When Your Editor Is a Jerk

Decades ago, I found myself assigned to work with a mentor/editor who was, shall we say, my nemesis. I'll call him Ron. We met in person at the outset of the project, but the hands-on time of our 12 or so weeks together was conducted entirely in written form.

Longtime readers will have probably figured this out about me already, but I appreciate straight talk. I'm not one for glossing over the truth or putting lipstick on a pig to call it a lady.

That said, I'm quite sensitive to tone. Contrast this:

"This section doesn't emotionally fit this placement within the narrative. Try moving it two chapters back instead, so it provides enough context but doesn't steal the scene."

with this:

"This structure is so stupid! What's wrong with you — are you an idiot? Who ever told you that you could write well is dumber than you are."

Now, Ron's tone was nowhere near the outrageous example above, but he nevertheless wrote in such a cold, snooty, know-it-all tone that every piece of commentary he provided read to me as such. Even praise seemed to come from an angle of "hey, wow, for once you didn't screw this technique up."

Throughout those weeks with Ron, I learned diddly-squat about anything other than how much I couldn't stand the guy.

Fast forward several years. In cleaning out my files, I came across printouts of our correspondence and his margin notes on my manuscripts. What do you think I learned?

This isn't a Lifetime television holiday special. I didn't suddenly see the error of my ways and realize that all along I had been the problem, an epiphany that then shot my writing and editing skill straight over the moon to the most professional level possible, all thanks to poor, misjudged Ron.

In fact, what I learned was that I had been unequivocally correct in my viscerally negative judgment of his offensive tone. In fact, far from being lessened by the intervening years, my frustration, irritation, and — yes — hurt feelings were perhaps stronger than they had been in the first place.

BUT!

Because we were no longer working together, hadn't been for years and never would be again, I could focus solely on the denotative meaning of his criticism. Guess what? Ron was correct in the literal fact of his assessments just shy of 100% of the time. I couldn't see any of that at the time because his tone was ...wrong. And inappropriate. Not to mention thoughtless and careless.

If you're a writer, you're likely to be the recipient of criticism that stings. Maybe the sting comes because you dislike or disrespect the critic, maybe they're just rude like Ron, or maybe you had an overinflated sense of quality because didn't give your work a critical enough eye to begin with.

Maybe the nasty critic is you.

Whatever the reason, try to react the way in the way once required for students of writing workshops: be quiet. Listen. Take notes on what is being said, whether or not you agree with it. No matter what tone the delivery is wrapped in.

Later, when you aren't reacting for the first time, you can glean the wheat from the chaff.

Post Script: after finding these pages, I looked up Ron's address and mailed him a handwritten letter. I doubled down on my condemnation of his tone, but I was able to sincerely and belatedly thank him for the genuine value of the concepts and editorial issues he'd been attempting to convey. He wrote me a nice letter in reply. The whole exchange was even more gratifying about a year later when I learned he'd died. I'd made my peace.

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