by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
I modified this from a piece I originally wrote for Science Fiction Writer’s Marketplace and Sourcebook, Writers Digest Books, 1994. Back then, I edited The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (and had just won a Hugo for doing so). One of the most valuable things I learned for my writing was how to read like an editor. Here are a few insights:
Editors read differently than writers do. As writers learn their craft, they learn to critique manuscripts. A critique (often done in a workshop setting) requires the writer to read a manuscript from beginning to end. Writers look for flaws and for hidden gems in the material, sometimes rereading four and five times, looking for the author’s intent.
An editor reads like a reader does—with an eye to entertainment.
If editors spent that much time on each manuscript, they wouldn’t put out magazines. An editor reads like a reader does—with an eye to entertainment. If the editor gets bored, she moves onto another story. She doesn’t try to figure out what was wrong with the one she has set aside. She’s looking for something good, not what’s bad.
When I teach writing classes, I explain the editorial mind this way:
Imagine yourself on a plane flight from New York to San Francisco with a stop in Chicago. A half hour before landing in O’Hare, you finish the book you brought with you. On your layover, you want to buy a book for the second half of the journey. You have forty dollars in your pocket, twenty-five of which you need to bail your car out of long-term parking. Not quite enough left over to buy a hardcover, but enough for at least one thick paperback.
You walk into the airport bookstore and find yourself in luck. The book by Stephen King (or any other big-name writer) that you’ve been wanting to read has just been released in paperback. You snatch the book off the shelves, plunk down your $7.99 and leave, a happy customer.
But suppose you’ve read everything by your favorite big names. Then you look for the secondary names on the list, the writers whose work you sometimes like. You scan the back cover, and read a page or two before deciding to buy any book from these authors.
Suppose none of the books by secondary names interest you. You turn your attention to the writers whose names you have never heard of. Before you spend your money on them, you read the back cover and the front flap. You scan the author bio and the list of previously published works (if any). You read the first page. You read a page in the middle to see if the style remains consistent. Sometimes you read the entire first chapter before taking the risk of buying an unknown. And sometimes you put the book back on the shelf without buying a thing.
Editors work the same way. We have limited funds — and limited space. We have our list of beloved authors as well as a secondary list (mostly of unpublished writers who are “close” and whom we’ve been monitoring for a long time). But the difficult buys are the stories from the unknowns. Editors try to buy writers whose work will appear again and again in the magazine, whose name will eventually be on the cover as one of the draws. But it takes time and effort for a new writer to break in. Sometimes it takes years of submissions before an editor will take a chance with the new writer.
Editing is a matter of taste. Remember the airport analogy above? I will have different writers on my A, B, and C lists than you will. I have different preferences. I edit a magazine because my publisher believes that the other readers of the magazine share my tastes.
Editors for other magazines have different tastes. That’s why these editors get hired. They get hired because they have an eye for the commercial, an eye for what readers will like. These editors don’t get hired because they can critique a manuscript well.
So how does that apply to your writing? Stop reading critically. Read for enjoyment. You can’t see a story if you read with a red pen in your hand. Often the writer will do something “wrong” for effect. You will miss that effect if you’re reading critically. You’ll experience that effect if you read for enjoyment.
It’s easy to point out mistakes; it’s harder to see brilliance.
If you find a book that’s spectacular, then go back after you’ve finished reading, and go through it again. Look for the “mistakes” the writer made, and ask yourself, “What effect was the writer trying to achieve?” Assume that the writer knew what she was doing, because if you loved the book, then indeed, she had an expertise you don’t. Learn from that.
And stop critiquing in a workshop. Look for the things that work, not the things that fail. It’s easy to point out mistakes; it’s harder to see brilliance.
If you train your mind toward excellence, then you will become a better writer.
And you’ll enjoy yourself along the way.
“How To Read Like An Editor” copyright © 1994 and 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Kristine Kathryn Rusch spent ten years editing fiction, first for Pulphouse Publishing (where she won a World Fantasy Award for her work) and then for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (where she won a Hugo for her work). She is an internationally bestselling author who writes under several pen names, from Kris Nelscott in mystery to Kristine Grayson in romance. Under her real name (Rusch), she has won the Hugo, the AnLab Award, and Asimov’s Readers Choice Award six times. Her short mystery fiction has won the Ellery Queen Readers’ Choice Award twice, and has been nominated for the Edgar, Shamus, and Anthony Awards. Her work has sold in sixteen different countries. For more information on her writing, go to www.kristinekathrynrusch.com.