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EDITOR’S NOTE: For this installment in Storyboard’s occasional series on effective editing, we bring readers a conversation with an independent editor who works one-on-one with writers and has built a suite of services on his own.
By Carly Stern
It’s common for people to think of a journalist’s career trajectory as going from a small publication to a bigger one, shifting from local to national beats, or transitioning from reporting to editing.Julie Beck followed some of those paths in her own unique sequence and never got locked into any single one. She started out as an editor just as much as a reporter. And now, after 11 years editing at The Atlantic, she’s stepping away from editing to devote herself full-time to writing.
Beck graduated from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism in 2011, interning and freelancing for Popular Science along the way. After graduation, she landed a job at a small, business-to-business corporate law magazine: “I was essentially running the website at the ripe old age of 21,” she said.
Julie Beck
But she continued to freelance, reporting on topics besides corporate law. That led her to The Atlantic, where she became an associate editor on the magazine’s Health and Science team in 2013. The website’s staff was still small and scrappy, so Beck juggled writing, editing and fact-checking.
She has held many roles with The Atlantic since, including covering education and overseeing the Family desk. Beck built the desk into a home for voice-y pieces exploring the different ways that people live across subjects like friendship, relationships, parenting and family life. She launched a series called “The Friendship Files” and edited big swings on unconventional family structures, why the five-day workweek should cease to exist and how children cope with grief.
“For a lot of the time that I worked there … I was able to both write and edit, and I held onto doing both for just about as long as I could,” Beck said.
Now, at 34, Beck wants to focus on reporting and writing for the next part of her career path. She is on leave to write a book, “The Friends We Made Along the Way.” In the meantime, she launched a newsletter exploring everything from the nostalgia of revisiting our past selves to what bed bugs can teach us about social infrastructure. And she was named a staff writer for The Atlantic in May, a position she will step into next year.
Storyboard spoke with Beck about how she toggles between different parts of her brain while writing and editing, how she imports learnings from one realm into the other, and what she hopes for in her next chapter. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
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What prompted your initial pull towards editing, and what attracted you about that path?
Some of it was inertia — those were the kind of jobs that I had, I enjoyed them and I just kept going. I tried to work writing partially into my job description. I did find that to be a really nice balance, because the editing felt easier and I didn’t feel as much pressure with output on the writing side. They fuel each other, and it can help to be doing both simultaneously.
Initially, when I first started in journalism, it wasn’t even really an option (to not also be writing). It was expected in the 2010s era of web journalism. Up until the point when I was leading a section, it worked well. Even after I took over as Family editor, I was still welcomed and encouraged to pitch my own stories. But with that job, it was very hard to make the time for writing.
What do you consider the essential ingredients for good chemistry between an editor and writer?
Chatting on the phone. When I was a younger editor, I resisted getting drawn into long conversations and kept things on email because I was trying to be efficient. But the more I have taken the time to be like, ‘Hey, can we actually just hop on the phone to talk about this?’ Whether it’s the idea someone is pitching, what they’re interested in if we haven’t worked together before, or even one weird, specific reporting problem, having a conversation with your mouth cannot be overrated.
It also takes some formality out of the relationship to have a casual, straightforward conversation. It makes clear that I’m a person, you’re a person and we’re figuring it out together. It helps remove a bit of the distance, especially when working with someone who is not in my office, or is a freelancer, or whom I haven’t met face-to-face. I really enjoy working with folks who love thinking out loud, both verbally and on the page. If I can see how a writer is thinking about something and they can show me their thought process — even if it’s messy — then we can get the piece there.
What do you think is the most underrated quality in an editor that can make a big difference?
Making suggestions. Sometimes an editor will tell a writer something isn’t working but won’t offer ideas about how to fix it. Some writers prefer not being told what to do and to figure out fixes on their own, but I think I’m doing a disservice to a writer if I know what I want but don’t tell them. It’s frustrating to be told that something isn’t working if you don’t know why or might need help to get it to a place where it works.
I always go in and say, ‘You could try something like this,’ or I’ll write something in say, ‘If that doesn’t resonate, delete it or change it or put it your voice. But let me show you the kind of thing I’m thinking.’ People are hesitant to step on the writer’s voice, but I think there is a balance and this approach makes things go a lot smoother.
Can you share a window into your process?
I work differently with different writers. I try to adapt to how that writer likes to work and receive feedback. But generally, we’ll start with a pitch or idea — depending on who it is and where it’s coming from, it may just come from an email. And then I say, ‘Okay, this seems interesting, but I have a few questions.’ There will usually be some workshopping of the idea, whether it’s over the phone or over email. Sometimes it’s as simple as, ‘This is so interesting. I would just add this one thing.’ Sometimes it’s, ‘Oh, you’ve got a really interesting topic, but it’s not quite a sharp idea yet.’ Or I might have specific questions that I want answered before feeling like an idea definitely has legs.
Sometimes, you’ll just get a gem and be like, ‘Yep. You know what you want to do and it sounds great to me.’ But over the years that I’ve been editing at The Atlantic, we’ve leaned more and more toward putting in workshopping and conversation upfront. Then when the draft comes in, it’s more likely we’re on the same page and it’s hopefully going to come in cleaner. This saves time in the long run.
But the process varies widely. While the writer is drafting, some want to check in about things they heard and how they’re structuring things. Some just go in a hole, then give you a draft. I’m flexible. When the draft comes in, I’ll read it through once and make some notes along the way, but mostly just get it in my mind. Then I’ll go back through again. I might do structural and line edits at the same time. If I feel like it doesn’t need that much, I might do one bigger-picture pass, send it back and do line edits later. It depends on the story.
What kinds of stories do you find most challenging to edit, as well as most challenging to write?
Stories that braid together a lot of different elements. Not just long features, but even shorter pieces where the writer is trying to do some personal narrative, reporting, anecdotes from other people and weave those together in a way that structurally makes sense. Those can often be the most rewarding stories to read, because I love it when people bring connections together that you weren’t expecting. But it’s hard to put together.
How has your editing work affected your writing process and vice versa?
I have a hard time just barfing out a first draft. I’ll get in my head that I need to figure out the structure, transitions and what it needs even as I’m writing the first draft. Maybe it would be better to barf it out and deal with all that later. But I am able to edit my own work fairly well up to the point when one simply needs fresh eyes.
I pay a lot of attention to structure. I write outline after outline for myself, and I’ve been known to do that for writers. I’ve sometimes written handwritten outlines on a piece of paper, taken a picture and emailed it to the writer. I’m always thinking about transitions and what the great Jane Kim calls ‘signposting:’ placing sentences that explicitly guide the reader along, drawing connections back to the thesis and what came before. Those are the kinds of sentences that can really help the piece feel like it’s flowing but are easiest to forget because the writer already knows the connection. Sometimes it seems obvious or silly to spell it out, but ultimately that’s needed.
When I ping pong back and forth between writing and editing, I’ll find that something is helpful in one realm and import it into the other. But I need to have different days for different tasks. When I’m editing, I can toggle between anything and have no trouble multitasking; while I’m writing, I have to be in a hole for several hours to sustain the focus.
What prompted you to shift into a full-time writer role?
Being a full-time staff writer had been percolating in my mind for several years as I thought about the next phase of my career. My boss and I had talked about it here and there, with no rush. With nothing but respect, I would not want my boss’s job or my boss’s boss’s job, so I had tapped out in terms of how high I wanted to climb up the management ladder; it became clear that would have to be something else. The book deal I got last fall kickstarted the conversation.
What do you hope for in this next chapter and what are you nervous about?
I’m really excited to be able to write about my own ideas. As an editor, especially overseeing a section, you end up giving most of your ideas to other people — which is great and has its own rewards. But sometimes I felt like, ‘Oh, that would have been really fun to write.’ Or ‘Maybe I want to save this one and write it myself someday.’ I’m excited to have the time to act on ideas that have been simmering for years.
I am also excited to focus on one thing. So much of editing and managing is multitasking and juggling. You’re always thinking, ‘Who needs this from me?’ and ‘Where are all these projects at?’ There’s the mental load of remembering all of the moving pieces. It’s going to be interesting to not have that pinging around my brain and just focus on the story at hand, which is also terrifying, right? Because there’s nowhere to hide.
I hope I write good stories. I am worried about speed and pace. I find with writing, everything seems to take longer than I hope it will. While I’m excited to have uninterrupted time, I also am cognizant of the pressures and demands of digital media and the maw that must be fed.
Commissioning is an important part of an editor’s job. What are some ways for writers to practice strengthening this muscle?
As our old pal, Nora Ephron said, ‘Everything is copy.’ For The Atlantic’s Family coverage, this is especially true. It’s helpful to notice things in your life that are interesting to you or questions that you have: Why is this the case? Why is this happening? Why are all my friends suddenly talking about the Sunday Scaries? What the heck is that? Those are great seeds of story ideas, whether you are a writer looking for your own ideas or an editor looking for ideas to assign out.
In terms of commissioning, it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that randomly reaching out to writers I admire and asking them to pitch almost never works. At least in my experience, to get the kinds of stories that worked for my publication at a regular enough pace, I sometimes had to hand it to a writer on a silver platter. Editors have to be a bit like “The Giving Tree”: They give their ideas, time and attention to help someone else write a good story, although of course the writer puts their own spin on it and voice into it.
Is there anything else writers should know?
Never use the word ‘utilize.’ Just say ‘use.’ They mean the same thing and one is two syllables shorter. If I could leave one mark as I leave the editing world, it would be for no one to ever use that word again.
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Carly Stern is an award-winning enterprise journalist based in San Francisco who covers health, housing and economic security.