I RECENTLY talked to a writer, 4 - Friday, November 15, 1985 - North Shore News Bob Hunter ® strictly personal e Jurgen Hesse, who has finished a book on his word processor and sent the discs off to the publisher. What we both really like about all this wunderkind technology isn’t the magic of the machines themselves, it is the fact that editors are now eliminated from the pic- ture. You, the publisher and the printer. That’s all that’s needed. Heh, heh, heh. Pardon me while | drool wickedly. Of course, editors are _ really guardian angels. Everybody learns this in journalism school. Actual- ly, when I used to teach at Langara College, I'd devote a full session to the subject of HOW TO DEAL WITH EDITORS. _ All they had to remember, J} said in my usual tasteless but vivid manner, was to assume the basic rape position and don’t scream. You can’t fight editors, | explained sadly. Newspa- - per and magazines were invented, as ycu know, as torture chambers for writers whose’ prose is skinned alive in front of them. But after you’ve ex- perienced the death of a million pencils, you acquire a certain amount of scar LESS 3100 REBATE! LESS $100 REBATE! tissue. If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you strong. That sort of thing. I hardly even whimper any more. A little while ago I wrote that I ‘‘sense a drift’? in world events. That came out | “sense adrift.” Trying to be witty, 1 once wrote a lead sentence that said: ‘‘Travel narrows the mind.’ It got fixed to ‘‘travel broadens the mind.”’ Doug Collins, hammer- ing away in your lonely electronic tower, knows that the gremlins have nib- bled the entrails of my prose, too. But sometimes an unsuspected thread stands revealed. Like, one time I mentioned an ‘‘In- dian midden,’’ a midden being a pile of age-old junk, It came out as. “‘in- diaa maiden.” The way | look at it, Doug, it must be God’s way. In that case, for in- stance, I turned around and wrote a gag scene into a Beachcombers episode, where a Chinese guy, look- ing for an Indian midden, asks for an Indian maiden. I got credit for being clev- LESS $100 REBATEI! LESS $1 00. REBATE! LESS $100 REBATE! a oes er. Should 1! have sent the residuals to the editor? Fat chance. Speaking of these kind of horror stories, | just had a short piece of fiction published in an airline magazine. Art, you know. A scene develops where our hero leaps to the defence of a lady duck beseiged by crazed drakes. There then follow 12 transposed paragraphs that should have appeared much earlier in the story. By the time the hero finally gets to carry on his rescue of the duck, you think he’s attacking his boat. Another Governor-General’s award down the tube. On the positive side, somebody did say to me: “That was a really artistic story. 1 conldn’t follow it | at all.” 1 wrote another maga- zine article which was structured in such a way that the entire story led up to a punchline where everything finally clicks perfectly into place. The editor, gasp, nipped off the punchline! As I have stressed repeatedly, and cannot Stress too often for safety’s sake, I find individual fe- male editors to be an evolutionary improvement over male editors. Still, it is MON. - [amare ee Te } REBATE! 629. LESS $100 REBATEM WE ARE OPEN 7 DAYS FRI. 11 AM-9 PM SATURDAY 16 AM - 6 PM SUNDAY NOON - 5 PM ane) a dirty business, killing helpless baby words. Watch their eyes as they scan the pinned-down paragraphs naked on the screen before them. An editor never blinks, you know, They’d have edited Shakespeare if they could have! I speak the truth. If 1 see an editor out on the street, | taunt them with shouts of: ‘How many adjectives did you butcher today?’’ I'd like to predict a decisive shift in the eternal struggle between editor and victim. It would seem, on the surface, that replacing the editor with a microchip spells the liberation of the oppressed writer class. Hip, hip! But J wonder. Do I smell a trap? Who am I going to blame when something particularly stupid of mine gets through into print? This is a problem for some of us. And those darn old libel laws are still around, aren’t they? Editors don’t need any help from me. They've got all the pencils. But some-- time, yes, I do feel sorry for them. Editors are dif- ferent than ordinary folks, don’t forget. They get paid to read this stuff. That's weird karma, eh? LESS 3100 REBATE! LESS $100 LESS $100 REBATE! LESS $100! REBATE!’ 7811 ALDERBRIDGE WAY, RICHMOND @ PHONE: 276-8777 3595. LESS $100 REBATE! 649.3 FINANCING AVAILABLE HE NORTH Shore News has changed the format of its TV. listings effective to- day. Delivered since June in a glossy-covered TV and entertainment magazine, the listings will now be printed in each and every issue of the paper. The new format is im- proved, with day and even- ing viewing listed separately. It is simple and easy to read. “T thank the readers and advertisers who supported TV News,’’ said publisher Peter Speck. ‘We tried it from June and it hasn’t made money, now we have to rethink our strategy.”” In today’s paper you'll find listings for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morn- ing TV viewing on page 61. [oe em erm or ae ane ar am A chm a im eS en ome Ln ap CE. BELL, Bi u- i I ! i ! I ! ! I J t | ] | u I ! I ! I ! | ! I J ATTENTION LA:Z BOY LOVERS! SANDY’S $100 REBATE Sale IS C IBRING IN THE COUPON AND GET $100 REBATE ON'OUR LOW PRICES! NOTE: SINCE WE ARE ALSO LA-Z-BOY LOVERS, WE HAVE HUNDREDS IN STOCKI Dw ereceee ne ccna trtereseeseaseeesencese =a CITY —n COUNCIL NOVEMBER 16 OTE. @ CUT THIS OUT AND BRING IT ALONG TO GET $100 REBATE, «AND REMEMBER: NO COUPON, MEANS NO REBATE!