From the editor's side

 This week I've slipped into my annual role as slush reader and editor for the stories submitted for the annual Pens of the Earth story window.

We editors get sent all the stories, which we slush read and make notes on.  The project sets specific themes each year, so we're looking for whether the submitted stories fit the theme.

When we've all gone through the stories we have an editorial meeting via Zoom.  At that meeting we discuss each story, stating whether we think it's a yes no, or maybe.  Those that are yeses are then assigned an editor to work with the writer.  Those which fall into the maybe category we discuss in more detail.  Essentially these boil down to whether they can be accepted after some editing, or whether we think that process would be too much work.

Short story magazine editors are always stressing the importance of checking the submission requirements and ensuring your story is a good fit for the magazine,  We had two stories which we said no to because they didn't fit this year's themes.  One was a story from a writer which I know was taken from their existing short story collection, and they'd clearly decided just to take a punt on it.  The other was from a writer we've rejected work from in previous years, again because his pieces didn't fit the theme.

We've worked together as an editorial team for a few years now, and we've got to the stage where we agree on nearly every story.  The yes's were easy and obvious, and most of the maybes we agreed on too.  Where our opinions differed we stated our reasons why, and then came to a concensus decision.  This is different from how commercial short story magazines work, where one slush reader has the power of yes or no.

What struck me as I was going through the stories was how we all knew immediately what was good writing, and what wasn't so good.  I've known two of the editors a long time, and the third for a few years now.  We're all writers, and have been for many years, so we've all been on the other side of the editing process.

Because I'm a writer and I know how devastating a negative critique can be, I'm always very careful to explain my reasons for my decisions on a story.  I do find it hard to critique beginner stories which need a lot of fixing.  To do that effectively I'd have to go through the manuscript line by line, showing what is an info-dump, and what need tightening.  Often writers start too early in a story, and sometimes the first few paragraphs are really backstory and need deleting.  There's rarely enough time in a critique group to give a story this much attention.

In discussing the edits to the Pens stories we all identified the same issue in each story.  I came away from the meeting reassured that I do know a good story when I see one, and that I'm picking up the right issues to edit.

This can only help my own writing, and it's one of the reasons why I volunteered to be an editor for this project in the first place.