A friend e-mailed me this week and asked, “Did you really have an editor write “This is stupid” beside your dialogue?? I hope that I never did that sort of thing, even at my most critical…”

Well, I have to come to the defense of my editor, here, and confess my own shortcomings.

The editor did write, “What a stupid question,” beside one of my lines of dialogue.

But … here’s the sad part … It was a stupid question. I think the line went something like (blushing), “Don’t you ever wish Grandpa hadn’t died?”

What was the second character supposed to say? “I really wanted Grandpa to get shot in that assassination; I’m thrilled he’s dead!”

Yeah, that didn’t work so well with the story line.