There's always a passive editor in the studio. wc ----- Original Message ---- From: Michael Brady <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sun, March 18, 2012 3:56:46 PM Subject: Re: descriptive / empirical aesthetics?
On Mar 18, 2012, at 4:37 PM, [email protected] wrote: >> Does it matter knowing what the artist pondered before beginning his work, >> what he weighed and which options he chose? >> > Matter to whom? As an editor, one of my jobs was to diagnose what the > ailment was when a novel was not "working". This turns out not to be so easy for > some editors. Some editors can have very good sensibilities: They can say, > "Something's wrong. I can't put my finger on it, but I know this won't win > his long-time fans" and be right. Being able to examine the various stages of > the writer's acts of creation can be a helpful diagnostic tool. The same > tool can be applied to an editor. An editor's relationship to a novel and the author is much different from any viewer's relationship to a painting or dance. The editor is something of a co-writer or co-creator, helpting ot choose words and modify the organization of the work. Of course knowing the options the author is contemplating is important. But there is no analogue in painting or sculpting to the editor in writing. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
