When I was asked to start writing a "blog" for Huffington Post - "on anything you want," no less - two thoughts entered my mind. First I thought, "What will I write about?" Then I thought, "Who will fuck with what I write?" You see, I'm at the tail end of a two-and-a-half year process of writing and publishing my second book (It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive, Riverhead, May '08; C'mon, you think I'm doing this for my health?). I've also dabbled in magazine writing. Each experience has brought new fascination with the differences between what a writer wants to write, and what a writer is willing to write in order to get published. It's a well-worn topic when it comes to movies and television, familiar even to those who have no connection to the entertainment industry. Everyone knows that so-called "creative executives" muck around with what screenwriters and television show creators create (see Robbie Baitz's scintillating HuffPo posts Leaving Los Angeles, parts 1 and 2 if you want a recent heart-wrenching rendition). They give "notes." They turn what they once LOOOVED, and wanted desperately to purchase, into something else entirely, often something the creator of the project really HATES. And thus it has always been.
But I think most civilians have no idea to what extent the same forces can conspire against a single-minded vision when it comes to books and magazines. My books have my name and photograph on their covers. Those books will forever be associated almost exclusively with me. Very few people will ever know who my editors were, just as few will remember what company published them. Yet, in addition to the undeniable assistance I received in improving each rendition, there were substantial compromises made in terms of content and tone. Neither of my memoirs are precisely the books I would have chosen to write.
Would the books have been better if I'd been left alone? That's not the judgment I'm looking to make. What interests me is the fact that I would have produced tomes that more completely, and forcefully, presented my own undiluted points of view. I'm of the opinion that that's what readers are looking for when they fork over their $25. I'm of the opinion that that's what readers think they're getting.
Fifteen years ago I gave the first public performances of my first written work. It was a solo theater piece called Time on Fire that told the story of my horrifying experiences fighting not only acute leukemia, but also fighting many of the individuals and institutions supposedly devoted to its eradication. (The similarities between the ironies of sadistic physicians who inhibit recovery and tyrannical editors who clamp down on free expression have not been lost on me to this point.) Shortly after the show began its off-Broadway run I was asked to okay a major excerpt appearing in the very prestigious Harpers Magazine. The only problem with this was that the editor who approached me wanted to do the cutting of the piece herself, and then presented me with something that substantially altered the impact and meaning of my play.
Some of the changes I couldn't accept were minor in comparison to the impingements on the whole. For instance, In my play I wrote about the informed consent form I was given upon my first hospital admission. The form told me that, while 65% of the patients diagnosed as I had been would achieve remission, 80% would have a recurrence of the disease within two years. Second remissions were achieved in no more than 50% of those patients, and the length of that remission averaged in at only half the length of the first remission. Third remissions were achieved in less than 5% of those who tried. The consent form ended with a sentence that read, "Survival rates beyond five years do not exceed twenty-five percent." I was twenty-four years old when I read it.
In my play I wrote, "I looked at that sentence for a long time. I studied the way the ink stained the clean white paper to form the letters, and how the letters formed the words that were conspiring to end my life." The phrase "conspiring to end my life" had been circled in red pencil by the editor. She'd written in neat script next to it, "A bit strong, no?"
I was a twenty-four year old who'd been told he was as good as dead. "Strong" is what I was after.
The editor suggested I change the passage to read, "I studied the way the ink stained the clean white paper to form the letters, and how the letters formed the words that I saw written there."
How does one even respond to that? How does a neophyte respond, being offered publication of his first written work?
If you're me, you respond by agonizing for days, then calling the editor and suggesting, very meekly, that perhaps you'd like to have a crack at doing the cutting of the work yourself. If you're Harpers Magazine, you respond to that suggestion by saying, "take it or leave it," and withdrawing the offer of publication.
Or, actually, this exchange occurred first:
Me: "Do your readers know how much you alter what your authors have written? Maybe you should do a "Before and After" issue, where you print two versions of everything, so they could see."
Editor: "Evan, it's my responsibility to act as a conduit between our writers and our readers."Me: "Well, I'm not sure your readers know they're being fed the work of a conduit. I know I don't want to be represented by one."
Then they withdrew the offer. Maybe I wasn't so meek after all.
But probably I was foolish. At least naïve. An eight page excerpt from my play in Harpers - no matter how brutally squelched and softened - quite possibly could have transformed my existence at that point in time. Still (if you can't tell) I'm kind of proud of myself for that one.
And, if you're intrigued by my "Before and After" idea, you should run to find the recent article in the New Yorker in which Raymond Carver's original writings are published side-by-side with Gordon Lish's edited versions ("edited" being an imprecise term; Lish apparently thought nothing of re-writing Carver's endings himself.) Correspondence between the two is also published. I could hardly take in air as I read the brilliant Carver's alternately commanding and supplicant-like pleas to have his work left alone and published as he intended. It wasn't. Lish published what he liked. He published what he'd written, with Carver's name on it.
So, when HuffPo came a-knockin' at my door, the first thing I asked was, "How does it work? Do I write what I want, or are there (gasp) editors over there who'll work over what I send in?"
My answer came almost immediately. "As long as you're not threatening murder, write whatever you want and we'll post it as you like."
Now, that's my kind of offer. That's my kind of writing, and that's my kind of reading. It might not always be as polished. There might be more thistle and gristle to hack my way through until I get the author's point. But I'll know whose point it is, and that it's been made in the way that most pleases him or her. Ultimately, I'll know the author - or at least what the author wants me to know. And isn't that a slice of what reading is all about?
For example, the editor writing in here noted that the grammar of your sentence lead to the implication that the words themselves were conspiring against you-- and to him/her that was an absurd metaphor/ assumption. The rationale, purpose, and wording of the document you signed is viewed as somehow "neutral," "invisible" and non-causational even though the unsalutory experience of having to read such a document at such a time results from the reality that health care is provided within a given medical/legal context, which we are trustingly supposed to ignore.
The impact of those words upon your thoughts, feelings, immunity, consciousness, energy level etc. is not considered to be "real" by the prevalent but unstated beliefs of the medical establishment which had given you that document. Could reading those words make someone anxious, contribute to sleeplessness, or any other possibly mind/body impacts that might effect the health outcome?
Many people, even those who traffic in language professionally, believe that when it comes to health or indeed "reality," that only biochemistry has power while words, messages, metaphors, images etc. don't. An editor red-penciling with that belief is not just correcting grammar, but also purveying a certain mindset.
In fact, there now are studies that show that so-called "meaningless" words like these might contribute to outcomes in someone less resilient, aware, and fortunate than you. Your feistiness, awareness of your feelings, and even outrage probably helped buffer their effect, thankfully. Great to have you with us in this wonderful forum!
Your editor was wrong, strong would have been the better way to go, more authentic.
Your diagnosis statement reminded me of some of the brilliant writing of Paul Monette, he had some elegy poems called Love Alone that were as powerful as any I had read.
I had a similar situation with an Art Director when offered a show of my Automatic Drawings. She declined the show saying that they "should be more alike and consistent".
The "automatic drawings" come in a half trance when I let my hand go and it draws whatever the unconscious motor impulses send it, each is unique and delightful, usually being characters/people, recognizable and complete.
You can't control them, can't make them anything at all...they draw themselves only when my will is out of the way.
Thats the beauty of them, and watching them come through without mucking them up with my intellect is the trick.
One Art Director did recognize their rarity and eventually did the show and was very pleased.
With self-publishing on the rise, it won't be long before authors don't have to be dictated to by editors...as someone mentioned already .
I'm pretty sure this sentence implies something very different than what was intended, though:
"I looked at that sentence for a long time. I studied the way the ink stained the clean white paper to form the letters, and how the letters formed the words that were conspiring to end my life."
What is being said here is that the words themselves were conspiring to kill the writer. That is actually rather amusing. We editors have some good laughs at this ind of error.
I disagree with the editor that thought this passage "too strong." In actuality it sounds rather stupid.
I'm sure many writers think that their ignorant misuse of the English language makes them Jack Kerouac or James Joyce. But it doesn't.
You were among the very best things EVER to happen to Sex and the City and Californication.
I feel certain at this point that you have the dough to self-publish: this eliminates the editor factor altogether.