Quotes About Editing

There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.

Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.

If I'm in the bookstore, and I see a 700-page novel, my first thought is, 'Ooh, how could you cut this down to size and make a movie out of it?'

I really love being in postproduction. First of all, it's all quite self-interested: You can protect things.

One of my favorite occupations is making radio/video edits. I love singles.

I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.

Believe it or not, I even love the editing stage. It's something that apparently comes naturally to me.

future. As an adjective, the word is often used unnecessarily: 'He refused to say what his future plans were' (Daily Telegraph); 'The parties are prepared to say little about how they see their future prospects' (The Times). In both sentences, and nearly all others like them, future adds nothing and should be deleted.

He left to do whatever editors do.

very should be made to pay its way in sentences. Too often it is used where it adds nothing to sense ('It was a very tragic death'), or is inserted in a futile effort to prop up a weak word that would be better replaced by something with more punch ('The play was very good').

second largest and other similar comparisons often lead writers astray: 'Japan is the second largest drugs market in the world after the United States' (The Times). Not quite. It is the largest drugs market in the world after the United States or it is the second largest drugs market in the world. The sentence above could be fixed by placing a comma after 'world'.

Please forgive the long letter; I didn't have time to write a short one.

Je n'ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n'ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.

The last thing one settles in writing a book is what one should put in first.

An editor should tell the author his writing is better than it is. Not a lot better, a little better.

He needed to "kill his darlings"—Stephen King's favorite term for letting go of stuff that just doesn't work.

Every long sentence can be broken up into shorter ones, and if you don't know how—if you don't see within your long sentences groupings of simple, clear ideas—it will show.

Your agent should be invested in the success of your book past the contract stage. After all, if it sells well, she's going to be getting 15 percent of every dime you make. She can be your best advocate in fighting for your book - not just with editing and the cover, but with marketing and sales as well.

Creating a book and creating a collection involve a lot of editing.

Everything we did, we did live - and then Bobby took it home and chopped it up and edited it. Which is pretty much what they did with every jazz record you've ever heard.

An editor does not just join shots. He creates emotions out of the shots.

I was saying as a joke the other day that I love film editing, I know how to cut a picture, I think I know how to shoot it, but I don't know how to light it. And I realize it's because I didn't grow up with light. I grew up in tenements.

The reality about shooting films is that you can shoot many jokes and decide later which one works. So it's not worth fighting about jokes.