Of course, editing isn’t just about adjusting length. Thoughtful editing can often transform a work, rescuing it from the slush pile and turning it into a gleaming masterpiece. In the early 1960s, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected by several publishers. It took a savvy and thoughtful editor – Charles Monteith of Faber and Faber – to recognise the potential in this strange tale of a group of schoolboys who attempt, disastrously, to impose a sort of self-government when their plane crash-lands on a desert island. 

Out went the odd conversation with a lone figure who might or might not have been God, while the character of Simon was heavily redacted. Golding may have been bruised by the experience, but Monteith made sure he had his name on a piece of literature that is now considered totemic.

“More a series of anecdotes than a fully conceived novel,” said American literary editor Tay Hohoff of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird when it was first submitted. Many drafts later, and Hohoff and Lee had collaborated to create a novel that is tight, fast-moving, and incredibly powerful in some of its epigrammatic statements. When an early draft of Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman, was released in 2015, Hohoff’s granddaughter criticised the light edit, when she knew the painstaking process which had produced Lee’s masterpiece.

Editors in all artistic forms are there for a reason, and everyone working in the creative industries needs to realise that an unfiltered version of any work results in bad art (or at least less good art). Yes, creativity is often subjective, but a good editor can get into a good artist’s head, and if they can’t, then the artist should go back to the drawing board.

And just to add, if I have banged on for far too long then I’m very sorry. Hopefully, my judicious editor will cut this bit out.