Write of Passage Weekly - Writing is Social: Find an Editor

Dear writers,

Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb have spent over 40 years perfecting a 4,888-page (and counting) biographical series on one man: Lyndon Johnson. Caro is the writer, Gottlieb the editor, and no two colleagues could be more entwined. They are proof that writing is social.

To Caro, a biography is not a story about a person but about how a person’s life reveals the power structures that govern our world. Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson has consumed his career. He is passionate about his research and his craft, which is why he reads 100 pages to compose one and devotes seven years to each volume.

To Gottlieb, the secret to editing is being a great reader. He claims to have fixed more sentences than most people have read in their lives. And he knows that a good editor has a different relationship with each writer. Gottlieb knows Caro’s writing style (extra semicolons involved) and, more importantly, his vision for these books. Gottlieb works diligently with Caro to bring each book to a level that meets both of their quality standards.

Caro needs Gottlieb and, though Gottlieb has plenty of other writers seeking his pencil for edits, he keeps coming back to Caro — because of their unique writer-editor relationship. Through their collaboration, Caro and Gottlieb have created books that will endure the test of time. 

Writing is social. Find a friend like Gottlieb.

Happy writing,

The Write of Passage Team

P.S. There’s a documentary about these two men called Turn Every Page, and it’s fascinated the WOP team. Our own editors, Michael Dean and Garrett Kincaid, went to see it. Here are Garrett’s take-aways.

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