Should Publishers Edit?
In “The Secret Sharer”, Alberto Manguel takes a cynical stance on whether publishers should edit the author’s work. He believes that by having writers’ work to be edited “we may perhaps me missing something fabulously new…unique”. He even mentions that some people have gone as far as comparing editors to Procustes, a Greek robber, who has “placed his visitors on an iron bed and stretched them or cut off the overhanging parts until they fitted exactly to his liking (Manguel, 132).” This is a faulty comparison as editing and torturing people have no relation to each other, though some may disagree. Manguel details editors as people who will reduce literature to a set of rules and tinge their opinion with their authority. He questions what they actually do as editors, since they have many functions, and brings into question whether writers are the only author of their work after an editor has gone through it. As a writer himself, his opinion sounds bias, and that feeling comes across in the beginning of this piece where he mentions in the second paragraph that “this paragraph you are now reading will not be the paragraph I originally wrote, since it will have to undergo …show more content…
He is correct if a writer wants to be published by a publishing company, but in today’s industry, that belief is dated. With the arrival of e-books and self-publishing, writers no longer need to go through editors to be published; they can be their own editor or have a friend no it. But that does not mean that editors are no longer important. Self-publishing is one direction writers can go in if they share the same views as Manguel, or if they writing is not being recognized by publishers. A proper editor is still beneficial for a writer to use, because they work with the writer to make the work the best it can
In “The Secret Sharer”, Alberto Manguel takes a cynical stance on whether publishers should edit the author’s work. He believes that by having writers’ work to be edited “we may perhaps me missing something fabulously new…unique”. He even mentions that some people have gone as far as comparing editors to Procustes, a Greek robber, who has “placed his visitors on an iron bed and stretched them or cut off the overhanging parts until they fitted exactly to his liking (Manguel, 132).” This is a faulty comparison as editing and torturing people have no relation to each other, though some may disagree. Manguel details editors as people who will reduce literature to a set of rules and tinge their opinion with their authority. He questions what they actually do as editors, since they have many functions, and brings into question whether writers are the only author of their work after an editor has gone through it. As a writer himself, his opinion sounds bias, and that feeling comes across in the beginning of this piece where he mentions in the second paragraph that “this paragraph you are now reading will not be the paragraph I originally wrote, since it will have to undergo …show more content…
He is correct if a writer wants to be published by a publishing company, but in today’s industry, that belief is dated. With the arrival of e-books and self-publishing, writers no longer need to go through editors to be published; they can be their own editor or have a friend no it. But that does not mean that editors are no longer important. Self-publishing is one direction writers can go in if they share the same views as Manguel, or if they writing is not being recognized by publishers. A proper editor is still beneficial for a writer to use, because they work with the writer to make the work the best it can