Submitting 101: Editing
I’ve been editing The Harrow for over ten years, and this series will summarize the advice I’d give a beginning writer.
After your story has been accepted, it’s going to be proofread and edited. Professional zines may have a full complement of proofreaders and copy editors, but most likely, the section editor or editor in chief will take on the role of proofreader, copy editor, and layout designer.
The editor is not going to consult you on relatively minor edits — grammar, punctuation, spelling, fixing typos. These are technical issues; there are rules for proper linguistic usage, and if the editor understands the rules better than you, none of your complaining will do any good. Of course, there are situations in which the editor doesn‘t understand the rules as well as you. In those situations, politely request a change and support it with a link to a respectable grammar website or publication supporting your argument. When grammatical rules are optional, the editor’s choice will be preferred over your own (e.g., the use of serial commas, the spelling of all right vs. alright).
The editor should consult you, or give you a chance to view the prepublication proofs, if s/he makes substantial changes to wording in your story. An editor should never make changes to your plot without your permission.
Some zines will give you a chance to view a proof version of the story and return comments to the editor. If you’re given this opportunity, read your story through very carefully. Remember that this is not the time for major revisions! However, it’s a chance to see what the proofreaders and editors have done to your work and to make sure no typos have slipped through. Having worked on several journals and magazines, I can guarantee you that no matter how many eyes check a work, errors always slip through.
If you find substantial wording changes, look them over as objectively as you can. It’s not likely that such changes will detract from the story — it takes time and effort for an editor to make changes, so s/he isn’t likely to do it unless s/he thinks it’s going to substantially improve your prose. Take some time to read it through and try to figure out why the changes were made. You may find that the editor’s trained eye has simply caught a weakness or problem you, who have been staring at the story through many drafts, missed. That’s why they’re called editors.
As a writer, I love a good editor. I’ve had editors catch me when I describe a character making the same gesture over and over and ask me to strengthen the atmosphere of my work, and I appreciate their making my prose stronger and more descriptive. I wish more editors were willing to talk to me about my writing and request changes! On the other hand, I’ve also had editors try to change words and punctuation that were correct. In those cases, I’ve picked my fights; I don’t mind letting small stuff slide (only we grammar geeks are likely to know the proper rules for using a comma before a dependent vs. independent clause), but in some cases, I have to make a stand. I teach writing at a university, and the last thing I need is some snide student pointing out a grammatical error in my own story! “The editor made me do it,” though perhaps a legitimate excuse, doesn’t carry much weight with your average teenager.
So — choose your editorial fights.
If you aren’t given a chance to see a proof of your work but it’s being published on the web, don’t be afraid to email the editor if you notice a typo or mistake in the published copy. Again, forget making any major revisions at this point — only obvious technical errors are worth the editor’s time to repair. Still, it’s easy to fix a typo on a web page, and the editor will almost certainly appreciate being alerted to anything that might detract from the professional look of the zine. If the error is in a print zine, on the other hand, you’re simply out of luck. It costs a fortune to fix an error in print, and unless your story is in an anthology going into second edition, that correction is simply not going to be made.
Well, that’s about it for now. We’ve covered the basic short story submission process from beginning to end!
drupagliassotti @ February 25, 2008