Sans Fig Leaf
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"The Fellowship of the Red Pen"
28 May, 2003
I am a terrible copy editor. Anyone who has read my essays for any length of time knows this. I don't notice typos. I don't notice when the wrong word is in a sentence if the rest of the sentence makes sense. My brain just inserts the word that ought to be there in the correct spot, filtering out the mistakes. This confuses people when they learn that I'm an editor. I've been editor of a small literary magazine for over eight years. I've been the editor of numerous other publications over the years. I've won several journalistic awards for various kinds of editorial work, but as a copy editor I stink.
Editing is more than just looking for misspelled words and misplaced commas. Editing is about clearing away obscurity. See, a writer's job is to have an idea that burns bright like a bonfire in his imagination, and then transfer that idea into the imagination of the reader. That's true whether the writer is creating a murder mystery, a science fiction adventure, instructions for installing complicated equipment, or a story about a local animal shelter for a neighborhood newspaper. The editor's job is to clear away all the smoke so that the reader can see the blazing fire.
Before an editor worries about spelling and punctuation, he or she has to ask much more fundamental questions. Is the information arranged in an order that makes sense? Is the format or style of writing appropriate for the idea being conveyed and its intended audience? Is terminology clear and consistent? Are sentences active and concise? Is the flow from one idea to another within the piece handled in a way that keeps the reader moving forward? If the answer to any of the questions is "no" or "sometimes" or "almost always," then the piece needs to be rewritten. It isn't an effective use of the editor's time to worry about spelling and punctuation during early drafts since so much of what is written will almost certainly be changed. Therefore, the really busy editor gets used to ignoring minor typos and comma problems and the like, while concentrating on the more fundamental issues of structure, format, clarity, and interest.
I can force my brain not to ignore minor mistakes. It takes an effort. I have to keep reminding myself not to read the page in front of me, but to examine each word and then each sentence, forgetting about the one that came before. When I do that, I can find most of the misspelled words, the wrong words, and even a lot of the punctuation problems. It's hard work. If the piece in question is one I have worked on before, one of the things I have to do is read it backwards. I start at the bottom of the page and look at each word, one at a time, moving right to left and bottom to top. Otherwise, it's quite easy for me to fall into the habit of reading for content.
Another trick that helps get me into copy editing mode is to use a red pen. It's silly, but if I'm holding a red pen, instead of a blue or black pen, I have a slightly easier time remembering that I'm concentrating on copy editing only. I know it's just conditioning. It used to be quite common for editors and copy editors and teachers to mark corrections and comments in red ink or red pencil (or non-photo blue, if you were marking up proofs, but that's another story).
The problem is that that conditioning has other, unintended consequences, as I recently learned. Because the publications department that I work in is so much smaller than it used to be, all of us have to spend part of our time writing, and part of our time editing each other's work. I have always kept a small supply of red pens on my desk, for precisely the purposes of marking up copy. Between the acquisitions, the moves, and lay-offs, we wound up with many many boxes of extra office supplies in the supply room. These were pencils, pens, paper clips, push pins, staplers, et cetera, that were left behind in offices when folks left. The boxes of slightly used supplies were kept out in the open, to encourage us to pull from them before we dug out brand new ones from the cabinets. So everytime I had a red pen die, I would head down to the supply room and dig around in the pen boxes until I found a red one.
I should add, here, that my chaotic way of working on multiple project at onc--with piles of papers ebbing and flowing on my desks--means that I frequently misplace writing implements. I learned a long time ago that I need to keep a cup full of pencils and pens in order to have one when I need it. If you visit my office, you can tell how long it has been since I cleaned my desk by how tightly packed my pencil cup is. If it seems to be half empty, then it's been about a month since I cleaned my desk. And, by the way, if a single night has passed since I last cleaned my desk, the desk itself will be buried in papers. How deep the papers are doesn't tell you how long it's been since I cleaned.
Those boxes in the supply room were nearly empty when the company moved to our new location this last January. For the last few months I've been down to three red pens. And given how pens and pencils get temporarily lost on my desk all the time, that's not quite enough. Sometimes I've had to search for five minutes before I could find one of the pens. I had searched the supply room for red pens when I reached this point, but couldn't find any. I left a note for the person who orders supplies, asking if we could get any red pens. When a month went by without a reply, I asked again. The third time I asked, I was finally told that we don't buy red pens any more, because there are people who object to them. "It brings back bad memories from school, I guess."
I was more than mildly amused, because our supply person is hardly the sort who believes in coddling anyone's feelings. So I shrugged it off and made a mental note to pick up a cheap box of red pens for myself the next time I was at an office supply store. It's not that big a deal, because I usually have to fight back the urge to buy new pens when I'm in an office supply store, anyway. It doesn't matter that I have scores of cool pens in nifty colors and shapes filling an entire drawer of my desk at home, whenever I pass by that section of a store, I stop and look to see if there's some new kind of pen I might like. I've been stern with myself for over two years, not buying new pens, and periodically going through the drawer to toss out dried out ones--which helps remind me that it's wasteful to amass more than I can use. However, because I've been good for two years, I no longer have a full-to-bursting drawer of pens.
This weekend I did pick up one of those cheap boxes -- red pens with a nice little rubber grip, 12 for $1.59. While I was at it, I found a package of fine point rollerball pens in assorted colors. There was the traditional blue and red, plus purple, pink, and green. So I bought that set, bringing the red one into work along with the cheap pens, and keeping the other ones for myself at home.
Now, armed with new red pens, I'm ready!