If I ever feel that my story is perfect and the editor’s comments are stupid, I’ll know I have arrived at the worst-case scenario. It has never happened to me, but I have found myself in situations that were almost as stressful. In the best-case scenario, the editor catches mistakes and suggests changes that enhance and clarify my work. Editorial correspondence usually falls somewhere between these two extremes.
In the murky middle ground, editors may want changes that don’t seem better than what I have written. If proposed changes work, but don’t seem to be an obvious improvement, then it’s just change for the sake of change. I’m much more likely to consider revisions if I know the reader has taken some care with my story. I knew this was the case when I received an acceptance letter from Elizabeth Philips, guest editor of Grain. Her careful, extensive breakdown of my story revealed serious attention to detail. I read my stories aloud dozens of time before I send them out for publication, but I was blind to some of the things she caught. She helped stamp out my overuse of “buts”. That’s how my mind works—thoughts in opposition— but the overuse can be grating. There were buts running all over the place, but she came in armed with semi-colons, dashes, and rewrites. Oops, there it is again! I’ve already used eight buts so far in this post. Maybe I do have a problem.
Here’s the letter:
May 27, 2016
Dear Oscar Martens,
We are pleased to accept your terrific story “Tickles the Clown” for publication in the next issue of Grain. We will send you a contributor contract shortly. You will be paid at time of publication. Grain pays $50.00/page to a maximum of $250.00, plus three contributor’s copies.
Please notify me immediately if there’s any reason that your work cannot be published in Grain as scheduled. (On occasion we find that a work has been accepted and/or published elsewhere.) Grain purchases First Canadian Serial Rights only. And please let me know, by email, that you have received this and are able to return the revised manuscript to me as an email attachment by about May 29th.
This is what we require from you in order to publish your work:
1. The piece submitted as an email attachment in a Word doc, with changes made to it as indicated in my notes below.
2. A brief two or three sentence biographical note, also as an attachment.
Send everything directly to me at [email] as soon as you can.
Here are a few editing and copyediting notes to help you prepare the story for publication.
1. P. 2, last paragraph, as a transition back to the present of the narrative, insert “Now” at the beginning of the first sentence, as in “Now Tickles let go…etc.”
2. p. 3, I think you need a paragraph break after “his junk.” Then delete the paragraph break that follows “fury did not fade.” In the next sentence, delete “the” from “the British Properties” and insert “his client’s” in front of doorway and delete “of his last client.” So you then have: At six in the morning, he drove to British Propterties and stood at his client’s doorway. In the last paragraph, insert “too” in front of “weak,” and I suggest, in the last sentence, changing “thick” to “massive.”
3. P. 4, first paragraph, change “baggy-eyed scowl might” to “baggy-eyed scowl must have”. In the last sentence, change “were twice as fast to look away” [which sounds odd, like he can measure fastness] to “looked away fast.” In the 3rd paragraph change “across the yard to” to “across the yard in” and delete “a” from in front of “complete lack of insulation.”
4. P. 5, 1st paragraph, cut “but” and replace with dash, and replace “thought” with hoped, and make a few other changes leading to this: There was smashed glass by the curb—he hoped the car was close enough to the police station to deter thieves. [Too many sentences in the story include a second clause beginning with “but” so I am making a few suggestions to eliminate a few “buts.”] Last sentence of same paragraph, change “to show nothing left behind” to “to show it was empty.” Last paragraph, delete “but there was no one there to beat down temptation and deliver another dull Monday night.” Because he hasn’t gone in yet. Take us into the building and then show us no one there. And maybe, in the 2nd sentence, insert another adjective, perhaps: “…the basement itself was a sad, abandoned place.”
5. p. 6, 1st paragraph, change 30 to “thirty.” After first paragraph, insert a section break and begin next paragraph with the text flush to the left margine. 2nd paragraph, 3rd sentence, reconstruct slightly: When he opened his eyes, morning light and pain flooded in as seizure-inducing strobes from the ambulance and cop car lit up the alley’s brick walls. Last paragraph, first sentence, the blood description is a bit confusing. I suggest this: “…he fell in, and caked blood coated his hands, the cement of the lane, and the dumpster. [Lane and ground seem to me too much the same here.]
6. p. 7, 1st paragraph, change “broken vein veteran” to broken-veined veteran, and cut the comma and “but” from this sentence and insert a semicolon in place of the comma. A little further on, delete the comma and “but” and insert dash: “…after he started drinking—then he thought he might have…etc.” And change “40 %” to “forty percent.” 2nd paragraph, delete everything after first sentence of this paragraph. The drinking diary seems like a too clever detail, and the entries are mentioned without any context—we don’t feel time passing. So I’d go with this one-sentence paragraph, then insert a section break and begin the next sections with “Tickles woke later that week” flush left to the margin. 2nd last sentence on the page, insert a dash after “weeks ago” and cut the “but” and insert “couldn’t be.” Like this: “…from weeks ago—couldn’t be, those were lost to the chain of evidence.”
7. P.8, 1st paragraph, change “irritation but” to “irritation and.” And in the last sentence, change “bring down the whole tribe” to “would bring the whole tribe down on their vehicle.” 2nd paragraph, change “broken door window” to “shattered driver-side window.” [Broken door window sounds odd, doesn’t give us a clear enough car visual.] Next sentence, change “missing but” to “missing and.” Insert paragraph break after this sentence, so next paragraph begins “The Hastings’ street market…”
8. P.9, 2nd paragraph, change “30 kph” to “thirty kph.”
9. P. 10, last paragraph, change “north face bank” to “north bank.”
10. P. 11, end of 2nd paragraph, change “she had long ago” to “she had, had long ago.”
11. Final page, 2nd paragraph, 1st sentence, change “but he didn’t take it” to “who didn’t touch it.” Last paragraph, change “300 feet” to “three hundred feet.” 2nd last sentence, delete “but” and insert a semicolon and “he” so it reads: He looked down at the gun on the bench; he couldn’t make himself care about next moves.
We really loved this story. Nice work, Oscar.
We are delighted to have your work in our magazine. Thank you for your contribution to Grain.
Best, Elizabeth Philips Guest Editor
And here is my response:
May 27, 2016
Hi Liz,
Thank you for your detailed comments on my story. I agree with 95% of the changes with a few exceptions:
1. No one from around here would refer to British Properties. It is always “the British Properties”.
2. Instead of deleting “but there was no one there to beat down temptation…”, I modified the sentence to show he had entered and found no one there. I hope that works for you.
3. On your 5th point regarding “…he fell in, and caked blood coated his hand”, your revision did not make sense to me, so I tweaked it a bit. I may have misunderstood your intent on that one.
I think it’s amazing that you could have so much to say about this piece considering the time pressure you’re facing. You must be a producer! I’ve attached the revised story and a bio. Please let me know you received this. Thanks again for your interest.
o
I just had a look through some of my books by and about Nabokov, and can’t locate the story, but there’s an incident during some stage or other of the publication of “Lolita” where an earnest editor at the publishing house was sending comments to Nabokov about things that needed to be changed. You know, suggesting editorial changes to a literary masterpiece. Nabokov didn’t exactly say “My story is perfect and your comments are stupid,” and I’m forgetting the exact details, but I think he contacted the innocent editor’s manager or something like that, and the message was along the lines of: “This will not do.” A bit exasperated, a bit imperious, and very aware that the text of his work was not to be picked over by anyone but himself.
I declare Nabokov exempt from the rules that govern ordinary writer/editor relationships. It seems very arrogant to assert that every word and every sentence is exactly the way it should be, but I think that was most likely the case with Nabokov. Can a realization like this only be made in retrospect? Do you think there are any current writers who fall into this category?