Editor Letter and Line Edits

This editor letter and short excerpt of a story including my line edits are part of an extended assignment I completed as an undergraduate student in an Editing and Publishing class. Part of the prompt for this assignment was to shorten the essay significantly, hence my deletions. The location of the edits and comments are indicated by numbers which correspond to the numbered edits and comments after the excerpt. 

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Dear X,

 

I hope you’re well! Thank you for sharing “A Bosnian Werewolf in Croatia, The Zagreb Diaries” with me. It was a really worthwhile, action-packed, and introspective read. I’m excited to work with you on tightening it up for publication.

 

One of the first things I noticed about the story was its prose: the descriptions and the word choice of the speaker. I was taken aback (in a good way) in the beginning of the story with detailed descriptions of the money pouch and businessman. I think this sensory, grotesque stream-of-consciousness style is the story’s greatest strength. It really invites the reader into the story and keeps them hooked. The voice of the narrator is so strong, and I tried to preserve that in my edits even when cutting and rearranging a few things.

 

A significant change you’ll see in my line edits is that I cut a handful of scenes and a lot of description throughout. My intention with these cuts is to trim the manuscript to fit the space we have in the issue. In particular, I edited out the scenes with the airport fight, a summary of the first part of the story which occurred in the first journal entry, some of the tape breaking action, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the part about Eve and William, and paragraphs about Selma and Lamiya’s breasts. I mainly cut out pieces of the text that I felt didn’t advance the story in a significant way. Though a lot of the things cut were well-written and poignant, especially in the Jehovah’s Witness scene, I don’t want the reader to be bored or the story to become stagnant. We can talk about this more if you’d rather cut other things instead. I also want to make it clear—in lieu of the Selma and Lamiya cuts—that I’m not trying to censor the text, but I decided that the speaker getting distracted by breasts was less important than the class disparity the narrator is wrestling with in that moment. In addition, the language in this scene, “nipplege” in particular, I think might alienate women readers and make them less likely to sympathize with the narrator. That’s a choice I made for that specific scene, but I’d be happy to talk about it further and rearrange some things to keep more sexuality in the text.

 

You’ll also notice throughout the journal entry sections that I deleted the phrase “(from my journal).” Though it’s important to signal to the reader that the text is populated by journal entries, I think this shift was already clear from the dates on the entries and the sentences “Here I am again, writing. Might as well” at the beginning of the first entry. I definitely can pick up that it’s written in a journal from these context clues, and I have faith in your reader. I’ve been thinking about suggesting making the piece all narrative or all through journal entries so you don’t potentially confuse by going back and forth, but I think I’ve decided that I like how it is currently. What are your thoughts on the structure?

 

Two more small things I wanted to bring up about my line edits are comma usage and the political context of the piece. Throughout my line edits, I noticed I was adding commas between clauses with connectors like “and” or “but.” This is grammatically correct and my personal preference, but obviously the voice of the piece is more important than this technicality. You’re definitely welcome to reject these suggestions. I tried to refrain adding commas except in this case, adding the oxford comma (also rejectable!), and when I thought a sentence needed a comma for clarity. As far as the political context goes, I realized reading this that I must admit I don’t know a lot about the conflict between Bosnia and Croatia. Though this is not a fault of yours, my guess is that your readers won’t have a significant knowledge base concerning this conflict either. My suggestion is to add more context about the political situation in the part about the passport check getting off the plane. I think the line “The problem, of course, was my Muslim name” is so powerful, and the paragraph which follows it could be expanded a few sentences to give the reader a good sense of why that’s the problem. This could strengthen the piece because it adds higher stakes to the narrator’s interactions.

 

Overall, I enjoyed the experience of reading this piece. I loved the tension of the duality of self—the part about the beast in the mirror had to be one of my favorite parts, possibly even the core of the story. Watching the narrator navigate this complex legal and political system while still trying to maintain personhood is fascinating and engaging. And the end is especially striking; I hadn’t even noticed my attachment to Ankitza until that moment. This is a strong manuscript, and I look forward to seeing your thoughts on these edits!

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Warm Regards,

Lane Porter

 

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Excerpt from Practice Editor Test

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“Is there a problem?” I asked in a language he could understand.

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“Wait right here,” he said and dialed a number.

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The problem, of course, was my Muslim name. There had been [1] recent clashes between the Bosnian Muslims and the Croats in Middle Bosnia despite the fact that there was a coalition of their respective infant republics against the common enemy to the East. [2] Some villages got torched. There were reports and videotapes of petrified children being tossed out of windows onto bayonets. 

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Anchored with my elbows against the booth I stood there, leaning, fighting off the fear and the rapid lightheadedness deflating my skull. [3] [4]

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“Mister!” [5] [6] 

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A muffled voice came from behind me. I turned toward the booth and saw it filled with a meaty shape, loosely humanoid, seemingly made of fodder of the kind that God probably used to sculpt and chisel humans back in the day. He was fitted into a huge uniform that was still too tight on his bulk. Behind him, the young officer’s head looked like a grape in comparison. I froze at the sight. [7]

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“Are you aware that your transit visa is expiring tonight at midnight?” [8] He struggled to go down closer to a rectangular opening in the glass between us to hear me.

 

1. Replaced “name in the wake of recent” with “name. There had been recent.”

2. I think it might be helpful to add more context here talking about this conflict since it is central to the plight of the speaker and it might not be super familiar to a more Western audience.

3. Deleted “My reflection in the glass was ashen. Only the eyes now looked alive. Everything around me, ashtrays, tiles, people, they all flickered then came into focus, bursting with reality, with the essence of what they were. This must be the end, I thought, my eyes grabbing at every image as if I was about to go under. Why else would the tubercular grayness of the tile mean so much to me unless it was a parting image of this world I was surely about to leave and slip into the shadows?”

4. I took out a chunk here about the speaker’s reaction since it felt a little melodramatic. I don’t doubt there are strong emotions, but some phrases like “I was about to go under” and “parting image of this world I was surely about to leave” felt cliché. I considered if that cliché was on purpose, but I didn’t feel like that tone fit the scene. Can be rewritten to keep the speaker’s reaction to the scene.

5. Deleted “But someone screamed behind me, a woman. Then something fell to the floor and by the time I turned around I saw two men at each other’s throats. The woman next to them, a Katie-Couric-type, just older, had one hand pressed against her breasts and the other rigidly fanning the dip where her turkey neck met her breastplate. [...]”

6. I deleted a large portion about the airport fight because, although interesting, it doesn’t really matter for the rest of the story.

7. This sentence makes me uncomfortable, not because it’s gross—I actually enjoy the way the story doesn’t shy away from those details—but because it presents a fat person as less than human because of his size. The phrases “meaty” and “loosely humanoid” dehumanize the character purely based on his weight. I understand he should be intimidating because of the context, but I wonder if there’s another way to present this to the reader

8. Deleted new paragraph.