How Chandler Bing is Making Me a Better Editor
I just finishing reading Matthew Perry’s dark and heartbreaking memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
The New York Times called it, “Candid, darkly funny…starkly chronicling his decades-long cage match with drinking and drug use. Perry writes gratefully and glowingly…”
GQ says it is, “Remarkable, startling, and heartfelt...”
Celebrity makes the world go round. Or the world goes round for celebrity. Or something like that. This book is an international bestseller because one of the most beloved characters of 90s network television is telling his story, and we—the collective appointment-TV generation—will line up for anything he (or Courtney, or David, or Jennifer, or Lisa, or Matt) produces that promises to give a glimpse behind the curtain of our favourite Thursday night friends.
Matthew Perry is not a bad writer; in fact, I think he’s quite brilliant, bringing a poignancy and unapologetic grit to his storytelling. The problem isn’t Matthew. The problem is the editing.
Here is what I suspect: in an over-ambitious goal to put this book on shelves and make MILLIONS for the publishing house (and Perry), too much faith was placed on the truth that Matthew is a good writer, and not enough on the stage that makes a book really shine. One slow, methodical, intentional round of intensive, cover-to-cover, structural edits (and for a big house that can pay a full time editor to dedicate their time, I’m talking like two weeks tops) could have reduced the occurrences of me rolling my eyes and saying out loud on several different occasions, “Are you kidding me?” by 100%.
It felt like Matthew wrote his chapters; those chapters were edited; then chapters were slapped together; then someone took a moody head shot and slapped it on a cover. And BAM! Book!
I actually Googled how long was it from pitch to publication for Matthew Perry’s book - to help substantiate my hunch…but, to no avail.
The repetition alone is proof enough of careless editing. When people ask me why the publishing process takes so long, my answer is always editing. And the unfair thing is, careless editing reflects on the author rather than the editor and publishing house, which is completely unjust.
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a full manuscript read-thru to catch/address story issues/holes, continuity issues, repetition, redundancy, unnecessary scenes, tense problems
a structural edit to address story flow and ensure all things identified in the first stage fit seamlessly
a copy edit to catch spelling and grammar
a full proofread
another full proofread within printed book form
These are all cover-to-cover. The structural edit stage often comes with additional work on certain problematic areas, extending the timeline as required.
Have typos slipped through on a CHP project? Sure have! If you got one of the early print runs of The World Collective, you may have noticed a well placed ‘butt’ instead of a ‘but’ — a mistake both myself and the author had a fun giggle over. But inconsistencies in story or voice, or if an author is trying to sneak in the same scene at a different point in the book? No. We can’t have that. Because that makes a book feel amateur. And you don’t sign with a publishing house to appear like an amateur to your readers.
The One Where Chandler Wants to be a Writer
There is an alternate reality Friends episode during season six in which Chandler is a struggling writer who eventually sells a story to Archie comics. In season nine we watch as Chandler takes on a role of copywriter for an ad agency. In his book, we learn that Matthew Perry has always been a writer in some capacity and, in many ways, I’m sure that the therapeutic act of writing this book was another step towards saving his own life.
But what would Chandler think as he read Matthew’s book?
“Could this BE any more sloppy?”
I don’t want this to come across as me saying I think I’m better than the editing team at Flatiron Books, but I will say I’ve lost some trust in them. I’m really interested in reading PageBoy by Elliot Page, but I’m so afraid to feel hurt for the beloved Juno star.
I wonder how I would handle the pressure of publishing a celebrity. I like to think I would be brave enough to postpone a launch if I knew something wasn’t ready, and I’d hope that author would trust me enough to know it was in their best interest.
The experience of reading this book has been important in my own journey of serving writers through editing. My authors deserve my very best. Matthew Perry deserved the very best. I am so sorry he didn’t get it.
