Is trust important for an editor?
What happens when trust isn’t forthcoming in the editor/writer relationship?
Before becoming a writing and editing student, I was an actor for over a decade. It strikes me that the editor and artist (writer or photographer) relationship is similar to the director and actor relationship. Both are complex and both necessitate a fundamental and integral core component: trust.
Trust is the foundation for strong, productive relationships in organisations and in any future work; it’s imperative. So, what happens when trust isn’t forthcoming straight away? How do you get someone to trust you as an editor?
In a recent project for my Advanced Editing course at RMIT, I was paired with a student photographer. I had to edit and write copy for their photography book project. My redeeming take-away was that editing is 90 per cent people skills (or ego management), and ten per cent mindfulness meditation.
After some serious self-reflection, I have made some small observations in a list of 7 notes-to-self that I will keep in mind for next time.
1. Artists (in this case photographers) need different things at different times. Share your expectations and hopes from the project from the very beginning. What you both want from the experience will inevitably be different. Align your intended outcomes.
2. We don’t have the years we might enjoy in personal relationships to slowly get to know the other person. Go the distance to meet in person. People don’t trust you without connection. Taking the time to meet in person gives your team mate a real understanding of you as a person (who doesn’t want to inflict editorial pain, but may have to in gaining that shared outcome).
3. Artists who have never been edited might feel heavily criticised. It might be useful to provide lots of positive encouragement, upfront, throughout and at the end. A little compliment goes a long way, delicate words can temper critique. Throughout the PWE course we have been strongly encouraged to find soft words, to lean into what’s working. This was totally true.
However, at certain times the opposite was also true. A short correction without indulgence in certain special moments saved hours of to-and-fro. Standing your ground against push back can work, may even be necessary. There are a few, although rare, moments in life to be unapologetically forthright and there is a place for this approach as an editor, I’m also learning. I found Mandy Brett’s Kill Your Darlings article, ‘What I wish I’d known about: Being edited’, very interesting.
4. Where appropriate, show vulnerability. Own up to oversights. Editing copy can take lots of revision.
Editing is about balance and timing. Mandy Brett says it perfectly in her Meanjin article, ‘Stet by Me: Thoughts on Editing’:
5. Expect that the artist will ignore your suggestions. And when that happens step away from the computer and count to 10. Feel-your-body-as-one-conscious-unit-of-loving-energy. DO NOT respond until you have made a chai and smoked something pacifying. When you eventually make it back to your desk, explain and substantiate your suggestions in words that are non-sweary, no matter how much you want to add a ‘for fuck’s sake.’
A part of me can even now admit, that perhaps I enjoyed being challenged because I had to fortify my knowledge. I was happily able to articulate the reasons why something was inconsistent and how it might change.
6. It’s not personal. People need to be OK with managing corrections and not hating you — that much. Help people to manage their expectations.
On a personal note, I learnt that in collaboration, not all creative unions are instantly easy, instantly full of trust. Egos are fragile, and people overcompensate because they lack confidence or feel inadequate.
Some of us grant everyone trust right away. As soon as we meet them, we assume they deserve our trust until they break it. Some of us don’t trust anyone until they have earned it. If someone doesn’t trust you right away, don’t freak out. This process forced me to ask some deeper questions about myself.
I expected collaboration to be more objective, but the process was surprisingly mostly about taste and actually about trusting myself.
7. Finally, be invested in the project but detach from the results. It’s all about letting go, a very Zen concept I know, very Buddhist. Don’t take it so personally that your indignation keeps you from finding out what’s at the core of this challenge, which — in the biggest note to self I’ve realised is:
The editor is director, stage manager and stage hand all in one. But the show is NOT YOURS and NEVER WILL BE. So back the F!@# off and move on with your life.
