Prior to the seminar, I only engaged in creative and academic writing. Academic writing became the most familiar to me due to my education at Bethlehem College, but most of my love and experience still lies in creative writing. I aspire to write and publish my own stories, and that love fueled me to write well regardless of the task. It also pushed me to educate myself on editing and edit the works of family and friends. I not only used it as an opportunity to grow in my understanding of writing, but also wanted to help the other writers put their best draft forward. I wanted them to succeed in their class or make a good impression with the recipient. However, I never fully engaged with my editing process until the summer seminar and working with Desiring God. In the end, my experience with Desiring God not only solidified my interest and enjoyment in editing as a possible career path, while also showing me the role of the editor for writers and companies that work in the digital landscape.
Growth as an Editor
My internship forced me to engage carefully with my editing process by keeping in mind the stakeholders within the process while thinking how each choice would help or hinder one or all stakeholders. However, I found I adapted a different process depending on the material given to me. For Ask Pastor John transcripts, I worked through challenges related to formatting and grammar. When editing articles, I focused less on formatting and grammar and instead focused on the writer’s arguments and language. It was quite different working with an audio-to-text transcript versus a human-written article. While articles had less grammatical errors and formatting issues, the articles took more time to edit as I viewed the text as both an editor and an audience member. For example, several articles I edited were targeted toward women and their relationships with others, whereas other articles had a more general audience but were weighty in theology. The theological articles were the most challenging, as some seemed to target seminarians or those who have a deeper appreciation and understanding of theology. When I found an area of confusion in some articles, I put myself in the position of the target audience and found myself asking, “Is this appropriate for the target audience? Would they understand this argument, even if I cannot?” I found these moments stressful as I tried putting myself in the position of the readers and writer. However, Clint Manley pointed out the importance of noting when even one reader has stumbled over the piece and taking that reader’s feedback seriously and with love. His comment encouraged me to be open about any fumbling point in my feedback rather than viewing myself as a different kind of audience member and letting certain gaps slide. While I may not be in the target audience, I am still part of the audience the writer is trying to connect with.
In addition, I was careful in maintaining my relationship with the writer while upholding the needs of the audience. When editing transcripts, I did not worry about offending or crossing boundaries with a writer and could focus on simply what would be helpful for the audience. When editing articles, I found myself struggling to find a balance of what would be helpful for the audience while not impairing the creativity of the writer. I often struggled with how to approach giving feedback, and found a balance in emphasizing what worked well before turning to persuasion. For example, one particular article I edited introduced their topic by explaining how in medieval times, deer were considered the king’s property. However, the writer also added a fact about the amount of deer meat the king’s kitchen cooked before comparing the king’s deer to one’s spouse as the Lord’s protected deer. I loved the imagery of the deer, but the fact about the king eating the deer did not fit with the later comparison. I explained my appreciation for the image before proposing removing the one fact, as the image of a king protecting deer for his own consumption did not fit the image of God’s protection for his people. The writer appreciated the feedback given, and have since worked to view these works as a helper, assisting in presenting the work the way the writer intends it to be seen.
Growth as a Writer
While the primary focus of the internship was editing, I also gained experience about writing in the digital landscape. The writing portion of the internship was completed by writing blurbs and spreads for social media. I struggled with this portion of the editing process the most as part of the editor’s task was to create multiple blurbs and descriptions for social media while keeping to a tight character limit. This required precise and clear wording in order to explain the article’s main point within the limit, leaving no room for waste words. There was also the additional task of creating titles for articles rather than keeping the titles presented by the writers. In Ask Pastor John episodes, there was already a title assigned before the editing process began. I found these tasks challenging due to the time it took to best present the article or transcript while adhering to the character limits.
One helpful guide when filling out these forms was Roy Peter Clark’s Murder Your Darlings, which included a few chapters on writing for the digital landscape and forming robust sentences. One help inclusion was in the form of chapter titles written by Brenda Ueland, whom Clark praised for having title fitting for the digital landscape.[1] The examples gave me a starting point to build blurbs and titles from. Clark also focused on sentence length and the intricate details that hide in each type of sentence.[2] Through his advice, I began to view blurbs and spreads as practice writing concise sentences. Certain transcripts required more careful wording than others, especially when an episode focused on a question based upon a personal tragedy. Clark encouraged journalists in being hesitant with their language and knowing the power behind their words. He advised against jumping to inferences and judgments through the words used.[3] While he often meant it in the face of propaganda, I found it valuable when trying to write blurbs and spreads that required more tact. Clark’s collection demonstrated itself as a great gateway for me as a writer working with a new, unfamiliar landscape.
Growth in Being Part of an Institution
My experience at Desiring God led me toward viewing writing and editing as forms of love for the writer and audience while honoring the organization. While the seminar focused on the roles of a writer and editor and their relationship to each other, my internship gave me a clearer understanding of the relationship between the writer and editor to the organization. A thesis that the editorial staff presented was “Editing for the writer, for the benefit of the reader, through the publisher.” This balance of relationships remained an ongoing discussion among the editorial staff. In the last editorial meeting I attended, the editors focused on evaluating their strengths and weaknesses as editors on behalf of a company. One strength that was discussed was the transparency and collaboration with the guest writers that publish for Desiring God. The editors often experience both sides of Desiring God’s editorial and writing processes, which gives them an understanding of both the writer and institution’s position. A clear weakness was never brought forward, however one thing that was proposed was giving more explanation to guest writers when making certain changes to an article. For example, editors often propose new titles for articles rather than keeping the one given by the original writer. This sometimes leads to confusion, so it was proposed that some company processes are made more accessible to guest writers. Overall, the discussions gave me better insight on how to represent a company well while also maintaining relationships with guest writers and readers outside of the company and not bound by the same style and content guides.
Conclusion
In the seven months I worked for Desiring God, I learned not only how to edit and write for an online publication, but also how to grow in my Christian walk. One thing I will miss about working for Desiring God was the love I saw behind the spiritual and theological instruction put within the content. These articles were the fruit of the people I met within the organization, and I likely will not see that same care and love for Christ in many mainstream publications. However, they taught me how to edit, write, and manage content in a way that points to Christ by first showing love to others. I have no doubt that the vocational and spiritual knowledge I gained from my experience will continue to follow me regardless of where I go next.
Emily Cooper, B.A. ’26
[1] Roy Peter Clark, Murder Your Darlings and Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser, (Little, Brown Spark, 2021), 133.
[2] Clark, Murder Your Darlings, 58.
[3] Clark, Murder Your Darlings, 262.