| But, that’s not what I’m here to talk about. Because right now, in my Season of Busy, I’m working on both sides of the story-editing equation. I am both the editOR and the editED.
And wow, both sides of that equation can be really, really painful!
But also…editing is where the magic is! It’s where good things happen!
Case in point: One of the podcasts I worked on this year is called Before We Go. If you’ve heard me talk about it before, you probably know that Season 1 followed the personal story of our host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, as she tries to make dying less terrible for everyone involved.
For Season 2, we decided that each episode would tell a different story. So one episode follows actor Yvette Nicole Brown as she leaves the NBC sitcom Community to become a caretaker for her father, who has Alzheimer’s. And another follows Nikki Boyer as she struggles with infertility while documenting her best friend Molly's death from cancer for the hit podcast, Dying for Sex.
In the last episode of the season we interviewed Alexandra Breckenridge, star of the Netflix series, Virgin River.
And Alex (can I call her Alex?) had a STORY to tell. An incredibly moving story, as it turns out. The only problem is, she had no time for a pre-interview, and her story had not been covered elsewhere. So my usual internet-stalking skills were useless.
We went into that interview without much of a plan. Sure, we had cobbled together a list of questions. But we had only the vaguest notion of where this conversation would lead, and what we wanted to learn from it.
(And real talk here. I know that it’s 100% acceptable in the current podcast landscape to run a celebrity interview that has no purpose. But from the beginning of this project, Shoshana was clear. She didn’t want to just tell stories for the sake of telling stories. She wanted to tell stories that mattered. Stories with meaning.)
So, yeah, this episode went through a LOT of revisions. Many more revisions than any other episode in the season. And each version got progressively better, until we finally landed on a version that was good. Really good.
Yay for editing!
But you know I’m not just going to tell you that “editing is good” and call it a day. You deserve more than that! So I’m going to riff off of something a grief expert said during that episode that really blew my mind.
You know the “stages” of grief that you hear all about in pop culture? You know…Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance?
We hear about these stages all the time. And we’re told that we’re supposed to work through all these stages, in order, until we finally are able to “heal” from whatever is causing our grief.
Yeah…according to most experts on grief, that’s complete bunk.
But here’s the thing.
I have dozens of years of experience with editing – both as the editOR and the editED.
I am an expert on this.
And those five stages? They really apply here. I promise you, they do!
So let’s get into it.
Denial
Whether I am the one doing the editing or the one being edited, the first response is almost always the same. Denial.
Don’t get me wrong. I might know that the thing I’ve written has problems – like I did with that first version of that Before We Go episode with Alexandra Breckenridge.
But no matter what actual problem my editor points out, my first reaction is usually to resist.
Suddenly, in my mind, the element they want to change is the element that is most vital to my story. The element that everything hinges on.
As an editor, I’m in a similar state of denial. I trick myself into believing that the person I am editing will immediately love my suggestions. That they’ll see things my way, without any need to explain myself or find a middle ground.
Both of us are wrong! So, so wrong.
When editing is done right, it does not begin and end with the first set of notes. It’s a process.
But that process can’t move forward until both sides are willing to see that they might be wrong.
For the person who’s being edited, that means you have to be willing to believe that something’s not working, even if it is – in fact – your favorite thing.
And as an editor, you have to be willing to see that you might not have the perfect solution. Yes, something needs to change.
But HOW it gets changed should be open for conversation.
Anger
Okay, I know I said that my first response is always denial. But, if we’re being honest, denial might be in a tie for first with anger.
We’ve all experienced what it’s like to open up a document that we’ve poured our heart and soul into, only to find a red line through almost every word that we’ve written.
Hilariously, when I took a Food Writing course from Sheryl Julian, the incredible former editor of the Boston Globe food section, she told us that she had been asked to stop marking up our assignments in red ink, because it was simply too intimidating.
As if the color of the ink would make a difference?
When an editor goes in and tramples on our hard work, we can’t help but be angry. But look…it’s totally the same from the other side.
Editors are the unsung heroes of the writing world. When we do our jobs well, we make everything better. And yet, listeners don’t often think to themselves, “I wonder who edited that series? They did a really amazing job!”
A great editor is completely invisible. The listener will never know about all of the hard work they put into making a story sing.
So when you are the editor, and someone pushes back strongly against your notes, it can be tough. It can make you want to scream.
I’m only trying to help. Why are you making it so hard??
As an editor, I sometimes try to soften that blow. Just today, I was telling a friend about the time when I had to completely gut a script that a reporter sent to me. The truth is, the story was compelling, the interviews were insightful and emotional and the structure just needed some minor rearranging.
But the reporter had muddied it all up by trying to be “writerly,” instead of using simple narration to help the story move forward.
And while I was really impressed with the work that he had done, I was suggesting changes to almost every word he had written. And so, when I sent him my edits, I included a note warning him that there were a lot of changes in the doc – and that he might want to pour himself a glass of his favorite beverage before he opened it.
But booze can only go so far in closing this divide. So sometimes you might need an alternative coping mechanism.
A walk with a friend. A chapter of a good book. A session at the local boxing gym.
Whatever floats your boat.
The key, I think, is to understand that anger is a ‘normal’ reaction, but not necessarily a helpful one. So you might need to remind yourself to count to ten…and then move onto a more productive phase of the editing process.
Bargaining
Look, there is good bargaining and bad bargaining.
Good bargaining helps the story move forward to a new level of brilliance.
Bad bargaining leaves everyone unhappy, without actually improving the story.
Example of unhelpful bargaining: I’ll change that section of Act 1 to reflect your terrible ideas if you let me keep that section in Act 2 that is actually terrible.
See what’s happened? You’ve just doubled the number of terrible sections in your story!
Example of helpful bargaining: I see that this needs to change, but your suggestion doesn’t work for reasons X, Y and Z. How about we fix that problem by doing this instead?
As a person who is edited, I try to remember that my editor is, in essence, a listener. So if my editor is having trouble understanding the beauty of this moment I have lovingly constructed, so will the listener. No matter how much I love that moment, there’s something about it that needs to be fixed.
When I’m working as an editor, I’ve also had to make a mental shift. And it hasn’t always been easy for me
As an editor, I need to recognize that if a moment isn’t working, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it needs to be cut. Sometimes, it just might need further explanation. Or a better setup. Or structural changes that will help it land.
We all know the concept of “killing your darlings.” We all know that there are some moments that will just never work. Some concepts that are too complex. Some anecdotes that will never find relevance to our stories.
But it’s taken me many years as an editor to learn something that every person being edited knows from Day 1.
I don’t know the story as well as they do. And if I actually take the time to listen to what they’re trying to say, I might just find a way to help them say it.
Depression
Sometimes we come out of bargaining with a solution that makes everyone happy. Ideally, we’re going to do that more often than not.
But there are considerations beyond our control. Maybe we have time constraints? Or budget woes? Maybe that important accusation doesn’t make it through legal review? Or that detail we really loved gets debunked in fact check?
And sometimes, in this day and age of podcasting, someone higher up the chain comes in and makes demands that we disagree with. As an editor, I have been in the terrible position of needing to insist on changes that do not improve the story.
There are always disappointments. And disappointments can definitely lead to depression.
So I’m just gonna say this to you, in case no one else has recently.
You are talented. Your ideas are worthy. You can tell a heck of a story.
Will you win every battle? No.
Will you be able to say everything you want to say? Not a chance!
But you will learn from this. And next time, your script (or your edit!) will be better. And, if you’re lucky, you will continue to learn and improve forever.
Editing isn’t just for the newbies. We all need a good editor!
Acceptance
There are edits that I have resisted with all of my might. And days/weeks/months later, I have listened back and realized that my editor was 100% right.
But there are also edits that I will never accept as being improvements. I will avoid listening back. And I will leave those stories off of my portfolio.
But I will move on.
I will accept the next assignment.
I will start the next script.
And maybe I will bring with me some lessons from my most recent project. And maybe I won’t.
But either way, I will keep going.
Yes, you want to make your stories to be the best they can possibly be. You work hard for days or weeks or months. You agonize over every sound bite. Every music fade. Every word.
You want your stories to have impact. And so when you feel like something has come in the way of that, it can be hard to let go.
But in the end, you make the best story you can, and then you move on.
Acceptance can be hard. It can feel like a real loss. But despite all that, I can make you a promise.
Your next story is going to be AMAZING. |
