Inside the belly of the beast

Come inside with me to a typical Wednesday editing session with editor person, into the belly of the beast.

Editor person: You got some good stuff. Good job.
sam: Thanks!
Editor person: Only, I’m very concerned about this part here.
sam: Where’s here?
Editor person (stabbing the page with a finger): Page 19. What the hell is this?
sam: Well, the characters are moving towards the trail.
Editor person: I don’t care where they’re going.
sam: Why not?
Editor person: Because there’s no tension between them.
sam: Right. So, I’ll add tension.
Editor person (tearing page 19 in half): There’s nothing to add. Cardinal rule number 1, you drop the tension, you drop the audience.
sam: I don’t want to drop the audience.
Editor person: But you do want to clean this crap off my desk.

The wreckage of that particular version of page 19 now lives under a half ton of other scratched out or otherwise discarded pages.