I’m writing this Monday morning, though you won’t see it until Tuesday. I’ve just run into yet another instance of the “editor” coming out in the non-editing person.
It never fails; you give someone the opportunity to edit and they’re going to take it and abuse the power. A current project is proof. I asked the client to give me a little feedback on how I presented one aspect of his project. I get the document back and it’s littered with changes. His right, of course, but some of his changes are just, well, insulting and off base a bit. In one section, he actually included the words “mundane and boring” in one critique of an unrelated area. And he went on to tell me how to fix it. Uh, that’s the information you provided. That’s the stuff you insisted stay in there. Yes, it is mundane and boring. But that would be your doing.
There’s no easy way to give a little editorial leeway to a client without getting back a full-blown line edit. I’ve seen it time and again. I’ve tried sending just the passage in question, but you know once you open that box, Pandora’s out and she’s wielding a red pen. Editorial control is less about the editorial part and more about the control part. While I’m happy to share, I don’t like it when the other party hogs the controls.
Everyone is a critic at some level. It’s just a matter of whom it is you should trust with the job and who should never be allowed to give arbitrary direction. If you give a client the chance to play editor, do yourself a favor and retain your authority. You are, after all, the expert here. Don’t let him become the interim-editor as you fade into the woodwork.