“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required.” “Much is required from those to whom much is given.” “Great gifts mean great responsibilities.” Looks almost like an editing exercise, right? Actually, you’ll no doubt recognize part of Luke 12:48. Those three statements are a sampler of three basic translation approaches: formal equivalence (NASB), dynamic equivalence (NLT), and paraphrase (MSG). To get to my own point, however, it’s three ways to phrase one golden rule when it comes to other people’s prose: As an editor, I’ve been given the opportunity to contribute, so I’d better do so with fitting respect and even fear. Those of you who know my work will agree that (when it comes to editing, at least) I believe in overcommunication. I leave notes in the hope that every suggestion will make sense. I want my thinking to be plain to the writer. I try to anticipate questions, both from the writer and future readers, and touch up what is before me with their needs in mind. I hope I approach every project not just as a piece of work to slog through but as an educational opportunity. I don’t say teaching opportunity because it nearly always amounts first to a learning opportunity for me. I resist the urge to explain, but there are times when a compact note is really a mini-lecture on some fine point. (The broader points I leave for an attached letter to the author.) Long note or short, the overcommunication urge works against brevity but drives me to get the most out of the fewest words. The principle has a flip side, however, on which I think we rarely reflect. Risking immodesty, it amounts to my saying to the writer, “Now that I’ve given this back to you, bleeding red ink, with notes stuck all over it, bristling with questions, I’ve made your job a good bit harder right now.” To flip the point in my second paragraph: As a writer, I’ve been given a truckload of suggestions and feedback, so I need to consider it all carefully if I’m to improve this piece of writing. And not just this piece of writing, I may hope. An author may have procured editorial services at a price and is entitled to expect quality input as a result. Beyond that transaction, my hope is that a writer will emerge from our interaction

• better able to anticipate questions and concerns raised by the piece,

• more sensitive to how ideas are organized through a paragraph or down a page,

• with a sharper eye for an unclear antecedent or loose modifier or possible double meaning,

• with more facility at varying sentence length and structure to manage pace,

• with a more sensitive touch on the point-of-view pedal for closing in and easing back from the details or characters of a narrative,

and so on. In short: I am here to provide editorial services, but the way I see it, a key part of my job is to enable writers to better edit their own material and to understand and take the greatest advantage of what I do. If an author rises to the challenge, then the next time we work together, the writer will bring more to the process — and have a whole new level of work to do once my work is done.