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| The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Bell
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $6.99
You Save: $7.96 (53%)
New (35) Used (7) from $6.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  7 reviews
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0393332179
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9780393332179
Publication Date: August 11, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: unopened copy direct from publisher...same day shipping at no extra charge
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Product Description
"Bell's prose is elegant and wonderfully readable in this artful guide."—Publishers Weekly
The Artful Edit explores the many-faceted and often misunderstood—or simply overlooked—art of editing. The book brims with examples, quotes, and case studies, including an illuminating discussion of Max Perkins's editorial collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby. Susan Bell, a veteran book editor, also offers strategic tips and exercises for self-editing and a series of remarkable interviews, taking us into the studios of successful authors such as Michael Ondaatje and Ann Patchett to learn from their various approaches to revision. Much more than a manual, The Artful Edit inspires readers to think about both the discipline and the creativity of editing and how it can enhance their work. In the computer age of lightning-quick composition, this book reminds readers that editing is not simply a spell-check. A vigorous investigation into the history and meaning of the edit, this book, like The Elements of Style, is a must-have companion for every writer.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 Not as Good as I Had Hoped March 11, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Bell started strong, with an interesting introduction about the importance of editing and the importance of separating the writer from the self-editor; however, the book took on a structure that felt more like a pastiche of lecture notes than a full-length book. Much of the book is not her original material. For example, at the end of each chapter Bell summarizes for a few pages, and then tacks on 2-3 pages of personal anecdote written by one of her writer friends. A whole chapter (Chapter 5) is even dedicated to examining the "editing" process of painters, photographers, and other minor writers. Some of this anecdotal evidence relates to self-editing, but much of it is not. Much of the content is about "what feels right" and subjective ideas rather than hard-core practical advice -- entertaining, but not pragmatic.
In Chapter one, Bell generalizes about some unorthodox methods of reviewing your work, like pinning your pages on a clothes-line so you can "see the big picture," or writing your prose in longhand; sometimes she talks about the pluses and minuses of using a computer. What I didn't like about these suggestions is that they border on cliche. I've heard them all before. The second and third chapters are about macro- and micro-editing, respectively. In these two chapters (as well as in a few other places) Bell uses The Great Gatsby and Fitzerald's relationship with his editor, Max Perkins, to review some general principles of editing. She talks about structure and symbolism in Chapter 2, and things like avoiding "ing" verbs, adverbs, and adjectives, and when to "show" and when to "tell," in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 is her sycophantic exercise towards the painters and the photographers; Chapter 5 is a short history of editing (not much about the self-editing process here). In each chapter there were nuggets of fresh insight, as the introduction promised, but, in general, my take-away notes from this book came to less than half a page. A lot of the book is filled with general ideas, and general remarks about editing rather than specific details about how one needs to think and act towards ones own writing as a self-editor.
After reading this book you'll learn that, as a self-editor, "you'll need to practice whatever works best for you." Now, what kind of practical advice is that?
 A meditation on what it means to edit January 23, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Potential readers of Susan Bell's "The Artful Edit" would do well to consider first what this book is, and what it is not. This is not a replacement for the ubiquitous and essential "Elements of Style" which should be on every English speaker's desk. No, where that fine work was written for everyone who wishes to write, Bell's work, I would dare to presume, is meant for writers. And for those people, her pages sing.
Bell offers a considered meditation on various questions related to editing - what it is, how is it done, what purpose does it serve? For each question she looks at the works of different writers to consider both their answers to these question and their methods in considering their own works. These writers, often quoted at length, give the reader a sense that Bell shares the quality that surely must exist in all great editors, that being humility.
Of particular pleasure is Bell's use of perhaps the greatest American novel of the last century "The Great Gatsby." Considering this classic, Bell presents text from the draft Fitzgerald first presented to his editor, the notes and comments of that editor, and then Fitzgerald's thoughts and rewrites. Of course, Fitzgerald was fortunate to work with Max Perkins, who worked with many of the best American writers of his time, and is widely considered the master of his craft.
As I mentioned, non-writers may not find her efforts useful, particularly as it relates to seeking to "perfect" one's work. But for writers, this thoughtful work will provoke more than a little thought and more than a single reading.
The Artful Edit January 21, 2008
0 out of 5 found this review helpful
The delivery was prompt and the product in excellent condition.
Thank you.
Diane
 a fool for a client January 3, 2008
15 out of 22 found this review helpful
Susan Bell self-edited The Artful Edit, apparently, and the results are not a good advertisement for the practice. Since Bell has been editing others professionally for twenty years, I really hoped for better. One difficulty is that an editor should know a few things the writer doesn't know, which doesn't work well when they are the same person wearing two hats. It's harder than it sounds: what if neither persona knows where to put a comma, or what 'begs the question' means?
Also, the ideal editor also stands at a dispassionate distance from the writing. Sometimes a writer can achieve this by putting a manuscript away for some period of time, and returning to it with a fresh eye, (perhaps in another room, with a printout and a colored pen.) So far, so good. Bell recommends this practice, and she puts in a good word for rooting out writing that merely retraces familiar ruts: "... writers may need to edit out favorite riffs to force themselves to really write--not merely record the verbal mannerisms stored in the brain."
But she contradicts herself a few pages later: "When you edit yourself, the same danger exists; the writer in you may be intimidated by the editor in you. If you have the slightest suspicion that you are overediting, you, writer, need to stand up against you, editor." Then what, pray tell, was the editing for? Editing, whether for oneself or another, is not meant to throttle the writer's individual voice, but to let that voice be heard clearly. Why would the writer-self be opposed to that? If editing makes writing dull, as Bell implies it does, you're doing it wrong.
"When I go back into my text one too many times, a voice starts to rise in my head, a haunting litany that says, 'Don't fix it if it ain't broken.'" Oh, my dear Ms. Bell, it IS broken. Don't you see how hackneyed 'a haunting litany' is? --and you have the quoted expression backwards.
Suppressing, for the moment, the urge to line-edit the whole book and mail it back to W. W. Norton, I will content myself with noting a few more of the peculiar contradictions I happened upon.
"Subtle is good, obtuse is not. Your reader should not tilt his head, squint, and say 'Huh?' because the relationship of one unit to the next is unclear or absent." True enough, but that's exactly what's wrong with these: "Each word, not simply phrase, after all, means something. Every 'it,' 'at,' and 'for'--and where it gets situated--is a choice." "Modifiers are often overused, vague, or superfluous, or all three. They mollify a sentence instead of strengthen it." There is much pleasure, not just use, to editing yourself." Over and over again, in the attempt to trim fat, Bell has cut sinew instead.
Here's another good suggestion that Bell cannot seem to follow: "Commit to your ideas; be certain enough to write them without wordy precautions , announcements, or apologies.... The reader, by virtue of reading, wants those ideas, and not peripheral verbiage." Surely we could have done without 'by virtue of reading'. How about this: " A writer's language largely forms a reader's experience." That 'largely' is peripheral verbiage: any other elements of the reader's experience--inadequate wattage? turbulence over Tucson? the chirping of cell phones behind her on the bus?--cannot be the writer's concern.
"Listen for whether or not your ideas sound organized or scattershot." One 'or' or the other, don't you think?
"If you've written a bird's nest, then, untangle your ideas. Separate them into a few sentences. One small sentence, written well, can tell more than an expansive one that's gangly." Aye, but it does need to be written well. "Structure, then, is not a straitjacket for your words. It is an architecture that moves readers through and allows them to pause, not randomly, but with direction." Pause, with direction: stop reading, and breathe slowly. Now resume reading.
"When you edit, check to see that you're using the long, curvaceous sentence to say something, not as a catchall for the numerous ideas you've been unable to tease out and trim. In works by writers such as Dave Hickey, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James, convoluted phrasing, in essays or fiction, succeed at conveying meaning as clear as glass." Clear as glass!
Here's a meandering sentence about meandering sentences: "As you edit, watch out for long-winded areas, where you lose track of and even interest in the content of what may be beautifully turned sentences." Speaking of "may," this one should have been a 'might' (Chekhov having died nearly forty years before Walter Murch was born): "Chekhov may have appreciated Murch's method, at once esoteric and technical..."
Bell says, "Avoid overwriting or pretention. Have you succumbed to a self-conscious choice of word or syntax? Does your work, or any part of it, feel artificial, effortful, irritating?"
I'm sorry to say that the answer to those questions is an unqualified affirmative.
Susan "rings the" Bell for me. November 8, 2007
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
The Artful Edit:... by Susan Bell was thought provoking, immediately useful, and I expect it to be one of those books to which I refer often as I attempt to write.
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