Litsy

Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers | Barbara Baig

She treasured expressive words as "some girls might have treasured jewels." I'm taking a course to hone the skills to add line editing to my developmental editing service for fiction writers. My prof. suggested we read this book. #writing #editing

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jen_the_scribe

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading

“…‘writers tend to magnify the significance and difficulty of writing and to destroy its essential simplicity and directness.‘ Also, they ruined tablecloths with their lead pencils.”

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jen_the_scribe

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading

“…the real tragedy occurs when the drive that should go into creation becomes unhinged and spills over into personal relationships.”

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jen_the_scribe

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading

“Male editors who fulfilled their job duties were deemed not ‘formidable‘ but ‘genius…‘

Lurking within the word ‘formidable‘ is this original sin: she did nothing to prop up male authority or disguise her own, nothing to make it easier for men to defer to her.”

jen_the_scribe Here the author is discussing the fact that so many people referred to Katherine as “formidable,” simply because she took her job seriously. And that is often a word used to describe women in such positions, but never men. 5d

jen_the_scribe I should add that the word is used in the context of respect and fear, maybe well-intentioned, but it indirectly hints at the “oddity” of a woman taking such authority in her career. However, it‘s instantly “expected” of men in the same positions. 5d

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jen_the_scribe

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading

“She valued intellectual risk, because she herself had profited from wading into books that made her stretch to encompass them.”

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jen_the_scribe

The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker | Amy Reading

“…her father and Crullie seemed to have provided only support, never censorship. Katharine was allowed to read books that scared her and books that she didn‘t understand—and these were ‘often the ones that meant the most‘ to her.”

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