On Erudite Writers
Editorial guidelines, values, and needs aren’t predictable, and editors can impede originality and inspiration.
Everywhere writing is published, there are specific and inconsistent standards of what’s deemed “acceptable writing.”
Apart from proper grammar and spelling, even if one reads the editorial guidelines thoroughly and pays heed to them while crafting a written work, one can never know how it will be received by editors, who often flaunt such procedures seemingly at a whim –accepting articles that expressly fail to abide by them and rejecting pieces that have strictly adhered to them, often based on the popularity or status of the author, not the merit of their work — least of all whether they’ve abided by editorial standards!
Editors are not necessarily superfluous, but when they conduct themselves this way, they become so quite rapidly. For these reasons, one is better off working with a deputy, associate, or assistant editor than a managing, senior, or executive editor. These “under-ling” editors and writers do the legwork needed to make publishing happen, while executives, seniors, and managers, like sea squirts, eat their own brains, as philosopher Daniel Dennett says of many tenured professors. And just as Dennett isn’t indicting all tenured professors — himself tenured — I’m not “calling out” all upper editors — though if that’s what some readers think, it isn’t my guilty conscience that needs examination!
What’s on such consciences? The destruction of originality, inspiration, and style in the written word purely for the sake of money and popularity. The solution to this for writers can only be leaning into developing their craft — independently or with trusted mentors — above finding clients and places to publish, as the former will bring about the latter, while the reverse outcome is impossible without making spiritual sacrifices of significant proportions.
Creatives must let go of their worship of audiences!
Standards Without Principle
Not everything lacks consistency in the editorial world. For example, formatting articles for SEO purposes, being able to write in AP style, doing high-level research for non-fiction writing, and being capable of writing in an original voice, should all go without saying. These are principles writers need — without them, they’ll lack a professional career. That being said, far more is needed than these basic skills. This is where standards start to become inconsistent due to the influence of subjectivity, moods, prejudices, and various other standards writers cannot predict.
Unsurprisingly, editorial standards are inconsistent within and without specifiable newsrooms or magazine offices, for broad standards applied to anything so idiosyncratic as writing are bound to disappoint those who view those standards as one might view an idol –something to be absolutely loved or hated, depending on one’s mood.
In other words, standards are only enforced insofar as editors feel like abiding by them, and this feeling varies depending on the second of the day more than anything else. There’s nothing “objective” about that! The willingness to view guidelines as necessary and unbreakable fluctuates over time as human emotions. An essay of the same quality will be denied, accepted, or worked through only depending on the editors’ mood –one can submit an essay in the morning that is accepted at that time but would be rejected if submitted a moment later or earlier. Sometimes, the mood of editors is ‘this is too hard for me to understand, so I won’t do the work to understand it so it can be edited.’ And once a single article has been tainted with that subjective uncomfortability, all future pitches and queries will be too.
Within well-known organizations, this is readily evidenced by the fact that if one editor does not like your writing –which can be for several reasons, each of which is liable to change within the hour, day, or week — there’s almost always another that will be willing to publish it. That indicates that writing guidelines aren’t concrete but entirely dependent upon the speculative opinions of individuals, many of whom simply phone it in at “their job.” If one can simply look across the hall for approval, the lack of it in the first instance shows that it had nothing to do with the writer and everything to do with the reader. Editors, in this respect, more often feel like salty readers than editors who want the best for my work. To regard noticing this fact as “unprofessional” is tantamount to a guilty mirror inspection. I’d rather be “unprofessional” than slip into cliches and whims!
What is an Editor?
Given this unsystematic norm — spoken of as if it were actually systematic and rigorous — in the editorial world, however, what does it really mean for an editor to edit?
What’s just been described is nothing more than an unofficial and unrigorous method of gatekeeping that has been officially sanctioned by those who own publications or those who work on behalf of owners to “impress” them or to “make their stamp” on a department. The standard, therefore, is not objective, empirical, or scientific, but it is only regarded as such by the gatekeepers themselves to maintain their optics of authority. Even though this isn’t all editors, it’s enough to suggest it’s most –phoning it in by the tune of utter arbitrariness, or fear of vocabularies that are too extensive, or disdain of writing that is “too smart.”
Whatever the motive, the consequence is a rejected work of writing with little explanation as to why and immediate positive alternatives at the whim of some other editor. With the goalposts moving across and within editorial rooms, one can only regard it as utterly illusory. One can publish at one location an essay or an editorial of a particular style that will, at one time, be praised for that same style, but at another time, it will be suddenly deemed stylistically inappropriate. This is undoubtedly inevitable in something as subjective as the creative style of a work of writing. Still, much good writing is needlessly overlooked because this uncritical, whimsical, and phoned-in editing method is the rule, not the exception, in the modern writing world.
The former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, Graydon Carter, spoke on 60 minutes eleven years ago in mourning the death of writer Christopher Hitchens and was asked, “what was it like editing for him?” Carter’s response demonstrates the direct antithesis of how most editors conduct themselves and, by that token, presents an ideal that isn’t just something for one to aspire to but the very grounds upon which good writing is permitted in the world of publishing. To paraphrase Carter, “[Hitchens] was so erudite that few subtractions were ever needed. Instead, I had to make additions to his writing so those less intelligent than him –especially myself — could understand what he was saying better.” Surely this took a lot of time and effort on Carter’s part –and so too on Hitchens’. In both cases, that’s what’s needed to produce good writing –a mind with unique ideas that generate them into prose and another mind working to clarify those ideas for the masses while making as little detractions from the prose as possible.
Audience-Worship is the Death of Creativity
Carter essentially added commentary to Hitchens’ writing as a method of editing. What one experiences now is the direct contrast to what can only be considered Carter’s editorial astuteness and reasonableness. It is now considered genuine grounds for rejecting an article if its prose reflects the mind of an erudite writer –a wide breadth of knowledge, which necessarily makes for some esoterism. Even when such minds take heed of the “general audience,” it is almost impossible to tell how most editors are going to react, but one always braces for rejection because one’s writing is “too good.”
When editors express the time and effort it takes to edit a piece of writing as if it constitutes a [good] reason to throw the piece out the window, one cannot help but feel either that this derives from the editor’s laziness or from the self-contempt elicited from one’s lack of understanding and its accompanied lack of drive to resolve one’s ignorance. Probably both because in most cases, the latter would be ameliorated by looking at a dictionary, but the former prevents this positive act. When writers have to suppress their natural stylistic proclivities, it deprives the world of their gift –adding commentary to writing simply brings that gift to larger audiences, which is the sole purpose of an editor.
Good writing, therefore, cannot be standardized. Good writing breaks standards. We know this because good writing is something that can be re-visited, and seldom does anyone revisit articles that have gone through the editorial ringer, in which arbitrary criticisms are applied from a place of “just doing one’s job” or “clearing things up for the audience.” These are two notions constantly broken in the editorial world, and the reaction from writers to this fact should be the unleashing of their creative freedom by seldom heeding such standards –even in the pursuit of making a living as a writer.
All these standards consist of different perspectives across and within people. This is precisely why Voltaire warned real writers never to let others have too much of a say in their style –others,’ barring active mentors and professors, have opinions on the matter that are necessarily unacquainted with what it purports to be acquainted with. No one can reach inside your head to change that, and all attempts you tolerate will diminish the quality of your writing –instead of actually, somehow, molding it into the standards others wish you to fit into. ChatGPT lacks such “style” and will for a long time — real writing isn’t will not get automated out; it will get “edited” out.
But where does all of this inconsistency come from? Editors tend to be well-educated individuals with many degrees and interests, but these merits are negated by their need to utterly appeal to “readership.” A common standard in the editorial world is to “not bury the lede.” This means that the editorial's central point should be stated in the first paragraph.
To that, I say that if you don’t bury the lede, “readers” will do that for you!
Often, what editors mean by “readers” consists of the general population — i.e., mass audiences. The problem, however, with this reasoning is that the general population mostly does not read very much — and in America, a bulk of the masses view reading as something contemptible. Why, then, appeal to such supposed “readers?” Effectively, editors “dumb down” what is thought-provoking, beautiful, and stylish for a non-existent subset of the audience, whose real-life counterparts only read headlines and social media posts.
However, despite how superficially unreasonable it may seem, there are underlying reasons for this. Media in all forms is a business and is, at the end of the day, selling a product to customers. One wants to expand that net as far out as possible. Because more of the population is literate (which is distinct from being able to read at a high level), this brings in more opportunities for advertisers to capitalize on content. Hence, what develops is what the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche calls “demolatry,” which means “worship of the people, or the masses.” Everything under this idolatry needs to cater to what is popular, even if that means destroying something precious, inspired, new, and original so the masses can “understand it.”
Nietzsche made the exact same criticism of the editorial world during the 19th century in the preface of his 1886 book Beyond Good and Evil — this pressure on creative people to conform arbitrarily “might indeed bring it about that the spirit would no longer experience itself so easily as a ‘need.’” None of this is to say good writing is impossible in the occupational world of writing and editorial life — instead, it’s to say that it is largely disincentivized on the one hand, and sprung into publication haphazardly on the other (wherein the latter surely encourages the former!)
If you look at Twitter every day, you know the masses have no interest in understanding anything, so what else is this but effectively spitting on art for those who have no care for it to begin with? The editorial world should trust that its audience reads regularly and can use a dictionary to understand unfamiliar words — and they would if money wasn’t involved and if money wasn’t tied to appeasing the masses, who need constant entertainment and spoon-feeding! For those who actually read, it feels patronizing; for those whose works it effectively ruins, it feels like jumping into a campfire drenched in moonshine.
Here’s a better standard for upper editors to abide by in addition to that expressed by Cartor: trust creators to create and trust that audiences are well-read.
Stop letting imaginary audiences govern the pen of creators — let creators create!
