In my Journalism III class my fellow students and I have
undertaken the task of editing stories from another class called Writing for
Publication and making a Journal called The Cal Corner. It has been interesting
to say the least. Speaking of saying the least, it would have been nice if some
of the writers for our journal could have said less. Well I would welcome them
to say as much as possible, but maybe just put it in fewer words.
When I write things for class sometimes forget that there are real world
issues that are sometimes overlooked by a busy student. One of these issues is
space. Not the constantly expanding realm of galaxies and stars, but the limited
amount of room to work with when putting together a publication.
The bottom line is...sometimes there is a limited amount of room.
Sometimes no matter how much re-sizing the art or headline helps, an editor is
forced to trim down a story. Damn editors!
If I was going to pick a least favorite part of our project, I would have
to say it was cutting down people's stories. There was one story done by a
friend of mine that I really enjoyed, but it was just far too long to fit into
our publication. As fate would have it , that was one of the stories that was
assigned to me. I must have read the thing ten times over, and no matter what I
did i couldn't select things that I thought should be omitted. After 45 minutes
or so I had the troy down to a manageable size. It had been cut and chopped,
sentences were condensed, and paragraphs shortened. I couldn't help but wonder
if my friend would be upset with what i had done to her piece. Oh well, I guess
that is the life of an editor.
I had an interesting perspective on the creation of the journal. Not only
was I in the class which was doing the editing, but I was also one of the
writers that had submitted work to be included in our collection. As a writer I
had created, and now as an editor I was hacking these stories to bit. In
reflection, I can't help but think about "The Destructors " by Graham Greene.
Greene's 1954 short story tells how a group of boys destroy a house. Greene
wrote about what the boys had done, "Destruction after all is a form of
creation. A kind of imagination had seen this
house as it had now
become."
Those who have not read "The Destructors" may remember the story being
referenced in the 2001 cult classic film, Donnie Darko.
Another problem is that some of the stories were, quite honestly. not
good enough to be in print. I mean it. In the defense of some contributors,
Writing for Publication is made of students from many different majors. Some of
these students are not aiming for a career in which they will be writing, and
those students and their potential employers should probably thank whatever god
they pray to for that fact. Take a time out from this post and read the Vonnegut
quote at the top of this page if you haven't already. Kurt....you have no
idea.
It created an interesting problem that I didn't foresee. I wasn't sure
How much I should be changing someone else’s work. There was one story in
particular that I would have had a really tough time editing. thankfully, that
story wasn't one that was assigned to me. I remember thinking that if it were
mine I would prefer to just rewrite the story and put my name on it. How much
can you change someone's piece before it is no longer their piece?
Other stories were very well-written, but needed some stylistic changes.
AP style errors were not overrunning the pages, most likely because the stories
had been through a round of editing before they reached us, but I did find some
that needed fixing.
In addition to providing words, our contributors were also assigned to
provide art. Art is what we call the pictures that accompany a story. Some
students provided great art that needed very little work, some students provided
art that needed substantial cropping and color change, some students provided
clip art that had to be thrown out and replaced, and some students didn't
provide art at all.
Earlier in the semester we had discussed the fact that
the art and the headline are vitally important because it's what people look at
first. As someone who aspires to be a writer that doesn't always sit well with
me. But facts are facts. I consider myself a serviceable writer, but one things
I will never be accused of having is an eye for aesthetics. not only do I lack
natural talent for working with the art, but I also don’t have as much
experience as some of my classmates working with Photoshop.
Photoshop is the program we use to make changes to the art.
I refuse to take the time to count all the different ways you can change
a single picture, but I can tell you that if you wanted to spend an entire day
figuring it out you probably could.
Some advice for you writers out there. Pay attention to the preferred wrting style of your publication, make sure to follow an size guidelines if they are provided, and always write sometihng worth writing
undertaken the task of editing stories from another class called Writing for
Publication and making a Journal called The Cal Corner. It has been interesting
to say the least. Speaking of saying the least, it would have been nice if some
of the writers for our journal could have said less. Well I would welcome them
to say as much as possible, but maybe just put it in fewer words.
When I write things for class sometimes forget that there are real world
issues that are sometimes overlooked by a busy student. One of these issues is
space. Not the constantly expanding realm of galaxies and stars, but the limited
amount of room to work with when putting together a publication.
The bottom line is...sometimes there is a limited amount of room.
Sometimes no matter how much re-sizing the art or headline helps, an editor is
forced to trim down a story. Damn editors!
If I was going to pick a least favorite part of our project, I would have
to say it was cutting down people's stories. There was one story done by a
friend of mine that I really enjoyed, but it was just far too long to fit into
our publication. As fate would have it , that was one of the stories that was
assigned to me. I must have read the thing ten times over, and no matter what I
did i couldn't select things that I thought should be omitted. After 45 minutes
or so I had the troy down to a manageable size. It had been cut and chopped,
sentences were condensed, and paragraphs shortened. I couldn't help but wonder
if my friend would be upset with what i had done to her piece. Oh well, I guess
that is the life of an editor.
I had an interesting perspective on the creation of the journal. Not only
was I in the class which was doing the editing, but I was also one of the
writers that had submitted work to be included in our collection. As a writer I
had created, and now as an editor I was hacking these stories to bit. In
reflection, I can't help but think about "The Destructors " by Graham Greene.
Greene's 1954 short story tells how a group of boys destroy a house. Greene
wrote about what the boys had done, "Destruction after all is a form of
creation. A kind of imagination had seen this
house as it had now
become."
Those who have not read "The Destructors" may remember the story being
referenced in the 2001 cult classic film, Donnie Darko.
Another problem is that some of the stories were, quite honestly. not
good enough to be in print. I mean it. In the defense of some contributors,
Writing for Publication is made of students from many different majors. Some of
these students are not aiming for a career in which they will be writing, and
those students and their potential employers should probably thank whatever god
they pray to for that fact. Take a time out from this post and read the Vonnegut
quote at the top of this page if you haven't already. Kurt....you have no
idea.
It created an interesting problem that I didn't foresee. I wasn't sure
How much I should be changing someone else’s work. There was one story in
particular that I would have had a really tough time editing. thankfully, that
story wasn't one that was assigned to me. I remember thinking that if it were
mine I would prefer to just rewrite the story and put my name on it. How much
can you change someone's piece before it is no longer their piece?
Other stories were very well-written, but needed some stylistic changes.
AP style errors were not overrunning the pages, most likely because the stories
had been through a round of editing before they reached us, but I did find some
that needed fixing.
In addition to providing words, our contributors were also assigned to
provide art. Art is what we call the pictures that accompany a story. Some
students provided great art that needed very little work, some students provided
art that needed substantial cropping and color change, some students provided
clip art that had to be thrown out and replaced, and some students didn't
provide art at all.
Earlier in the semester we had discussed the fact that
the art and the headline are vitally important because it's what people look at
first. As someone who aspires to be a writer that doesn't always sit well with
me. But facts are facts. I consider myself a serviceable writer, but one things
I will never be accused of having is an eye for aesthetics. not only do I lack
natural talent for working with the art, but I also don’t have as much
experience as some of my classmates working with Photoshop.
Photoshop is the program we use to make changes to the art.
I refuse to take the time to count all the different ways you can change
a single picture, but I can tell you that if you wanted to spend an entire day
figuring it out you probably could.
Some advice for you writers out there. Pay attention to the preferred wrting style of your publication, make sure to follow an size guidelines if they are provided, and always write sometihng worth writing