Perspective is everything, literally. We are unable to interpret the world around them outside their own perspective. When things impact us we interpret them through our five senses, sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. On top of that, these senses get filtered through our brains. Our brains are full of biases from previous experience, education, memories, and various forms of conditioning.
This comes into play more often than we even realize. When writing, authors build stories based on what is in their brain. Their perspective on the work is unique to them because of all the pieces that didn’t end up on the page. They do their best to share their vision with the world, but no amount of writing can express their biases.
Editors work with writers to help tell these stories. They approach the story as the general reader and attempt to round out the story for most perspectives. Working with the author and the publisher, if available, the editor is tasked with reading without biases to create the clearest story.
As the reader, we bring our emotional weight to everything we read. From news articles to novels there is always some unique perspective brought to the reading. It is a huge undertaking to create clarity for a universal audience. Interpretation of the written word is never as cut and dry as we want it to be.