Volunteering as a Managing Editor Makes Me a Better Writer

Giving Time

As with most people, my life is extremely busy and I’m selective about what I take on. The hours I spend writing fiction are important and anything that cuts into that precious time disturbs me. That said, volunteering as a Managing Editor for an on-line literary publication, The Writer’s Workshop Review,   www.thewritersworkshopreview.net    is helpful with my own writing, as well as for my publisher who is always appreciative.

Rejection

One of my many positive realizations is that this work increases rejection toleration. It is usually true for achieving short story publication — whether fiction or nonfiction — that the vast number of submissions are rejected, sometimes tactfully and usefully with comments, more often brusquely with a form letter. Some of my stories haven’t even been identified in the form letter. Rejecting most stories sent to The Writer’s Workshop Review has helped me to be sympathetic toward other people who take this path. I believe tenacity and a submission strategy provides success for well-written stories. My skin has thickened during the many months between acceptances when my mailbox overflows with rejections. Knowing that others receive my rejections and go through the same kind of disappointment helps me to dive back into a new writing project.

Re-writes

Many of my stories have been accepted during the first cycle of submissions. Many have been re-written several times and even gone through several cycles of submission before a journal  accepts them. In the case of submissions to The Writer’s Workshop Review, there have been several instances when I have told an author that his or her story will be accepted with changes. Sometimes, I never hear back from the author. Most of the time, the author is so pleased to garner an acceptance in our highly reputable journal that there’s an openness to changes. We never ask for too much, honoring the integrity of the story that attracted our interest in the first place, but occasionally a tweak here or there, a slight addition or deletion, makes for a story that more closely meets our requirements. These simple requests show me how my own stories fall short for some readers and, likewise, why certain very attractive submissions will work better, at least for us, with minor adjustments. I have learned to be more adaptable toward other reader’s opinions of my words because of the re-write requests I have made. My hope is that the authors we ask to make changes take our requests in the same way, understanding these reflect the values of our readers. Because I understand that re-writing requests can be part of the process, I have become less attached to my every word written. Once a story leaves my desk it finds its own way, at times with a bit more polishing done through another person’s viewpoint. And, because I know that the requests I make through The Writer’s Workshop Review are not critical of the work as a whole (it is after all going to be accepted with limited changes) my defenses of my own work have lessened. I used to take every criticism or suggestion done in workshop situations with the thought, They hate my story! I’ve worked through that emotional response because of making change requests of our submitters.

Lessons

I recently read a story that I liked a lot but the author rambled on and on, never focusing and going deeper into any main point. This was a nonfiction piece, and as with the majority of our stories, it was under 3,000 words. This author tried to cover every aspect of his military experience in those 3,000 words. It could have been a novel. I have a tendency to ramble, at least conversationally, and reading a submission like this helped make sense of one of my instructor’s advice to “find your point and go deeper.” In a 3,000 word story it is important to pick out the aspect that can be adequately covered in this amount of space. Rambling writing has made me see the importance of focus. Another lesson is when reading a story I classify as a “no” in the forwarding email to my other readers, I express why I vote for rejection. This practice is beneficial for my own writing because it pinpoints common errors. Of course, grammatical mistakes — unless to reveal character in a story — are an immediate red flag. Point of view flaws and tense problems are sometimes more hidden. Intuitively, I’ll pick up on something wrong and then analyze. An error of these types on an otherwise fine story are correctable before publication. A manuscript with numerous mistakes sets itself up for rejection and annoyance on the part of the reader. I’m conscientious with regard to an error-free submission of my own, but my reaction to messy stories accentuates the importance of diligent proofreading. A few times I have missed an error in one of my manuscripts. This highlights the necessity for having someone else’s eyes look at a story before sending it out.

Guidelines!

A pet peeve of mine is when an author does not check out our guidelines. We do not publish poetry or artwork. Also, I have received full book manuscripts. Needless to say, they don’t get read. Our guidelines stress that we want writings with strong narratives. This means we are not open to most experimental stories. It’s a good idea to look at a couple issues of The Writer’s Workshop Review before submitting. This will give an author a general feel for the kind of writing we present. Because I have seen work from many authors who have ignored what we want, I acknowledge the importance of guidelines and previously-published samples. What a waste of time it is to send out a story willy-nilly, hoping that it sticks somewhere! We request a cover letter with a short bio and the story attached to the email. I’m amazed at the number of submissions I receive with no cover letter whatsoever, merely a link. In these times of Internet sabotages, I’m not going to open a link without feeling the certainty a cover letter provides that it is a legitimate submission.

Confidence

Reading thousands of submissions over the ten plus years that I have been Managing Editor of The Writer’s Workshop Review has increased my confidence in my own stories. And, it has helped me to formulate a writing philosophy. We writers are in this together. We owe each other respect and a gentle eye. It’s a brave act to put our words out there, revealing parts of ourselves, no matter how fictionally, that most people would never express. Stories, whether fiction or nonfiction, are essential to a better understanding of our world and connecting with other human beings. Doing this volunteer work has helped my perceptions to expand.