I'm going to file this under CopyWrong, because I know it isn't right, but I can't help thinking about it. The other day I dug up the 2nd draft from a book I essentially wrote (a couple of years ago) for one of my clients. I was comparing to what was actually published after she and a couple of red-marker-happy editors sank their teeth into the draft.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have no problem with other people making changes to the copy if it means an overall improvement. And I don't even have a problem with the client deciding, "Hey, this doesn't sound like me at all, so I'm going to take it out."
What I DO have a problem with (and sometimes there's really just nothing you can do) is when the book turns out to be less of a book because the people who edited what you wrote really didn't know what they were doing.
Ah, that felt good. Now I don't mean to slight my client because for some reason she seems pretty enamored with the ladies who edited the last few rounds of her copy, but. The writing was LESS good in the end than it was in the beginning. Not the content - I mean the actual WRITING.
I'm starting to babble, but here's what I was trying to spit out in the first place. I was reading that old draft, and I was laughing at one part in particular. I had cracked a joke, and a pretty good one if I do say so myself. Well, my client removed that section of copy, and again, I don't take issue with that decision because it's HER book. But it's disappointing to me that I can't recycle that little funny I made, find someplace else to use it where the line will be appreciated.
The thing is... you CAN'T swipe pieces of your clients' old drafts, not if they paid you to write FOR them. Because even if they don't use what you gave them where they said they would... they essentially BOUGHT that copy and so down the road they can put it anywhere they'd like.
I can think of other clients who opted not to use certain killer lines and things that I really thought "made" the piece. What it all boils down to is that people are really afraid to speak with conviction or come across as having an edge.
But DAMN! I'd love to take that copy back and keep it for myself. As the Allmans say... Wasted Words, my friends. Wasted words.
