Women Editors

WOMEN EDITORS

The two men sprawled in the steel-backed chairs before my desk. The older had a rugged face and wore a black leather jacket. The other wore a sport shirt under a sports jacket.

“How’d you get in?” I asked.

“Bernie taught me,” said leather jacket.

“Are you Bernie?” I addressed the sports jacket.

“No. I’m Bobby. He’s Larry.”

“Bernie’s out of a book.”

“I’m Dan Diamond,” I said, offering my hand.

“Larry Spenser,” said leather.

“Bobby Black,” said sports. His grip was firmer.

“What can I do for you guys?”

“Help us with the women.”

“Women?” I raised an eyebrow. (I had practiced in front of mirrors.)

“Women editors.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You’re not a writer. We’re writers.”

“See, we write detective novels, adventure novels. For years everything was fine. Then these publishers started hiring women editors.”

Leather broke in. “Yeah, and they want to make us all sissified. “
          “See, we write bare bones stuff, Ernest Hemingway stuff. Dashiell Hammet stuff. These gals come in and want us to DESCRIBE things.”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? I thought that was what writing was about.”

They looked at me like I had fallen off something nasty.

“Show, don’t tell.”

“Yeah, show, don’t tell. That’s the rule.”

“Look, we’ll write something like ‘Dirk Deadly walked into the room. He saw Phil Phearless behind his desk. Phil’s fist pointed a gun right at him.’”

“This was fine until the women. Now they shoot it back at us marked in blue pencil. ‘What were the men wearing? What kind of desk was it? Was it clear or what was on it. Describe the room.”

“Yeah, I asked her for an example – like how would SHE write it. It came back like this: ‘Dirk Deadly stood outside the door in his new Brooks Brothers navy pin stripe. He adjusted his navy rep tie against the baby blue shirt. A two pointed white handkerchief emerged from his suit pocket.

‘He turned the knob and opened the grey steel door to see Phil Phearless seated across from him behind his massive cherry wood desk The desk was cluttered with papers and bric-a-brac – pictures of wife and kids, several paper weights, two phones, and an intercom. Phil himself was in white shirtsleeves with red braces. With his collar unbuttoned and eyes bloodshot, he looked terrible. The Walther P38 clutched in his fist also looked terrible.’”

“You see, that’s garbage. Talk about clutter. They take our nice clipped language and inflate it into girl-talk.”

“Sissy lingo.”

“I see. But just what do you want me to do about it?”

“Make them stop!”

“Yeah, they need to publish stuff we write the way we write it. After all, we’re both best-selling authors.”

“But we won’t be best-selling long if they won’t publish us.”

“And I don’t want my name on no sissy stuff.”

I got up, went to the coffee pot, poured me a cup, and looked back at them. “So how do you think I ought to go about it?”

“We have no idea. You’re the investigator. Like the guys in our books, they wouldn’t stay in the private eye business if everybody knew how to do that stuff.”

I shoved a boiler-sheet rate schedule across the desk. “I’m not promising results.  I do promise I’ll think about it and try to find you a publisher that won’t mess with you so much.”

          ***    ***    ***    ***** ***    ***    ***

I tossed and turned that night. How could I get my teeth into this? I couldn’t even figure on a starting point to unravel this conundrum. Then I thought of Aggie Marple. She was the advertising gal in the commas case that literally unlocked the rollup doors that solved the case. Matter if fact, I often thought of Aggie Marple, and my thoughts had nothing to do with commas.

So the next morning after a slow start, I wandered up to the Metropolitan Advertising agency in all its weirdness. I threw a wave and the receptionist, who recognized me and didn’t try to intervene this time. (She learned the hard way it wasn’t worth it.) I knocked on Aggie’s door.

After a minute, she threw open the door, gave me a hug, and took me by the hand. “Over here. What do you think of this?” I looked at a poster with a picture of a new restaurant with vaguely happy people streaming in.” I have no idea.” That’s your department. Looks ok to me.” She grabbed up the poster and ripped it in two. “I didn’t think so either. What brings you here this morning?”

“I want to take you for coffee and run something by you.”

“OK. I need a break anyway.”

We went to the Verbal Bar, my favorite watering hole I’ve mentioned in the comma case.  We took a corner booth and read the badly copied fax on the table. Tonight's forum was on whether the Tea Party should be replaced by a Coffee Party or a Wine Party. At the Verbal all kinds of debates go on, both at the tables and on the stage. Gender, race, even punctuation don't matter. Neither does knowledge for that matter. The joint is fixed up with a radio - TV theme. Cast off mikes and even TV cameras are stuck here and there. Headlines are pasted on the walls, and news scripts torn off an old AP wire are scattered on the tables. Apart from that, it's a normal bar and cafe.

We both ordered coffee, and I described to her what the two tough writers had told me. “Are they telling it straight?” I asked. “Do editors do that sort of thing?”

“I have no clue. I’m in advertising, remember? These guys might have a great career with us. We need to punch out ideas in as few colorful words as possible.”

“So, what do I do?”

“Probably, you need to talk to the women who actually edit this stuff.”

“And that would be…?”

“Didn’t you talk to some others in the comma case before you came to me? In fact, didn’t one of them hire you?”

“You’re exactly right. She owes me, so I’ll start with her.”

***    ***    ***

Elizabeth Barrett’s blue eyes peered at me over the half glasses perched on her nose. She was Production Editor of Classical Books Limited, and she had been my first case since I specialized in Grammar Investigations.

“I have met both of those…gentlemen,” she replied.

“You don’t seem to like them.”

“Barbaric. Uncivilized. Now recognize I am an editor of books that have become classics or we think fall in the classical tradition. Hemingways they are not.

“They write poorly?”

“Let’s just say they don’t fit our style.”

“I guess what I’m asking is whose style would they fit? Who might publish them?”

“I have no idea,” the Barrett said. “You might try a more contemporary publisher, but they’re going to need to write better before anyone will put them in print.”

“Not so, Elisabeth. I googled both of them, and they are both best selling authors. Their problem came when their long term editor – a man – died, and the publishing house assigned a woman editor to their case, I mean account.”

“Really. I can’t imagine any junk like they write making a best seller list. Just shows the extent our literary taste has fallen. Reinforces our need for Classical Books!”

***    ***    ***    ***    ***

I was back in the panoramic office of Jaqui Nixon, who runs Contemprorary Publishers. The tall redhead held my attention in spite of the panoramic views of the city through the walls of glass. I laid out my problem.

“You say both of these guys are top ten writers and no one will take them?”

“Of course they will take them. They just want to edit them. Make them add stuff they don’t want to add. They don’t think so much description is necessary.”

“Everybody edits. It’s just part of the business.”

“They think the kind of editing their new women editors do detracts from the macho style of their adventures. They just want to say, ‘the guy pointed a gun at me,’ not the tall, ugly fellow with a suede jacket over the J Crew polo shirt aimed the blue steel revolver in my direction.’”

“I see their point. Still, if you don’t use some adjectives you’re not controlling the flow of thought at all. They could still have control over which descriptions. I mean, an editor wouldn’t make them give someone blue eyes rather than brown…unless of course, they had blue eyes in the last chapter.”

She paused and thought a few minutes, then looked up at me.

“Tell  you what. Give me a week. In the meantime, I’ll read a couple of their books. Then you can bring me a copy of the first chapter of their new manuscripts. I’ll read those, mark them up, then the three of you come in and let’s see if we can make a deal.

“One other thing.” She got up from behind the desk, opened a closet, and produced three books. “Give both guys one of these books and keep one for yourself. All three of you read one before you come in next week.”

I looked at the paperback. “Pelican? Never heard of him.”

“You need to, and more important, so do these guys. Go read.”

“Yes ma’am. See you in a week.”

***    ***    ***

Next day, Larry and Bobby were back in my office.

“Here’s the manuscript you wanted. First chap.”

“Yeah, here’s mine too. Now what did she say?”

“She said she was going to read a published book by each of you. Then she wanted to read these chapters. She’ll blue pencil them the way she would do it if she were editing your work for real. Then we’ll meet with her next week, let you look at the editing and talk about it, and maybe she can offer you a deal you’d like.”

The two writers looked at each other.

“Can’t hurt.”

“Gotta get published again.”

“We’ll do it.”

“One other thing. Each one of you guys take one of these and read it. I’ve already started, and it’s not bad at all.”

“What’s that all about?”

“I have no idea. I’m just passing on what Ms Nixon said. Go read.”

They looked at each other. They looked down at the books. They looked up at each other again and shrugged. They got up and left.

*** *** ***

The next week, the three of us men sat across from Jaqui Nixon in her plate glass office. She smiled radiantly enough that I melted and wondered whether it was all a planned technique.

“What did you gentlemen think of Mr Pelican’s writing?”

“Pretty good. Strong stuff,” said Larry.

“Yeah. Good plot too.”

“What about the descriptions…clothes and stuff,” Jaqui asked.

The guys looked at each other. “Not bad,” answered Larry. “He kept it in limits.”

“Was he tough enough for you,” she pushed.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Bobby chipped in.

“Now for the money question: can you guys write with the same degree of description?” She pushed on…”I know you can because I’ve read your books. At least in places you made me see the characters. In the chapters you submitted, you did sketch the outlines of the characters. Sometime I wanted more, but you can do it. Now here are your chapters back with proposed edits. Look them over and tell me what you think.”

The guys took their chapters, and silence fell while they scanned the blue markings.

Finally, Bobby said, “I can live with this. What about you, Larry?”

“Not the same as old Sam, but I guess any new editor would be different. Can we negotiate on some of these? Like cut description here to move on with the action if we add stuff somewhere else?”

“I’m sure we can on a case by case basis. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

“Can you offer them a contract today?” I asked.

“Do you boys have an agent?” she asked.

“Never needed one with Sam. He always treated us right. We both got 10% of sales across the board.”

“I think we can do better than Sam if you keep selling. We’ll do 10% up to one hundred thousand copies and raise it to 15% past that. How does that sound?”

“Sounds great! Will you pay Dan for us too?”

“I don’t care who signs the check. I just want the cash.”

Another case closed. And oh, Jaqui and I went out to celebrate.