Editing Principle 20: You Can't Disguise the Conditions Under Which the Work Was Done

This sounds mystical enough that I always find myself prefacing the below thoughts with, "This might sound too woo, but...."

Here it is. If a work was:

rushed…

written under intense time or financial pressure…

written while distracted, anxious, or in a chaotic atmosphere…

by someone experiencing loneliness or pain (emotional or physical)…

or alternately, by someone with a deep-seated sense of entitlement…

or as I’ve argued and elaborate on elsewhere, [LINK TO COME] by someone who needs too much…

all of these things will be subconsciously “felt” by the eventual audience.

The conditions surrounding creation always out themselves.

Sometimes this is fine. Sometimes the results are disastrous. Editors can help by recognizing what’s going on surrounding the work, i.e. the writing, and having the self-awareness to know how they, too, are responding to these conditions (and hopefully not making things worse).

Maybe that should be the cardinal rule of editing, as “First do no harm” is for doctors: First don’t make it worse, where “it” isn’t just the text itself but the travails of creativity.