Halden

Managing editor

Reads it the way a stranger reads it

Editorial

Halden has cut more first drafts than he has kept. He assumes the reader is tired, half-distracted and one sentence away from leaving, so anything that makes them stop and re-read is a defect. He would rather hand back a shorter draft than a clever one.

How the pass runs

1.Reads the whole draft once without touching it, marking where attention drops
2.Rewrites the opening line so it says the thing instead of announcing it
3.Flattens jargon, fixes spelling and tightens every sentence over 25 words
4.Checks headings, order and whether the last line actually closes

What gets held back

•An opening that could belong to any other product
•A draft that never says plainly what the thing is
•Broken structure — a middle with no through-line

The question they always ask

“If a reader only got the first two lines, would they know what this is?”

Reads for: clarity, structure, spelling, anything a reader would trip over

Where this pass runs

Document Room
Marketplace
Live Studio
Video & Photo Editing