So now we've been through a first edit, a top edit, and a copy edit. Our editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson, has read it through and given it the thumbs-up (whew!). But we're not done yet. After the layout is finished and approved, the story editor fits it -- cuts or (rarely) stretches to fit the allotted space -- and sends it on to the scrub editor, whose job is to continue polishing, look for any logic errors or reporting holes, identify structural issues, and so on. Here's the scrub edit for this story, below; scrub editor John Birdsall's comments are in blue ink, and Nancy's and my responses are in red.
Another note: In the end, we lost the "One of these sentences is a lie" intro when we decided to run part of the first sentence as display copy on the opening spread. It would have been too jarring to have that non-traditional beginning displayed so prominently, and separate from the rest of the piece. I always had mixed feelings about it, so wasn't too sad to see it go.
Also, we toyed with a few headlines -- ultimately, a decision for our display-copy gurus: managing editor Jake Young, executive editor Bob Cohn, and our corral of scrub editors. "Unadapted" was deemed too subtle. We tried "Charlie Kaufman: The Director's Cut," but it would be odd to have Kaufman's name twice on the same spread in big display copy, and we didn't want to change the first sentence. So for right now, we're going with "Puzzle Master."
