When I say "editor," I mean the film version, not the written one. Oh, and when I say "I," I mean "somebody who actually knows what they're talking about." Just so we're clear.
Because here's another brilliant video essay from the brilliant Tony Zhou (whose praises I have sung/virtues I have extolled in the past, yet whose virtues and praiseworthy efforts cannot be mentioned frequently enough for my tastes):
For the past ten years, I’ve been editing professionally. Yet one question always stumps me: “How do you know when to cut?” And I can only answer that it’s very instinctual. On some level, I’m just thinking and feeling my way through the edit. So today, I’d like to describe that process: how does an editor think and feel?
Attribution(s): "Steenbeck Rollers" by Andrew Lih via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.0).