Adam Rogers talks about Getting Edited

Adam Rogers starts his talk about Getting Edited with advice from his father: don't ask someone to edit your work, because they will. Editors edit.

After working with the writer on the query, Adam develops an assignment letter that includes specific statements about what he expects, advice on what is lacking or alternatives the writer could use. It includes instructions that he explicitly wants or does not want the author to do.

The article comes back with many problems, including a lede that directly contradicts a verbal request Adam made to avoid focusing on one of the researchers. Metaphors don't work. After several paragraphs, the nut has not appeared and we still don't know what the article is really about.

Adam returns the commented paper under a memo reiterating some of his instructions and softballing his objections without losing clarity about what he wants.

Second version arrives, things are quite different and looking more promising, but many issues remain. The article goes back to the writer with more comments.

The third version is a regression. Things have reappeared that Adam has removed, without so much as a by-your-leave. Frustration shows in the edits of this round, explicitly and in the way new comments are worded. Comments still center on simplicity, clarity, and focus on the science, with suggestions and recommendations that remind the author of best practices. To make sure he was on the mark, Adam had other editors look at this draft as well, and they each had a lot of the same misgivings and concerns. However, he sees his job as the lead on the articles he has assigned, and therefore chooses to maintain control of the process unless and until he feels that his head editor could help improve the article or shed light on where the problems are and how to resolve them. Sometimes one editor will ask permission of another editor to use one of his standard authors, because they would do the best job on the story.

Adam admits that he is a pretty “voicey” editor, with a tendency to rewrite sections of an article to such an extent that it takes on his voice instead of the author's. He is aware of this and tries to avoid that, but his colleagues can still occasionally recognize that paragraphs in some of the articles he has worked on.

The extent and timing of edits depends on timing, quality of the writer, angle of the story, etc. If he feels the writer really missed it, he will say “I see what you are trying to do here. Let me take a pass at it.” From the audience, Gareth notes that it's not enough to say “I see what you are trying here”. It's also important to actually understand what they are trying to say. When asked what makes a good editor, Adam cites the ability to move words around on the page, but also the ability to work with the writer and understand the goal of the article and the goals of the organization. The best thing an author can do is get all the expectations clear ahead of time.

Cues he might use to help an author: tell me what you were doing, what happened, where you were, what you did and why did you do it that way. Show the scene to the reader, but avoid the cliches. “Not just details, but telling details.” At Wired, they use a lot of movie metaphors: does the gun you placed on the table in scene 1 get fired before the end of the article? How do we get from scene 1 to scene 2, etc. A phone conversation can help resolved problems more easily, although using email is easier.

By the time the author is ready to start writing, they already have all the background pictures, journal articles, recordings of interviews, etc, but they still make choices in the writing. If the editor asks for something different, he might say “I'm sure you have this in your files...” with the implicit hint that if they don't, they will have to go back for more interviews or research.

Cited researchers will not be given a draft of the article, but they will be contacted by fact-checkers and given the opportunity to correct what has been cited. Corry notes: If the author or editor thinks they might be vulnerable to a challenge, the Times used to say keep all your notes. Now they say destroy notes to avoid spending time in court to protect them.

The story finally got to the proof stage, and everyone takes a look at it. Can still make small changes at this point, but mostly the process moves on to presentation of the article. For difficult subjects, they might add a graphic or sidebar to bring in additional explanations. Final changes to the conclusion were made and the story did finally come out. It was an engaging read, it works even though the background info didn't work in all cases. The writer was “glad to have done it” but he did “break up” with Adam, by requesting a different editor after this.

Last thought--Adam mentions the conflict between Assigning Editor Adam and Editing Editor Adam. When Assigning Editor Adam assigns a story, he's enthusiastic about how great it will be, while glossing over the potential difficulties. But when Editing Editor Adam gets the first draft, he castigates that dastard Assigning Editor Adam for screwing him again with a really tough job.