During my tenure as a newspaper reporter I worked under three editors.
My third and last editor, Jerry, was an all-around great guy.
I was so devoted to my second editor, an old-timer named Jack, that I would’ve followed him almost to the gates of hell. (I would’ve driven him maybe seven eighths of the way there. That’s pretty much where my devotion to any boss ends, I think.) My point is Jack was the best boss I ever had.
My very first editor, on the other hand, was someone I wanted to shove into oncoming traffic.
Let’s say his name was Dan. He had many failings, but the worst, in my view, was his tone of voice. That voice, accompanied by a cocked eyebrow, made me feel as dumb as dirt. To be fair, I was dumb. I was a journalism greenhorn. But I already knew this without all of Dan’s nasty little reminders. What I needed from my editor was advice and guidance. That was not Dan’s strong suit.
What really got my dander up, however, was the way Dan hacked away at my prose. One piece I wrote, about a nasty and tempestuous council meeting, was edited to make the proceedings look like an English garden party.
I stormed up to Dan’s desk. “What did you do to this?”
“I got rid of all your editorializing,” he said in that tone of his. “And you’re welcome.”
Ooh, I so wanted to knock those cocked eyebrows off his smug little face. “Editorializing? Where? Where was I editorializing?”
“The adverbs,” he replied. His tone suggested that I was more than welcome to add “stupid” to the end of his quote.
Then he waved me away. Dan had more important things to do now.
I sat at my desk and seethed. What a jerk. I wasn’t editorializing, I was reporting. I am a reporter, right? I was doing my job. That councilman said what he said and he said it “angrily.” I was there. I saw it. The guy was speaking through gritted teeth. His face was beet red. His hands were balled up into little fists. That’s “angrily!” What else could it be?
Then I had an epiphany.
Why, I wondered, didn’t I mention the gritted teeth and the red face and the balled fists in my story? That would’ve communicated angry much better than my “angrily.” And those little physical details really do paint a nice picture, don’t they? They sort of put you there in the room. You can almost see Mr. Councilman frothing at the mouth. My ambiguous, solitary “angrily” didn’t do that at all.
That “angrily” now felt like a pretty lazy way to get my point across.
Then I arrived at another sudden realization, and it was a painful one: Dan was right. Adverbs are editorializing. When I wrote “angrily” I was asking the reader to trust my own interpretation of events without providing any evidence to back it up. I wrote that the guy was angry, but I never proved it.
Ugh. Dan, in his jerky, nasty way, mentored me.
My articles became a lot punchier after that. Dan edited less and I began to enjoy my job more. A few short weeks after beginning my self-imposed adverb purge, Dan accepted another job at another newspaper and I never saw him again.
I never did tell Dan how influential he was – but I don’t think I ever could. If I ever saw him again, I think my old urge to smack him upside the head would overcome me. And, just to upset Dan further, I would make sure to smack him happily.
Hey, Look! A Writer Fellow! 
Funny I should read this today, I cringed at putting an adverb in my post. Great story!
Thanks, Catherine!
And, cringe not! Adverbs aren’t evil, they’re just overused!
Ah, the dreaded adverb.
Great post, Mike! It’s funny how even those people who drive us crazy, and are snotty and superior, can sometimes teach us important lessons in life, and in writing.
Indeed, a good message can be so hard to hear when the messenger is a putz.
Glad you made it out of the meetings to tell the tale.
Yes, ever since Thurber’s “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” adverbs became the grammar equivalent of the smallpox virus. I try to use them judiciously. 😮
Your first editor, although correct in his analysis, was a wizened piece of jerky.
I, unlike most of my peers, generally enjoyed township council meetings. I was always tickled by how something as banal as a new parking ordinance could devolve into a Jerry Springer-style shouting match.
Good times.
Bwaaaa haa haa. Nice punchline! <— get it…punch…?!
Oh, you!
I saw that you “liked” my post, forget which one, oh, wait . . . it was “Improve your Worse Piece” and had to see what you are about with a blog title like yours. After laughing out loud three times I hit follow. You crack me up. Can’t wait to read more.
Welcome, Robin! So glad I could give you a chuckle or three.
Don’t be a stranger!
Ah ha! There I am. I was going to say maybe it was a long time ago so that is why I forgot. But June 14th? Geez.
Hey, a faulty memory means you can enjoy it twice!
See, this is why I could care less about being a journalist. Blogging encourages adverbs, and I looove adverbs (and usually they are appropriate for the situation).
Adverbs have their place, I’ll certainly give you that. All too often, however, they are used to violate the Cardinal rule of writing: show, don’t tell.
Funny! I am laughing–hysterically–OK, silently–because my first editor in journalism school did the same despicable thing to me. Come to think of it I probably didn’t follow a career in journalism because I’m such a rebel and insist upon using adverbs and adjectives when they come out of the typing fingers.
I never went to journalism school, but I have a lot of friends who have. Every last one of them has at least one good horror story to tell. And none of them ever became journalists.
So those schools must be quite a sight to behold.
So! Did you drop out of the program like half of my friends? Or did you stick it out, graduate, and look for a job unrelated to your major like the other half of my friends?
I graduated from TWO journalism programs. And, yep, totally unrelated jobs. I am a school business manager and a township treasurer. 🙂
Two! Holy cow!
The only career journalists I know were English majors.
Oh, but my husband (met him in the first journalism school) has been the editor of our local newspaper for a hundred years. OK, I exaggerate. But he’s been there awhile.
Great story! I happily chuckled while carefully slurping my coffee.
Gaaaa! No! Don’t do that!
My eyes are swollen and my head is beating a rhythm from no sleep, but my adverbs are once again tamed behind my delete button.
Well done!
I followed your link in a comment on Subtle Kate’s blog to find this. Bravo! You did a great job in describing your epiphany. My epiphany came from John Trimble’s book “Writing with Style.” Old John, well I don’t think he is old, hit ME upside the head. Changed my writing forever.
I love it when someone stumbles upon one of my older posts!
Many thanks, Robin! It is always a delight to chat with another “ly” opponent!
Now go look at some of my earlier posts! You shall be pleasantly surprised. (And, yes, that one was deliberate.)
I love it when that happens too. Especially on an old post when I had just a few followers. I shall poke around the rest of your blog.
And I shall poke around yours!
And don’t look now, but you HAVE commented on this post before! I just noticed it! Scroll up and see.
On another note, I’ve noticed that your blog takes a long time to load. I don’t know why, but none of the other blogs I follow are as pokey as yours. Take from this info what you will.
Oh gosh, I did? Hmmm . . . I wonder why it takes a long time to load. Maybe because of all the photos I’ve posted? I have a techie friend. I’ll ask him if he has any ideas.
Outstanding.
Why, thank you!
Isn’t it funny how we sometimes learn under trial by fire? Sometimes though, you need someone like this to smack you upside the head – as long as its just once – then they can go bother someone else.
If only I could’ve smacked back…
Ha! But then what would you have learned?
I can learn and smack at the same time.
Ha! 🙂