About the role of the editor. Similar to what we do...
Excerpt from Umberto Eco's book, Foucault's Pendulum.
Change the entire text with two or three amendments. Demiurge on someone else's hump. How to prepare the raw clay, knead it and fashion it - a few light clicks on the terracotta, from which the statue has already been molded. Add the final touch, hit her head with a hammer once, she will turn into Moses and speak.
Must go to William S. Publishing House.
- I looked through your item, very, very good. Skillfully constructed, there is tension and drama. Is this your first experience?
- No, I actually already wrote one tragedy about two lovers from Verona who...
- Let's talk about your new job. I’m wondering why the action must take place in France. And not in Denmark, for example? Relatively speaking? Not much would have to change. Two or three toponyms. The castle of Chalons-on-Marne turns into, well, let's say, the castle of Elsinore... Northern flavor, Protestantism, the shadow of Kierkegaard hovers, such, you know, existential tension...
- Or maybe you are right.
- It seems so to me. Then here we need to go over the style a little. Just a little, a few small adjustments, sort of like what a hairdresser does before putting a mirror to the back of your head... Here, by the way, is the ghost of the hero’s father. Why does he come out at the end? Frankly, I would have released it at the beginning. So that the father's spirit is constantly present and influences the behavior of his son, the prince. Then the conflict with the mother will be clearer.
- There is something in this. And only one scene needs to be moved.
- That's it. Finally, there's the matter of style. Let's take any piece for testing, for example, when a young hero goes out onto the proscenium and begins his argument about action and inaction. "To act or not? This is what I need to decide; endure the endless attacks of evil fate..." Why does it only need to be decided by him? I would say that this is the general question, you know, not his personal problem, but the main question of existence. So to speak, the choice between being and non-being, to be or not to be...
