Creating the narrative without creating the narrative
When an editor needs to help develop the narrative
By Caitlin Goh
As an editor, I recently collaborated with a photographer on his photobook that focused on a skatepark in Melbourne’s city centre. He had a very loose idea regarding the narrative of the project. Loose as in he had a list of themes that he had previously brainstormed with my partner editor with a central theme he had been asked to focus on by the manager of the skatepark. He also had an almost completed layout of his book which helped aid in developing the written narrative.
This was the first experience I had had editing where I was asked to do such substantial developmental editing. One question you face as an editor is how much should you shape the narrative and the voice. But luckily as someone whose knowledge of skating ends at you stand on a board with four wheels, it was quite easy for me to leave it to the photographer to have an active role in the narrative formation.
Solidifying the narrative
The first thing I was asked to assist with was further solidifying the narrative.
In the world of editing, there are instances of editors actually writing large chunks of the text they’re working on but that was something I didn’t want to do.
The central theme the manager of the skatepark wanted the narrative to revolve around was the sense of community fostered at the skatepark. Despite only having the bare bones of a narrative ready, the fact that there was a central theme that was focused made building the narrative much easier.
The photographer had arranged his images into an easily recognisable order — it started with establishing shots of the skatepark, moving into lessons and ending on an annual skating competition. This gave the photobook a secondary narrative without any need for captions.
I went through the images in the draft with the photographer and decided which could benefit from captions and how to write the captions with an angle focused on community.
I suggested putting most of the establishing information, again aiming for a ‘sense of community’ angle, into the introduction and my partner editor suggested reducing the number of establishing shots. This helped the pacing at the beginning of the book, allowing the audience to become engaged earlier in the narrative.
The first draft
After the photographer had completed the first written draft, there were still many things to be refined. Following the same attitude I had during the developmental stage, I was cautious of how much I would interfere with the narrative.
In the publishing world, there is quite a notorious pair. It was eventually revealed to the public that the writer Raymond Carver’s sparse prose was actually the work of editor Gordon Lish’s extremely heavy-handed editing. Figuratively, Lish took a meat cleaver to Carver’s work and completely changed the tone and voice of Carver’s writing. The story of Lish and Carver is a cautionary tale for any editor.
Just because a piece of writing, whether it be a whole book to an exert and everything in between, may not be to your personal taste, you have to identify if it’s appropriate for the genre, context and audience and consider whether it’s the writer’s unique voice. In order to do that, you need to be able to identify whether the way you feel about a certain passage is simply your own style and what you find comfortable while editing.
Because this narrative was focused on skating and a skatepark, it had a voice and language I wasn’t used to, something I had recognised early on in the project. With that bit of self-awareness and the cautionary tale mentioned above, I focused on what aspects of the writing were unclear and what images could benefit from captions, new or improved, to deepen their meaning.
Overall, the experience of working on developing a narrative has taught me what kind of editor I am. I have discovered that I am very comfortable with a collaborative style where the photographer had a significant say in the process and I was very fortunate to work with such a motivated and amiable photographer despite, from his own admission, not being a writer at all.
In the future, any work I may get as an editor would probably be with a writer where I believe this approach to editing would be greatly appreciated as it gives significant control to the writer. Every writer is protective of their writing and most are ready to fight any suggested changes to their hard work. However, the same aspect that could be a positive could also be a negative. If a writer is particularly unwilling to accept suggestions, this could be to the detriment of their own work and as an editor, it’s important to find a level of firmness that works so that you can create the best narrative possible.
