The (Hidden) Genius of Editing

Pattern of genius: Dickens's original manuscript

Editing has a bad name.

To many of us, the word evokes fussy red pens, nitpicking, stilted progress. Editing — which we can define as locating mistakes and fixing them — seems in every way to be the precise opposite of genius. After all, geniuses are fluid, perfect. Geniuses nail it the first time — that's what makes them geniuses, right?

Uh, no.

In fact, when you peel back genius, you usually reveal editing. Lots and lots of editing. Ridiculous