assignment for april 1st - reading | line editing.

Please read for next week the following essay:

Line Editing: Drawing Out the Best Book Possible on page 153 in Editors on Editing.

This is a good exercise for us right now as it deals with heavy line-editing, which we have been doing a lot of lately and speaks to the craft of line-editing, not simply the mechanics of it, but how to make a book the most aesthetically pleasing book in terms of language - for we all know that language can, or cannot be, beautiful. Our goal then is to try to make the book the best possible book that it can be.

It may not always be possible to take a book and make it a thing of beauty if you have poor raw material to work with. That said, you can still carve out something that is worthwhile, regardless of the book IF you set your mind to it.

This may seem very difficult with the project we are working on now given the many, myriad issues we have all noted and note more as we move along in our problem sheets. Still, given that, it is regardless our job to continue working on the book as if we do care, because you will be given books like this. This is not an "off the wall" example by any means. This is exactly the sort of book a publisher might throw at you, or an agent, and say, "Here - work on this." (unfortunate tho that may be, it's the truth).

Certainly, I would not acquire this book and I doubt any of you would either, or maybe I'm wrong. But our job as editors is to make it so that even if we would not buy it as a manuscript, to craft it so that someone, the reading public or a subsection thereof, will buy it as a book that they wish to read. It may not appeal to us, but it should and ought appeal to a particular niche - so it's your job to kind of get into the right frame of mind given your audience and give them the best possible work in that niche. I hope this makes sense to you. If it does not, please see me, although I think this is pretty self-evident.

We will continue with our manuscript - frustrating tho it may be, but it's important that you not get lazy or give up on it, because that will not, and is not, an option at a publishing house or agency and this class is being ran like a real world publishing house - not an academic class room because you don't really learn much from that. You learn from real-world experience and I am trying to make this as real-world as possible.

If you have comments, do leave them here. You may also find the following link useful, so do check it out. Click here for information on line editing and cliches, etc.

I look forward to your comments on the reading.

s.r.p.