//------------------------------// // Death to the Editor // Story: The Death of an Author // by Nugget //------------------------------// From the personal journal of Pen Name. Six months later... “And Twilgiht spurkel totally maked lovded with Big Mac, and they livded happie ever after.” - The ending to a “creative work” by an unknown author I don’t give two bits about anymore. I don’t think you can hear my head smacking against the desk in front of me. I, Pen Name, took a break from my writing to pursue an editorial job within the Canterlot Chronicle, to kind of change-up my duties while remaining on the newspaper’s payroll. It’s steady, for the most part, however I found it to be as stressful as writing itself. It’s not because of the stories themselves, narratives and grammar can be fixed with time, but instead it’s from having to work with their respective authors. For the record, not every author I work with is horrible, unless they say they are in a joking manner. There are a lot of good writers out there, working hand-and-hand with their editors in a professional or friendly manner. As a team, they find and crack down upon the mistakes written into the story, suggest corrections, determine which correction is applicable, and then move on to the next grammar or narrative problem with no conflicts between each other. That’s how they should work together. Then there’s those writers. They come in many different forms, but I sum them up as bad or they just don’t get it writers. Some of them are noble, acknowledging their problems while attempting to improve upon them, while others can be straight up as stubborn as donkeys, having no ability whatsoever to listen and change the matter around their narratives and grammar. To my surprise, some of those stubborn, bad writers also have egos as well, thinking and declaring their works as the best bucking things since Princess Celestia and Princess Luna themselves. I’m rolling my eyes right now. I can’t stand them. Why? It makes my job harder since I’m the most unfortunate pony in the world. It’s my job to tell them their work is close to or as worthless as horse dung, to which I wonder half the time if their rear was where they pulled out the story from to begin with! Harsh? Maybe. However, it’s wasting my time. I’m not here to overhaul stories, completely rewriting them from the ground up. I’m not here to fix every single paragraph written by a writer. While I assume they depend on me to correct everything for them, somepony needed to remind them it’s not how my job works! I’m not responsible for an author's writing! Now, I understand our newspaper does have deadlines for stories, to which the due time does strain writers to a specific timeline. I get that. You must collect the references, obtain pieces of inspiration or ideas towards specific elements you want to express within your narrative, type up a plot guideline, and then write the draft! It’s nothing short of time consuming. However, all that work doesn’t add up to an excuse for being lazy with your grammar, sentence or paragraph structure, or ways you present your story. You, the writer, have no right to assume if you just type it out and get it on paper, then however it goes, in terms of grammar, is fine. It isn’t. Please, for my sake, listen to what I’m explaining here. From all the editors for this newspaper, please save us some sanity by at least doing some proofreading yourself before sending the story to us. It’ll make our lives and jobs easier if we can avoid taking a red inked quill to your work and completely marking it all over like a white wall after a wild foal found their crayons. Instead, we can just focus on correcting simple errors while avoiding drastic changes to any sentences or paragraphs within the narrative. Sounds easy to do, right? Well, it’s what we ask anyways. I mean, I still acknowledge the fact that every author isn’t a perfect writer. Nobody in Equestria is a perfect writer. We all have unique styles of writing. I mean, you can take a simple sentence like “Twilight flew to the store” and write it a hundred separate ways. To some, they think “Twilight drifted to the store” is fine, meanwhile others might think “Twilight soared to the store” is a more acceptable sentence to write. In this case, both are grammatically correct and acceptable to use. Now if we could just explain my last paragraph to those egotistical writers, then I swear my job would be way more bearable. However, my wish for every writer to be humble and understanding won’t ever come true. Those bad writers will continue to exist and demand no change to their work despite the fact it’s my job to make corrections and they aren’t my boss. A wicked grin just came across my face, accompanied by a small, deep chuckle. You know? I swear, if one more angry writer comes barreling into my office, screaming their head off about the drastic changes I made to their published story, then I swear should just pull out all their papers they submitted, float it towards their face, and then lite it on fire just so I can watch their, so called, hard work burn. If you are going to treat me like I’m nothing, then I should have every right to treat you and your work the same. Nothing. Those are the words from my mother, Sweet Notes. I have no right to be treated this way and I expect myself to do the same to others. If you can’t write and I point that out nicely to you, then it’s your fault. If you can’t accept criticism, no matter how nice, harsh, or ridiculous it may sound to you, then it’s your fault as well. If you bite the hoof that is trying to feed you, then I hope you expect it to come back and slap you hard across the face. When it does happen, you better take it and learn from it, otherwise you might see everything else burn and crumble to the ground. That’s life for you, bad writer.