One Sentence That Explains All Bad Writing. All Good Writing, Too.

If you write on Medium or Substack, here's something to think about.

I’m listening to a podcast. Ezra Klein talking to Adam Scott, who was the editor of New York magazine, The New York Times Magazine, won dozens of awards for his work. Oversaw the creation of Vulture, The Cut, Daily Intelligencer, Grub Street, and The Strategist. Suffice to say the man knows something about being an editor.

He drops this line…

Editing is a heightened sensitivity to reaction. The way your mind is reacting, the way your heart is reacting.

I pause. Push the bar back a little. Listen to that again. Write it down.

Throws me for a loop.

Editing is a heightened sensitivity to reaction.

Flip over to the Substack tab. Save the newsletter I was writing for another week. It can wait. Need to write about this. Because he’s dead on right. That’s what being an editor is. Heightened sensitivity to reaction.

Fact. If you’re deaf to how people will react to your words, you are going to struggle. Badly. Because as a writer? You are your first editor. Sometimes your only editor.

To state the obvious, there’s more than one kind of editor. There’s about ten kinds of editors, which is beyond the scope of this post, but I’ll write about that some time. But for the purpose of this thought, there’s the editor that helps you make your writing stronger. And there’s an acquisitions editor whose job is saying yes and no.

If you’re writing on Medium, publication editors all have to wear the acquisition hat. Say yes or no to submissions. Some editors also try help improve the writing showing up in their publication. To the best of their ability, whatever that is.

A lot of publication editors aren’t editing anything. They’re proofreading. They correct typos and grammatical errors and hit publish. In which case you are your only editor.

Which means you need to be able to read your own words and be sensitive to how those words are going to fall on the reader’s ears, eyes. Heart.

I’m an editor on four different publications. I also spent several years working in the publishing industry. Here’s what I see really often. Writers who are deaf to reaction.

They don’t see that their opening is weak. Don’t see sentences that are ambiguous and can be taken more than one way. If the reader doesn’t know what you mean, what’s the point of writing it? Isn’t that the writer’s job, to be clear?

Sometimes it’s not even the writing. It’s the topic.

When William Zinsser taught his famed class on writing that became a book, he once left a note in the margin of a writer’s essay. It said you’ll notice I stopped marking this a third through. This isn’t interesting to anyone but you. Ouch.

Some writers can write about themselves and make the reader connect to every word. Maya Angelou. Alice Walker. Hell, Hemingway. Vonnegut. That’s not talent. It’s not innate, not something we’re born with. It’s the result of years of damn hard work.

But do you know if you can do that? There’s a lot of people on the internet writing journal entries and calling them essays. Harsh words but writing is a harsh industry with rugged terrain. Sometimes constructive feedback beats commiseration to the finish line and back before you get your sneakers tied up.

Heightened sensitivity to reaction.

That’s what editing is. And the most powerful writers edit themselves powerfully. Tom Albrighton said “Write without fear. Edit without mercy.” Sorry, Mr. Albrighton, but I’d like to edit those words. Edit with mercy. For the reader, not the writer.

I’ll second Hawthorne. Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Love to know what you think.

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