Devoted to publishing, publishers and to those who craft the written word

"I was terrified that Henrietta was going to mention Trudy's rumored infidelities, but something else happened: she stiffened, spittle leaked from the side of her mouth, and an instant later she slumped over, as if she were having a seizure. It took all of us a few moments to realize that she actually was having a seizure."

That's a perfectly calibrated moment of black humor and clueless narration from the novel, Trudy Hopedale. In that satirical book, senior New Yorker editor Jeffrey Frank sends two equally self-centered characters bumbling through the same comical plot, churning up plenty of uncomfortable laughs like that one.

Today, Frank explains how he edited his manuscript, part of my deceptively simple feature, Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson's mad piano player, I run a weekly set of quality interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web writing.

Jason Boog:
Your book has this lightness to it, there's not a wasted word anywhere. How did you revise your novel into this impeccable shape--how long did the process last, how many drafts did it take? Any advice for paring a manuscript down to a lean, mean 225-pages?

Jeffrey Frank:
That is such a kind question. Continue reading...

I want to just shut up and say thank-you. I did revise and revise—maybe fifteen drafts before I was done.

A lot of it was for done for tone; trying to get a woman's voice was tough and quite worrisome, even though my wife, editor, and agent are women. I really wanted to channel a woman, not write a parody, or sound like a man trying to sound like a woman.

It took about two and a half years. But I'm a pretty good editor—maybe a better editor than a writer. Didn't someone say that all writing in the end is editing?