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Originally Posted by RickyMaveety
OK .... then I'm seriously confused as to why the crappy stuff got out there. Was no one willing to read it and gently inform the great author that he "had no clothes" so to speak??
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You're an editor. You get a manuscript submitted by a Big Name author. You want to buy it, because you know it will
sell. If you don't buy it, the author can sell it elsewhere in a heartbeat. How likely will
you be to tell the author she "has no clothes on"?
The relationship between author and editor is complex. No authors I can think of
like editors mucking in their prose, but the smart ones recognize the value of it. A good editor can help make a good book a great one by helping to refine the focus and tighten the prose. How well this works depends on the author and the editor. The author must trust the editor's skill and judgment, and be willing to work with the editor.
Tom Clancy is my Horrible Example of a writer who
needs a good editor, but has become popular enough to reject editing. The last Jack Ryan book had at least one sub-plot that went nowhere and could have been excised without being missed, and could have been considerably tightned in other areas as well.
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The last book in the Lazarus Long series (as I remember it) was nothing more than teenage tits and the odd orgy. Did someone out there really think that would pass muster as quality writing??
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Forget "quality writing". Someone out there thought it would
sell, because Heinlein wrote it. They were right.
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Dennis
(Who agrees that later Heinlein isn't quite as good as early works, but doesn't see them being as bad as some folks like to claim.)