This is really what it’s like to be an editor.

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This is really what it’s like to be an editor.

December 30, 2022December 30, 2022 268

I came across this comical image while searching for a photo to illustrate our new page on editing and proofreading services. It had me laughing because it’s close to the truth.

My guess is it’s from some 1930s movie about a newspaper, and newspapers are organized into departments, including sports, national news, and the city desk, which is helmed by an editor responsible for that department. Back in the day, they were crazy-busy places. Newspapers were the sole source of news and the competition on the streets was intense. I’m talking about fights and sabotage.

While I’m on the subject, here are some movie recommendations featuring newspapers, and I have all of these in my video collection (over 325 movies at this point). Don’t worry, they’re good. I avoid sucky movies like the plague. In no particular order:

All the President’s Men (Watergate story), Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, 1976.
The Post (Pentagon Papers story), Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, 2017.
Spotlight (Catholic Church sexual abuse), Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, 2015.
The Front Page (comedy about newspaper rivals hot on the trail of an escaped alleged murderer in Old Chicago), Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, 1974.
The Paper (fun story about the challenges newspaper reporters and editors face), Michael Keaton and Glenn Close, 1994.
Absence of Malice (a wholesale liquor distributor is accused by a paper of criminal activity), Paul Newman and Sally Field, 1981.
The Shipping News (a non-journalist gets a job on a tiny Canadian newspaper and breathes new life into it), Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore, 2001.
Richard Jewell (accused of the Olympic Park bombing in 1996 by a newspaper), Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell, 2019.

Have fun with those.

If you haven’t got an idea, start a story anyway. You can always throw it away, and maybe by the time you get to the fourth page you will have an idea, and you’ll only have to throw away the first three pages.

William C. Gault

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Writers aren’t people exactly. Or, if they’re any good, they’re a whole lot of people trying so hard to be one person.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

Thomas Jefferson

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

Anton Chekhov

Reading and weeping opens the door to one’s heart, but writing and weeping opens the window to one’s soul.

M. K. Simmons

I get up in the morning, torture a typewriter until it screams, then stop.

Clarence Budington Kelland

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

I don’t care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

Oscar Wilde

Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.

Truman Capote

It always comes down to characters, and individual stories about courage.

Steven Bochco

A true author, no matter the medium, is an artist with godlike knowledge of his subject, and the proof of his authorship is that his pages smack of authority.

Robert McKee

I have a structured songwriting process. I start with the music and try to come up with musical ideas, then the melody, then the hook, and the lyrics come last.

John Legend