Editing is Only Good If the Editing is Good and a Lot of Editing is Not Good
the worship of editing as an inherent good is pious, disingenuous, and unhelpful
Telling someone their writing “could use an editor” sounds like insight, but Freddie deBoer makes the case that it's closer to a sports cliché — it offers no actual critique, and misunderstands what editing actually is. Editing is a human activity, not a noble abstraction. Some of it is good and some of it is bad. Overediting can do as much damage as underediting, and concision isn't always an improvement.
What lingers, especially for anyone who helps others find language for what they know, is the reframe: editing at its best is an act of care and attention, not a tidying-up that flattens a voice into sameness. (3,200 words)
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