Showing posts with label writer's advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer's advice. Show all posts

Friday, December 06, 2019

Should Snoopy be your editor?

There is a Peanuts comic series in which Snoopy is working on a novel, and Lucy volunteers to draw a cover for it. Snoopy makes very specific demands, and Lucy returns with the finished product:
Lucy (handing the work product up to Snoopy on dog house): I've finished the drawing for the  cover of your new novel.

Lucy (as Snoopy examines): See? It shows a bunch of pirates and Foreign Legionnaires fighting some tigers and elephants leaping through the air toward a girl who is tied to a submarine.

 Linus (addressing Lucy as she walks away staring at her drawing): Did he like your drawing?

 Lucy: It needs more tigers. 
It needs more tigers. This often comes to mind when I am on the receiving or giving end of editorial input.