# Do any famous writers refuse to be edited? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 30, 2011, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130 "2011-09-30T08:40:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/61 "2011-10-03T00:25:24Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Blasphemer! The King James version is the version Jesus wrote. You can tell because he highlighted all his words in red. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/62 "2011-10-03T05:31:52Z")
> [@norvalnormal](#): > > Dealing with British texts that are being issued in the U.S. can be pretty aggravating as well for the diligent proofreader. > Some copyeditors will insist that every single British term in the narrative (some editors: even if it’s in dialogue spoken by British speakers!) be changed to its American equivalent. This is ludicrous if the book is intended for reasonably sophisticated readers, who wouldn’t exactly have trouble with “lift,” “flat,” and so on. And, invariably, the copyeditor misses 30% of these terms and they need to be changed to “elevator,” “apartment,” etc., for the sake of consistency. > > Yet in the same manuscript, there will be a Britishism that is _so_ obscure that I am unable to make heads or tails of it, even with 3 British/American dictionaries at hand (God bless search engines) … I recall a book I proofread where the Southe’n Bay-ul took an order for “a li’l ol’ shipment of _aluminium_” once. Neil Gaiman also wrote an issue of Sandman where he got everything exactly right in a redneck bar for page after page–right up till someone asks for a _packet_ of cigarettes. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/63 "2011-10-03T05:45:29Z")
> [@FriarTed](#): > > I think it was Ayn Rand herself who said she challenged Bennett Cerf’s recommendation about editing ATLAS SHRUGGED with “Would you edit the Bible?” But she did have someone read the manuscript aloud to her, to catch rhyming consecutive words. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/64 "2011-10-03T10:13:03Z")
> [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > Neil Gaiman also wrote an issue of Sandman where he got everything exactly right in a redneck bar for page after page–right up till someone asks for a _packet_ of cigarettes. Really? How do rednecks buy their cigarettes then? Individually? In pairs?.. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/65 "2011-10-03T12:17:49Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Really? How do rednecks buy their cigarettes then? Individually? In pairs?.. Packs, not packets. Nobody calls them packets here. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/66 "2011-10-03T15:20:45Z")
Just putting it out there, but Cormac McCarthy? The dude doesn’t even bother with quotation marks. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/67 "2011-10-03T17:48:24Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Just putting it out there, but Cormac McCarthy? The dude doesn’t even bother with quotation marks. Not bothering with quotation marks was part of the modernist movement in writing, and so dates back at least to the 1920s. It got very prominent in the 1960s, when another wave of writers picked it up, and may be cycling back again. It never went away in more underground/avant garde circles. Editing modernist literature is a real problem. It was designed to subvert all the “rules” of writing, from punctuation on up. How do you edit Gertrude Stein? How do you edit the writers who would drop their manuscripts to the floor and pick up the pages in random order? Or [cut-up technique](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique)? At various times over the last century, writers did everything imaginable with manuscripts to parallel what artists were doing with non-representational art. At some point you have to give up and hope that the end product is what the writer wanted - assuming that the writer had a specific end product in mind at all. ---
**Author:** ![norvalnormal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f19dbf/32.png) [@norvalnormal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norvalnormal)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/68 "2011-10-03T20:27:15Z")
As I mentioned on these boards before, I believe, I have been a proofreader for so long that I proofed the _first_ books of both Robert Jordan and the Gears, years before TOR Books was swallowed by St. Martin’s Press … There was an artsy-fartsy book I did for Scribner several years ago which was a stream of consciousness “love letter” to his, real-life I presume, “muse” and maybe 5 “sentences” in total–in a book that was approx. 300 pp long. The author is or at least was semi-famous (I’ve blanked on his name) but this job was absolute torture–and I couldn’t conceive of anyone in his/her right mind who’d be willing to read the darn thing unless being paid to do so. A couple times in jobs I’ve had, authors have mandated that there be no right-margin hyphens whatsoever … ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/69 "2011-10-04T15:57:05Z")
> [@Biggirl](#): > > Blasphemer! The King James version is the version Jesus wrote. I had an aunt who once told my mom out of the blue, “You know, Adam and Eve were American.” She was only one of my relatives who KNEW that Jesus spoke American English. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/70 "2011-10-04T20:09:04Z")
Yes, Laurel K. Hamilton had a scene where a character totals her car. A few pages later she is driving that car. I believe Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has no editor. She has gotten the names of characters spelled differently in the same book and from book to book. I once mentioned this to her fan club president way back on AOL and was asked specifically was wrong in the book. I pointed about 7 different errors. Never heard back. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/71 "2011-10-04T21:09:35Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Packs, not packets. Nobody calls them packets here. Fags are fags. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130/72 "2011-10-06T16:02:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Copyediting is not editing. Proofreading is not editing. They may be essential and writers are always grateful for those who can do the job well\*, but editing is as different as mathematics is from arithmetic. You need to work on your analogies. I’m sure it’s accurate, but it’s hardly illuminating. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-famous-writers-refuse-to-be-edited/598130.md?page=3)