Your Editor Quotes

#1. Never submit an idea or chapter to an editor or publisher, no matter how much he would like you to. Writing from the approved idea is (another) gravely serious time-waster. This is your story. Try and find out what your editor wants in advance, but then try and give it to him in one piece.

John Creasey

#2. It's weird: making a movie is like life compacted into three months. You have these very intense relationships with people, and you talk to them every day - your editor, the casting people, music people, your actors - then it ends. It's like a circus life.

Dito Montiel

#3. Hook your editor with a strong opening sentence to bring attention to your writing.

W. Terry Whalin

#4. As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response.

David Bergen

#5. I come out of journalism, and then book writing. There, it's just you and your editor and maybe a copy desk, looking over your editor's shoulder, and that's the story. It's right there. I can show it to you because it's on paper.

Wendell Pierce

#6. I have great editors, and I always have. Somehow, great editors ask the right questions or pose things to you that get you to write better. It's a dance between you, your characters, and your editor.

Patricia MacLachlan

#7. Screenwriting is a much more collaborative effort. When you write a novel, it's just you, with input from your editor.

Meg Cabot

#8. Rewriting is a large part of the whole job. And get rid of stuff that's not working. Just pare it down until it's a beautiful thing you can hand in, probably late, to your editor.

Kurt Loder

#9. Your writing is still yours, no matter what the contract or your editor might say. Trust your gut. It knows when you're screwing up. Your brain will lie to you. It loves the paycheck, it loves positive feedback. Your gut is under no obligation to make you feel good.

Gail Simone

#10. Ask your editor or ask your agent to find out what the house's goals are for your book before it comes out. Get some sense of expectations so you are prepared.

M.J. Rose

#11. There are writers who will do whatever they are told regardless of the circumstances - these are called 'hacks.' Your job isn't to make life difficult for your editor. But once a piece of crap goes out with your name on it, it is gone forever and will haunt you ...

Gail Simone

#12. A book is never, ever finished. You simply get to a point where you and your editor are reasonably happy with how it is and you go with that. Left to our own devices, a writer would endlessly fiddle with a book, changing little thing after little thing.

Kimberly Pauley

#13. Ask your agent to set up a meeting with either your editor or the marketing department of the house or both so you can find out what they're doing, what they aren't, and what you can do to help.

M.J. Rose

#14. 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

#15. You've got to have confidence and trust in your cast. You have to have confidence and trust in your director, in your editor. It's such a team effort; I really think you have to pull yourself out of it and just trust. I think the number one thing you can do is just trust everyone around you.

Reid Scott

#16. If you're very serious about writing it's helpful to find an agent. It's becoming more and more competitive to have your manuscript even looked at by an editor. Many companies don't accept unsolicited manuscripts anymore, so they'll pay more attention to something that comes in through an agent.

Ann M. Martin

#17. You are the storyteller and the editor of your book of life. So write tales of imagination, tragedy, and adventure and illustrate it with the colors of beauty.

Debasish Mridha

#18. Never buy an editor or publisher a lunch or a drink until he has bought an article, story or book from you. This rule is absolute and may be broken only at your peril.

John Creasey

#19. [Writing] books is really fun because your "voice" is pretty undiluted. There is a very direct connection between yourself and your audience. You will have an editor, but their job is to help you clarify or improve your voice, not change it.

Liz Tuccillo

#20. It's because you have no power. You give them all the material and the cinematographer, the director, the editor, boy what they can choose ... You better hope they like you because they can slice and dice and make you look like a damn fool when your face and body are up there on a 30-foot screen.

William Mapother

#21. The editor will be an extension of your hand; the keys will sing as they slice their way through text and thought.

Andrew Hunt

#22. I think I'm becoming more relaxed in front of a camera. I suppose I'll always feel slightly more at home on stage. It's more of an actor's medium. You are your own editor, nobody else is choosing what is being seen of you.

Michael Sheen

#23. It's important to put aside your internal editor and just get words down on the page when working on a first draft.

S.J. Scott

#24. When interviewing for a job, tell the editor how you love to report. How your passion is gathering information. Do not mention how you want to be a writer, use the word 'prose,' or that deep down you have a sinking suspicion you are the next Norman Mailer.

Michael Hastings

#25. If you want to write a book that's very successful and famous, then it's hard. If you just want to get published, all you have to do is convince an editor that your idea will make them money.

Kate Cary

#26. To entrust to an editor a story over which you have labored and to which your name and reputation are attached can be like sending your daughter off for an evening with Ted Bundy.

Edna Buchanan

#27. You have to move on. Enjoy your life.

Lea Agustina Citra

#28. A good editor fixes. A superb editor fixes without ruining the original message of your book as a superb translator does as well.

B.A. Gabrielle

#29. Part of the discipline of being an editor is that you have to be a good audience member; your work is to be a surrogate audience member on the films you are working on.

Jay Cassidy

#30. You generally know when someone asks you to do something- am I more writing, or am I more editing? The editor is the best metaphor for your job.

Keith Rabois

#31. Three hand-painted signs had been tacked to a broken-down gate. The first read,
THE QUIBBLER. EDITOR: X. LOVEGOOD
The second,
PICK YOUR OWN MISTLETOE
The third,
KEEP OFF THE DIRIGIBLE PLUMS

J.K. Rowling

#32. In civilized societies, if you are offended by a cartoon, you do not burn flags, take up guns and raid buildings, chant death to your opponents, or threaten suicide bombings. You write a letter to the editor.

Michelle Malkin

#33. In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth.

Finn Wittrock

#34. Everyone Doesn't Deserve A Front Seat In Your Life, Former "Editor In Chief, Susan Taylor Essence Magazine

Beverly Montgomery

#35. I have SO many books I didn't sell. Some my agent rejected outright, others made it all the way to my editor to be turned away. Not everything is a winner, which is tough when you've devoted eight or nine months of your life to something.

Sarah Dessen

#36. Never demean yourself by talking back to a critic, never. Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don't put them on paper.

Truman Capote

#37. Tell the story that's in your heart. Write for your own pleasure, not anyone else's. Then, if and when you're ready, find a reputable editor who will be honest with you about the quality of your book and your chances of publication. But never, ever, stop enjoying writing or you will be lost

Jane Cable

#38. Publishing your work is important. Even if you are giving a piece to some smaller publication for free, you will learn something about your writing. The editor will say something, friends will mention it. You will learn.

Tim Cahill

#39. Your world is your story with tragedies and triumphs; never forget that you are the editor too.

Debasish Mridha

#40. The truth is, you have about three paragraphs in a short story, three pages in a novel, to capture that editor's attention enough for her to finish your story.

Nancy Kress

#41. If John somehow turns into a different man and we do not witness that transformation, the editor considering your novel will somehow turn into an editor considering a different novel.

Howard Mittelmark

#42. Always point your finger at the chest of the person with whom you are being photographed. You will appear dynamic. And no photo editor can crop you from the picture.

Ken Auletta

#43. One of the great joys of launching your idea on the web is that it's a meritocracy. The good stuff will rise to the top and find an audience, and you don't have to impress one idiosyncratic commissioning editor.

Rob Manuel

#44. An editor who is a mentor, advisor, and psychiatrist. Don't kid yourself-a good editor will make your book better.

Guy Kawasaki

#45. I started working for the 'NY Observer' when I was 33. After I had been writing for them for about a year and a half the editor said, 'Your stories are the most talked about stories in the 'Observer'; you should have your own column.'

Candace Bushnell

#46. I love the auditioning process. I love working with the technical guys. I absolutely love the editing room. That was completely fascinating to me, working with an editor in crafting the thing into something you had in your head.

Neil Gaiman

#47. Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

Toby Stephens

#48. If you are a good editor, your relationship with every writer is different.

Robert Gottlieb

#49. You don't want to depend on an editor. If you want to regret something for the rest of your life, you want to make sure you're responsible for it.

Robert Stone

#50. I wonder what became of you, your Johnny
Rotten skin, no Emerald City eyes.
You'd have been a beauty if you let inferiority
steam your glasses with its candor, sans laughter.

Kristen Henderson

#51. Unless you are in the willingness and ease and ecstasy of some kind of moment, you may end up the editor of your thoughts and of your expressions. I find I'm that way on stage.

Alex Ebert

#52. I think it's important to have an experienced writer or editor critique your work to get it ready to pitch an agent.

Tom Robinson

#53. If every editor turns you down, maybe you should take a second look at your text, however, just in case.

Piers Anthony

#54. One thing I have noticed is that when you're a younger editor, you're more intense about it. As you go along, you relax a little. More and more, I feel that the book is the author's. You give the author your thoughts, and it's up to him or her to decide what to do.

Jonathan Galassi

#55. I was instructed long ago by a wise editor, "If you understand something you can explain it so that almost anyone can understand it. If you don't, you won't be able to understand your own explanation." ... Jargon is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

Roger Ebert

#56. I don't say no as much as I should. I'm an extreme workaholic. So I can be sick, and I still say yes to anything. When you are the CEO of your own company, editor of your own videos, your own writer ,and you do every role yourself, you have a hard time saying no to opportunities.

Lilly Singh

#57. Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

Joyce Carol Oates

#58. The sole virtue of losing your short-term memory is that it does free you to be your own editor.

Norman Mailer

#59. An Editor becomes kind of your mother. You expect love and encouragement from an Editor.

Jackie Kennedy

#60. You are not your poetry. Your self-esteem shouldn't depend on whether you publish, or whether some editor or writer you admire thinks you're any good.

Dorianne Laux

#61. Despite what you hear about the publishing industry being a fixed game that you can only get in if you know somebody, I'm here in person to tell you it ain't so. If your stuff is really any good, sooner or later some editor will take a chance on you.

Kage Baker