Editing: the DOs and DON'Ts

Posted on behalf of Lynne Jamneck. The ROR team would like to take the chance to congratulate Lynne. Gwyneth Jones's story 'The Voyage out' which appeared in Lynne's anthology, Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures, has been selected to appear in Gardner Dozois' 26th Year's Best SF.



Lynne talks about anthology editing.

The next thing that you're going to want to remember is that you're going to read a lot. Though I had specific authors who were contributing, I also sent out an open call, because there's nothing quite like the potential for discovering a gem of a story from someone unpublished. But the opposite is also true. The likelihood of reading a lot of bad stuff is, well, very likely. And for heaven sakes, when it comes to emailing writers to tell them that they're stories have unfortunately not made the final cut, be gentle. Don't be snotty and don't be mean. Be encouraging where you can. But be honest, too.

Once you have your stories, the editing process starts; working with your final contributors to make their stories the best they can be. There is a fine line here, and I think I'm lucky in the sense that I'm a writer myself. I thought "how would I like an editor to approach me, to ask me about potentially changing an aspect of my story?" And really, the only reason you would ask any author to do that is because a) something does not make logical sense, or b) a small change can potentially illuminate something deeper relating to character, motive or the general impact of the story.

Because my background is mostly in the creative side of things, I chose to leave the mailing out of contracts and payments to contributors to the publisher, who was happy to do so after I had supplied them with up to date details of contributors' contact details.

Rowena, here. What experiences have you had working with editors? I discovered one of my short children's books had been extended by one extra page without being consulted. What was disappointing was that the added text completely missed the point of the original text. It was just plain bad and it had my name on it.

Horror stories, anyone? Or have you been inspired by a great editor?

The Highlights and Pitfalls of Anthology Editing

(Posted on Lynne Jamneck's behalf)


Where to begin? I know—thank you Marianne de Pierres for asking me to blog about something that, at least from my experience, no-one seems to know if there is a right or wrong way of going about doing. I've heard horror stories from other editors about their experiences compiling anthologies and I must admit, I'm not nearly an expert on the subject. So all I can talk about is my own experience as it played out when I put together Periphery—Erotic Lesbian Futures for Lethe Press.

Selecting A Theme

First of all, I think your experience is going to be much more satisfying from the start if what you are aiming to compile speaks to you personally. One of the reasons I enjoyed putting Periphery together was because I was aiming to create the kind of anthology I had been looking for in bookstores for years, without ever finding it. What was that you ask? It's hard to explain in a few sentences but the gist of it was that I wanted to read SF stories, written from a queer perspective where the eroticism functionally contributed to the overall story; was, in fact, essential to it. So I had two perspectives that I wanted to blend effectively, and I count myself extremely fortunate to have received the wonderful stories I did from the range of contributors included in the final collection.

Because I had such a specific idea of what I wanted, I also had specific authors in mind that I wanted to approach. Some of them I had spoken to before, or worked with before whilst others were authors whose work I admired. The great thing about most SF authors is that if you send them a nice email and ask whether they'd be potentially interested in contributing to your project, the likelihood of you getting a nice, timely email back in return is almost guaranteed. Whether they will be able to contribute depends on various factors, but I'd say the most important is payment, and whether they have time available.

Most publishers will advance (once your proposal has been accepted) an amount either before or after publication to pay contributors, depending on contractual agreements. Needless to say, the bigger the payment, the better the chances of having high-profile authors involved, though this isn't always the case. It's not because writers are greedy, it's simply because writing is what they do for a living. They need compensation for the time they commit to projects.

What unforgettable short stories or anthologies have you read? Why were they unforgettable?