Potter novel, I was at a fundamentalist stage of my development as a writer and would brook no adverbs. Thus I dismissed J.K. Rowling as a hack.
The other day, I took a Harry Potter novel off my bookshelf and began to thumb through it. I realised that, yes, the novel would be better without the adverbs, but beyond them was enthusiastic and colourful storytelling of the kind that is especially appealing to younger readers. When I was sitting astride my high horse, though, I couldn’t see it.
I had a similar learning experience with passive voice. About a decade ago, I declared war on it. No magazine I edited would contain a single phrase of passive voice. I maintained this rule for many years and will attest that my writing (and others’) improved for it. But as time passed, I began to notice that in select – very select – instances, passive phrasing was both easier to understand and nicer on the ear. I now treat passive voice the same way I treat hyphens. I avoid it unless using it is an improvement on the active alternative.
Or let’s examine the exclamation mark. It can be the adverb of punctuation, a crutch that substandard writers use to add energy to flaccid prose. Unless used sparingly, exclamation marks make the writing (and its author) look ridiculous. But should an author never use an exclamation mark?
Again, I believe it comes down to purpose and effect. Does the author have a purpose in using the exclamation mark, or is he just being lazy?
I tend to use exclamation marks when a character is yelling. Not to indicate that he is angry (which should be conveyed through description and dialogue), but raising his voice – above background noise, shouting to someone, shouting at someone. I do this because sometimes it is the most economical way to show the reader how something is being said. And because, in real life, people talk in exclamation marks. An example? Glad you asked.
VERSION 1
Smithy spotted his mate on the far side of the road. He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Gus! Hey, Gus!”
VERSION 2
Smithy spotted his mate on the far side of the road. He cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Gus. Hey, Gus.”
In both cases, I’ve used description and action – Smithy seeing Gus at a distance and cupping his hands around his mouth – to imply that he is shouting. So I should not, in theory, need to use an exclamation mark. But any reader will see right away that the second ‘editorially correct’ version looks wrong. When you’re yelling across the road to your mate, you use exclamation marks.
So by all means, avoid exclamation marks. Just not for the sake of it.
Most of the time, writing’s ‘golden rules’ provide a trustworthy guide to achieving a smooth flow of language. But the editor who gets fanatical about them risks becoming narrow minded – and rejecting the next J.K. Rowling out of a compulsive need to reaffirm his own literary beliefs.