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| SFReader Forums > SFReader > Ask The Expert > What makes a great editor? | Forum Quick Jump
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erazmus
Master
      
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4557
| Posted 7/7/2007 8:41 AM (GMT -5) |   | | | |
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Dru
Bemused Bystander
Date Joined Jul 2007
Total Posts : 33
| Posted 7/7/2007 12:26 AM (GMT -5) | | See, now, here's why I'm notoriously bad about posting to forums. By the time I read through a topic, the thread of conversation has already moved far away...
For what it's worth, I think that an editor ought to say something more about a submission than the old "doesn't suit our needs" standby. I value editorial feedback and there's nothing I'd appreciate more than an editor willing to work with me to improve a promising but not-quite-there piece.
The hardest rejects I've had to write are the ones that say either 1. doesn't suit my tastes -- which is fairly rare, but has happened -- or 2. I've seen this plot too often before, which is much harder for a writer to receive, I think, as it offers less hope of story placement elsewhere. Usually, though, I can provide more substantial feedback. I admit that it would be difficult to take the time to write a few sentences of personal feedback if one received hundreds of subs a day, but most zines and publishing houses don't enjoy that level of activity.
Besides, as a professor in my paying life, the idea of not trying to help a writer with some word of advice or another just feels wrong to me. I wouldn't give a student an F without explaining why!
The Harrow
The Mark of Ashen Wings
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The Clockwork Heart
Coming from Juno Books
February 2008
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Hermit
Diavhrati Luminary
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1785
| Posted 7/6/2007 4:22 PM (GMT -5) | |
Daniel said...
I think we're talking ducks and geese
***
"Deese" are used in the dark and bloody esoteric sacrificial rites of Chaos Magick, whereas "Gucks" are used as demonic familiars.
These highly inportant disctinctions are, of course, drawn from "The Menagerie of Magick" by a certain Frater Ertenalus Babalus.
LOL
At least we quit using boiled babies!  -  So hard to find unbaptized babies in a Puritan country!
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 7/6/2007 3:23 PM (GMT -5) | | | I think we're talking ducks and geese
***
"Deese" are used in the dark and bloody esoteric sacrificial rites of Chaos Magick, whereas "Gucks" are used as demonic familiars.
These highly inportant disctinctions are, of course, drawn from "The Menagerie of Magick" by a certain Frater Ertenalus Babalus.
LOL
Daniel | | Back to Top | | |
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Hermit
Diavhrati Luminary
Date Joined May 2007
Total Posts : 1785
| Posted 7/6/2007 1:47 PM (GMT -5) | | | Sorry. Didn't know I was dancing on any toes but my own.
On the critic thing:
I think we're talking ducks and geese here, Mr. Chaos Magick. When I say critic, I mean critic. It looks to me like you're talking about reviewers, and I refuse to give most reviewers their critic stripes. Reviewers have their place in the industry as marketing support. Critics are far more, and more likely to show up in academic pubs as opposed to industry pubs. And I believe that's the way it should be. I realize they call themselves critics and they're labeled in major media that way, but those are the same low-brainers who speak of bickering as rhetoric and say "that begs the question" when they mean "it RAISES the question," etc. Not that reviewers can't be critics, but reviews and critical analyses are usually separate species. Great critics can be great editors as often as great editors can be great critics, especially in terms of acquisitions. It is the skills of criticism that give an editor the judiciousness to recognize good work, great work, and great potential. Having said that though, I'd like to point out that many editors would never recognize themselves as having that skillset merely because theirs is unconscious competence to some degree. This makes it seem like it comes from intuition because the details have been relegated to the greater capacity of the subconscious mind. As with so many things, though, folks who think they can't do a thing find ways to seem incompetent at it. And thank the powers that be! Gives some of us a leg up. 
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 7/5/2007 1:59 PM (GMT -5) | | I beleive that a great editor should also be a passable, if not excellent, critic. Especially requisition editors and managing editors. And, for my money, they ought to be practicing critics as well (maybe even with guts enough to publish criticism under their own names).
***
I resemble those remarks -- or used to. Not claiming the "great editor" part necessarily, but the "passable critic" part! LOL
That said, I disagree with them. I'm convinced a critic is a different animal from an editor. I don't think critics have the same orientation for the subtleties of any given piece of work as editors, in most cases, in short SF -- nor do they need it. In poetry and lit-fic I think it may be a different case altogether, but for pop-fiction, I think the best critics are those who take the position of a reader/consumer rather than an editor/ purveyor.
"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 : 1785
|  Posted 7/5/2007 1:57 PM (GMT -5) | | Jordan Lapp said...
Ouch. Was that a dig at Jason?
ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Some of my top rules:
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Remain unintimidated at all times
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This is business; nothing is personal. sub 1) Refrain from making it so.
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Remain polite until it is necessary to be otherwise
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Keep above in mind at all times
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Never send an email reply when you are angry - wait at least 24 hours and EDIT (see second point above)
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If you foul up, have a pair and own up! ie, BE RESPONSIBLE
Exile of my own dull vice. . . | | Back to Top | | |
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Jordan Lapp
Ebony & Ivory
Date Joined Sep 2006
Total Posts : 2953
| Posted 7/5/2007 1:47 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 3120
| Posted 7/5/2007 1:17 PM (GMT -5) | | | | |
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)
Date Joined Dec 2005
Total Posts : 3120
| Posted 7/5/2007 1:53 AM (GMT -5) | | crystalwizard said...
I wouldn't expect you to send out rejections or acceptances till the reading period was over and you started the 'keep and get rid of' cycle. Were you trying to do things out of order?
I know a rejection when I see a rejection - there is no need to make either I or the author wait.
The way I see it and have been doing it, there are only 4 kinds of submissions:
- immediate rejection, or catch and release
- maybe rejection . . . but also maybe acceptance, or catch and eat
- keep from rejection . . . for now, but beatable, or catch, consider mounting, eventually eat
- do not reject no matter what, or catch and mount this baby, it's a keeper! (mount as in utilize the services of a taxidermist, just to make it clear for Nicholas
 )
Rejections go out as soon as I've determined they're rejections. That is actually the pretty easy part. It's those in between spectacular and sewage that require the most work. When the pile of 'maybes' begins to lean precariously, those also need a shaking out and the evaluations begin. By the time the reading period was over, I already knew what the last few days' worth of submissions had to 'beat' - and a few of them did.
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Jason M. Waltz
Fantasy Editor Staffs & Starships Magazine
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Ever waltz with the Devil? Or devil with a Waltz? Visit von Darkmoor's thoughts to find out (and read a review or two). | | Back to Top | | |
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