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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > What makes a great editor? | Forum Quick Jump
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Bitter Irony
Grammar Goddess and Spelling Sinner
      
Date Joined Jun 2007
Total Posts : 88
| Posted 6/22/2007 12:32 PM (GMT -5) |   | Someone who knows what they're talking about.
I like an editor who is specific about what needs to be changed, prompt in answering questions, and all around pleasant to work with. I don't need to be kindred spirits here, but friendliness helps. | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 6/27/2007 1:40 PM (GMT -5) | | When I read submissions for Carnifex Press I can tell by the end of the first paragraph whether or not we can publish the story and whether or not it's even worth the time and trouble to go into any detail with the author at all, sometimes I can tell even by the end of the first sentence. Indeed, I often make the decision whether or not to read on within the first five words, sometimes by the very first word. I rarely make it to the second chapter, maybe once in thirty.
Write your openings very carefully, and check the hell out of your grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If you can't even get those basics right (and not just right, but downright good) then you're not even worth "working with" and I'll reject your work immediately, no matter how much better you think it gets by the fiftieth page.
And compared to professional editors, I'm being really nice about it. | | Back to Top | | |
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Firlefanz
Sage
Date Joined Mar 2007
Total Posts : 1246
| Posted 6/29/2007 12:18 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 6/29/2007 12:49 PM (GMT -5) | | However, isn't it also the function of an editor to choose stories that keep a magazine running?
***
Hmmmm. I was just trying to get someone to say they thought Datlow was a bad editor! Just putting the pieces of the argument together. I don't think most people have any problem blaming *small* press editors for "failing," but very seldom does anyone take a shot at "heavyweights" like Datlow, or Dozois, or Van Gelder *all* of whom have seen circ and subscription rates decline under their editorships.
For the record, I am the (proud!) former senior editor of a failed publishing company, one which I co-partnered with BitterHermit. I don't think either of us or our writers are to blame for this "failure." On the other hand, if one decides to choose content as a primary element in determining success or failure, I think this standard should probably be applied across the board and maybe even intensified according to the resources available to a given editor. In reality, in the SF industry as it stands now, to be considered a "good" editor you merely need to offer more money to writers than anyone else and have the resources to financially out-muscle everyone else. And that's all you need: ostensibly NO talent for acquisitions or anything else! If you happen to be independently wealthy or have generous friends who are, you could make your way to teh top of the Sf editor heap in short-order.
If you pay enough you'll be considered a "pro" pub and eventually everyone will say the writers who publish with you are "better" than those who don't and eventually all the writers will be tripping over themselves to publish in your venue. Standards of "quality" ficiton will then be evolved due to a financial influence of a single venue, since writers of short fiction stubbornly persist in believing the more they get paid for their story, the better the story is! (Not logical, but money issues never ARE). Does it matter if anyone (other than aspirant writers) is *reading* the top-paying pubs? Apparently not, if we take SCI FCITION as an example, and I think that's fair game.
With that in mind, Datlow would be a "bad" editor, even worse than myself!, given that she had much more financial and in-industry support than I've ever reaped. On the other hand, maybe blaming editors for issues of marketing and publicity, distribution and printing, and the lack of retailer support would be taking it all too far! By the time you get done being a line-editor, copy-editor, a writing coach, an acquisitions editor, a friend, a publicist, an ad-copy writer, and a shipping clerk/sales rep, an online resourse, a creative-idea generator, ghost-writer, a lecturer and salesman at book cons, and also throw in about 90 hrs a week of hard work and elbow grease! it may be just a bit difficult being sure your pubs were really shredded by retailers and not sold without you ever receiving your cut!
It probably isn't that way for "heavyweight" editos who have helpers and resources that the small press could never have, but I can tell you from first hand experience: a small press editor wears all those hats and many more.
I agree with your comments, in the main -- I just wanted to be sure they were being applied fairly. LOL
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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Hermit
Diavhrati Luminary
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1729
| Posted 6/29/2007 2:23 PM (GMT -5) | | | It may be the responsibility of the editor to keep his/her part of the equation in a publishing house's success, but I believe it grossly unfair to count the financial success or failure of the publication as a limiting criterion - rule-in criterion, yes (very hard to prove), but rule-out NO. As Daniel points out, very astutely I think, any editor is suseptible to influences over which they may or may not have any knowledge, let alone modicum of control. Business and financial concerns are NOT editorial skills, talents, or measures (in a fair world would never be) any more than they are the writers'.
Having said this, I am also willing to concede that a bad editor can, indeed, wreck a press. However, we're trying to find criteria for great editors, not failed editors. Clarity is paramount!
Exile of my own dull vice. . . | | Back to Top | | |
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Daniel
Carl Jung's Waterboy
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 4515
| Posted 6/29/2007 4:49 PM (GMT -5) | | It's not only possible,
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Rob's just starting out and pays 1/2 cent a word. When Ricasso gets more well-known and maybe if the pay rates go up or just his energy wears off, he'll have to resort to forms or his response times will go very long. Back when I was editing for FMAM I tried to send personal rejections, but I averaged about 10-15 subs a day and it just wasn't practical. When I edited for Pitch-Black, I would say appx. 30% of my rejections were personal, or at least contained a personal comment or two with me always careful to point out it was a subjective opinion. About 1/3 of the subs I've received at various venues I've edited for are so off-target or so incomprehensible, believe me, there is nothing worth saying about them. The other 1/3 may be good for somewhere else, but since I can't *know* that, why bother saying anything? Now, writers do respond to your comments and this is disruptive if you are dealing with that many eamils and snail mails, period.
At present, I'm not reading subs for anywhere (other than maybe the SFReader fiction contest when it comes up) , but at various times I have been reading up to 2-300 subs a month. Even though I am not presently engaged as an editor, I actually still get submissions from people!
Most editors do not, as a rule, respond personally to every submission they recieve, nor should they feel obligated to do so. In point of fact, one editor's comments have very little to do with the objective merits of any story or what another editor at another venue might think and, on top of that, sometimes there is no real reason "why" a particular editor rejects a ms., not one which would be of any value or interest to the writer, at any rate.
The only real response any editor is obligated to give is: "Thank you for your submission. We cannot use it at this time."
Personally, as a submitting poet, I am grateful to editors who have shorter resposne times and I don't really care to know what an editor who is rejecting my work might think, unless it is to tell me to submit again because they feel something may connect at a later time. I just send it to another venue. It's never a good policy to start writing for editors. Not in my opinion, anyway.
"Art is the celebration of the ego's destruction."
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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Hermit
Diavhrati Luminary
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1729
| Posted 6/29/2007 5:39 PM (GMT -5) | | | At this point, I would like to point out that 'enormous amount' of submissions is both arbitrary and conditional, specious and subjective.
There is a great deal that determines how encumbering or overwhelming the slush pile is. It begins with how restrictive are your guidelines. It's easy to reject a piece out of hand simply because the writer failed to comprehend the submissions guidelines. And if they failed to comprehend the submission guidelines, it follows logically that they will not comprehend feedback telling them so and therefore such submissions warrant NO REPLY. It is simple courtesy to even bother with a form rejection, which is more than that particular writer offered in that particular instance - the simple courtesy of following the guidelines. Note that we're talking about serious deviation from guidelines - violation of the spirit and truth vs. fascist bullying over the letter of it and also obviously wrong content versus a near-miss.
There is also the quality of the submissions. Some you can toss aside without even reading more than a sentence, paragraph, or stanza. These are usually the ones in fancy fonts and/or enough errors in the first line to cause nausea. And then there are those whose first lines shine like beacons - I've decided on poems and stories before on the strength of a single line, turn of phrase, image, or plot twist evident before the first paragraph's end. Many times it took some haggling over the details, but that's always part of the game. It is often the exception and never the rule that a piece comes in ready to publish. PERIOD. When they do come through, you can count on a personal response.
As a rule, it's simply bad business to be rude at any time to anyone. In practice, however, I've been known to be what others consider rude; however, strangely enough, I don't recall ever being rude about a rejection and never actually spiteful. I'm talking about calling 'bullshit' when an otherwise decent writer sends you the slog at the bottom of the slush. I sometimes think folks do this ocassionally simply to see if the editor's previous choice was deliberate and considered. Especially by writers early in their career who are so used to rejection that they distrust acceptance as a sign of an editor with no sense of judisciousness.
If an editor is not overwhelmed with submissions to the point that personal replies are at best improbable, then there are not enough submissions! Go rattle the cages and get the marketing and publicity personel to perk up and drive in more.
And an editor can afford to take into account what others will say of him/her no more than an author can bother with the notion of whether a reader will like or hate him/her personally after reading his/her work.
When the editor's hat is on, the personality should be in the backseat gazing out the west-facing window! And the ego should be busy with a crossword - preferably in pen!
Exile of my own dull vice. . . | | Back to Top | | |
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