Why Editing Is a Top Skill You Need in the AI Age
Do you ever read the acknowledgments section at the end of a book? I’m mildly obsessed. Yes, they often contain tedious lists of meaningless names of people the author wishes to thank, which I skim. They also show how the sausage is made, and they always reference the book’s editor and the role (generally crucial) that person played in the process.
What Editors Are and Are Not
If you’ve never worked with a quality editor, you might envision a gruff curmudgeon wielding a red pen, there to make your words bleed and point out all your inevitable weaknesses. While that archetype does exist, a wise and kind yet firm editor plays a far different role. They nurture ideas, bolster the writer’s confidence, and sometimes even become an essential muse. By nature, editors stay behind the scenes, offering feedback and inspiration, asking questions, providing potential solutions to prickly problems, pointing out holes in logic, always demanding clarity. Further, an editor is a proxy for your future readers. If your writing passes muster with your editor, it will likely be well received by your readers. Ironically, as a reader, you likely never give one thought to the editor—which is by design. They’re there in service of the work itself, as collaborators and polishers.
How I Went from Fact-Checker to First Byline
I fondly recall one such editor of mine at Indianapolis Monthly Magazine during a summer internship when I was 21, Kim Hannel. She was a thoughtful, careful editor and surprised me by quickly seeing my promise as a writer and entrusting me with significant assignments beyond the fact-checking and 25-word blurbs that were the steady diet of interns. She gave me my first co-byline, which was earned by doing major surgery on a freelance story that had arrived in underwhelming condition. I’ll always remember that story about custom-made wedding dresses, which I confidently sliced and diced, tightening it here and there, adding quotes from another interview and a more compelling lead.
At that tender age, I was naive and idealistic, often taken for a silly high school girl rather than the serious young woman I aspired to be. I hoped I showed promise as a writer. I thought I might have talent. My only pay at the internship was in the form of parking reimbursement. Being recognized by an admired editor as worthy of weighty responsibility was in some ways the point of the entire endeavor.
I tracked down a copy of Indianapolis Monthly where I was listed as an intern (Jessica Gordon, then). Also pictured here with my mom and dad at Hanover Homecoming, and with my dear friend then and now, Bethan Roberts. Finally, my car at the time: red Dodge Neon.
A Love Letter to the Editor
In The New Yorker’s 100th anniversary issue, Jill Lepore offered an exceedingly rare peek into the inner workings of that esteemed pub’s most storied editors: “War of Words: Editors, writers, and the making of a magazine.”
Ironically, this piece about the complex relationship between writers and their editors could have used some sharp cutting (in my opinion). But I loved reading about the somewhat slippery dynamic I’ve experienced on both sides of the fence. It describes the feelings that can arise in this strangely intimate arrangement.
“The relationship between an editor and a writer can be as intimate as an affair and as ineffable as a marriage, but it is also likely to involve two perfect strangers warily guarding a precise measure of distance…” writes Lepore.
And the power dynamic between writer and editor as Lepore describes it may surprise you.
“That’s not to say that the relationship is symmetrical. It’s not. It’s as lopsided as unrequited love. Writers are dizzy about their editors, as twitchy as teenagers.”
Some of the writers even proclaimed that they wrote exclusively and only for their editors. They were in constant need of validation and affirmation, even the greatest among them.
“‘In the wildly unlikely event that this Fragment does not meet your publication needs at this time, I would ask that you dispose of it thoroughly and irremediably—some combination of shredder and flame is usually sufficient,’ David Foster Wallace wrote to his editor, Deborah Treisman, in 1999.”
Writers Long for Their Editors’ Approval
Writers look to their editors for affirmation and validation, they entrust their vulnerable inner workings to them and hope to reflect back to them the rightness of their thoughts, their minds made concrete. It’s vulnerable.
“John Bennet, who was raised in East Texas and drove a pickup truck, got his first job at The New Yorker in 1975. ‘An editor is like a shrink, Bennet liked to say. ‘If the writer doesn’t think his editor is great, he’s totally fucked up.’ There is no transference like this transference. ‘A writer is a guy in the hospital wearing one of those gowns that’s open in the back’ was another of Bennet’s aphorisms. ‘An editor is walking behind making sure that nobody can see his ass.’”
It's the editor’s greatest responsibility—and joy—to provide that affirming reflection, to ensure those precious ideas make it out into the world as the best version of themselves.
“‘Readers are like cows—they just want to keep chewing what you feed them,’” a former New Yorker editor used to say. “But writers are like sheep, woolly and steadfast and bleating. And the best editor, high in the hills, is like a shepherd, warding off the wolves, moving the flock to better pasture, rescuing lost lambs.”
What Is Lost with the Absence of Editors?
And now I ask you—when, if ever, have you worked with an editor? Even now, I put this article into the world as a trinity unto myself: writer, editor and indeed, publisher. The question becomes, what is lost (and also gained) without editors?
Lepore writes: “Editing, though, is a dying art. […] If you were to look back to the year 1925 and read or listen to everything published on any given day—in books and magazines, in newspapers and newsletters and radio broadcasts—nearly all of it, with the heart-thumping exception of live sports broadcasts, would have gone through an editorial process. Editors, the good ones, anyway, would have considered whether what was being said was said clearly and stated fairly. A century on, in an age of tweets and TikToks and Substack posts and chatty podcasts, a vanishingly small percentage of the crushingly vast amount that is published on any given day has been edited, by anyone. A whole lot of people are wandering around in hospital gowns with their butts out, patootie to the wind.”
8 Reasons Sharp Editing Is a Required Skill in the Age of AI
Lately, I’ve been thinking about editing skills and their value in the context of AI-generated content, in conjunction with the current reality of patootie-in-the-wind publishing. Perhaps strangely, I feel uniquely positioned to navigate this moment precisely because of my editing background and mindset. Here are a few ways those hard-won abilities translate in today’s circumstances.
1. All drafts require careful reading.
This goes double (or triple) for AI. Sometimes AI-generated content is so good at faking it that if you read it quickly, it passes for the real thing. Slow down. Read every word. Take note of the weird bits.
2. Asking questions > blind acceptance.
You can’t assume that what AI spits out is “good enough.” Make sure to probe the writing for holes in logic, then ask the right questions—and answer them. Do not pass on AI content without reviewing. If you consider yourself the editor, you have a responsibility to publish responsibly.
3. Fact-checking > than hallucination.
If AI doesn’t know something, it will make something up. If you’ve never fact-checked, here’s the low-down: Check all names, titles and outside references to verify they actually exist. That’s names of people, organizations, conferences, places, websites. I’ve personally caught AI fabricating professional organizations. True story. You can also ask the AI to check what it’s written for errors. Also, learn all of your chosen tool’s capabilities. You can put guardrails in place by asking the AI not to make things up, and to place symbols anywhere it is unsure so you can verify.
4. ChatGPT = an incompetent freelancer.
There’s always that freelance writer who submits sloppy work with gaping holes, or a piece that just isn’t quite good enough. When editing AI-generated content, treat it with the same skepticism as an unreliable team member, student, intern or freelancer.
5. Authenticity > computer-generated.
What do you have to add that is only and uniquely you? Don’t let AI paint over your colorful character with boring taupe. Be real by adding your unique perspective, your own flair, your own personal experiences.
6. Original voice > bland correctness.
Yes, you can indeed train AI over time to sound more and more like you. But YOU are the valid owner of your writerly voice. Never forget that. Make sure the writing always sounds the way you want to sound. Would you make a different word choice? Would you interject humor? Would you vary sentence length to add color and rhythm? Spice in some alliteration, incorporate an allusion. Make it you.
7. Storytelling = connection.
AI does not know your stories. Dig deep and make your point through stories only you can tell. This is how we connect to each other as human beings.
8. Humans > AI.
Homo sapiens have been making and using tools for over 2 million years. Perhaps AI is our ultimate tool. Whatever it is, AI is not US. Let us not relinquish the power of our writerly voices, nor the innately, uniquely human ability to write (and edit) as only we can.
