[Being not quite a re-run, but a revisiting of a persistent question.]
As the population of writers, editors and literary journals increases faster the number of Kardashian spin-offs, it never seems profitless to address the question many new or just frustrated writers ask me: How can you possibly read that many stories and make wise choices? The honest answer requires me to say something they don’t want to hear, even though the existence of terms like “over the transom” and “slush pile” should prepare us all for the bad news.
Sidebar: I should say that I rarely solicit work, unless I’m working on a special issue and don’t have the patience or optimism to believe it will take shape naturally and on my publication schedule. Certainly over 90% of the poems, stories, flash fictions and essays in Shenandoah are unsolicited, and more than 50% are by writers we have not previously published, which means that a large proportion of the fiction appearing on our site arrives as a surprise and is discovered by an intern or the editor in the midst of a Ms.-reading session. In other genres, it’s the editor alone who peruses the manuscripts. But fiction is the mode of most of the words that come our way across the dark mysteries of the digital world.
Now to the raw answer to that question. Most stories we receive are not read from beginning to end. Right now I have five undergraduate interns, all new to the job this fall, no managing editor or professional assistant fiction editor to lend a pair of seasoned eyes. I’m the first reader for about 60% of the stories, and the students deal with the rest, though I will examine any story that receives high recommendation from them, as well. I try to assign two students to each of the stories designated for intern examination, but sometimes the volume of incoming prevents that. If a story does not receive a positive review from the student(s) it has been assigned to, it is declined with regrets.
I know this is pretty dry and procedural, but for the most part, people who ask this question about reading mss. are not asking for entertainment or diversion, so I’m taking my lead from the directness and urgency of their question.
How do I prepare the interns to assist me? We discuss in class stories already published in Shenandoah and some previously submitted but declined. As we do so, we compile a pair of lists – what appeals to us or excites in stories, what displeases us or irks us. No two classes arrive at the same lists, but I make certain each class deals with matters of freshness in style and plot, conciseness, characters we have strong feelings about, concepts behind the plot, pace, conflict, precision, consequentiality. This semester’s class was quick to say that when the conventions of a sub-genre like romance or horror outweigh the originality and fundamental seriousness (even in a humorous or witty narrative), we are not drawn to the piece. I always insist that I want to see a story not only written but wrought, so we do some phrase-by-phrase analysis, substituting words, asking what’s essential, what’s subordinate and what’s downright ornamental.
After we’ve had this discussion, each intern is assigned a group of stories on our Submittable page, and each has the opportunity to record comments and vote in favor or against. If I find divided opinion, I bring the story before the entire class, and we discuss it. I’ve more than once been persuaded to accept a story I had limited enthusiasm for to begin with, and I’ve also been put off a story I had previously favored.
We’re not going to publish more than 10-12 full-length stories a year, not more than a dozen flash fictions, so we have to sift scrupulously and grind fine, but I admit that there’s a serendipitous element that can’t be dismissed. It’s often a question of timing. Say we find a fine story concerning a bickering couple who find an injured owl, and trying to save it provides a healing insight. If we’ve just published a story with a prominent bird or a couple who are brought together through finding someone or something damaged, that story’s chances are not good.
Two principles hold me on a steady course throughout all our deliberations. The first is triage. Like emergency room doctors, I want us to quickly sort out the unsalvagable stories, the engaging but flawed ones and the truly exciting one. It’s that third category we need to concentrate on, and they go into a basket with a two hundred year old etching of a trout above it. The works that land there are said to be “under the fish,” and I’ll revisit that reservoir of writing. Some pieces will come to seem indispensable, others like part of a catch and release program. I spend a lot of time with the contents of that basket and do the best I can.
But doesn’t that take forever and a half? It could, but there’s a second principle in operation. About the abundance of written words begging for our attention, Flannery O’Connor said that she could give a poem a couple of lines, a story a few paragraphs and a novel a few pages, but that she would stop reading when she felt she could do so without experiencing a sense of loss. The already-too-familiar, clichés of style, character, situation, formulas and reiterations – even if lifted from famous writers and classics – are likely to make me feel that quitting will not be followed with regret. O’Connor went on to say that she didn’t have very much time. Her reason was the lupus that was killing her, my reasons are the steadily-multiplying number of submissions, deadlines and the hundred other tasks that the editor of Shenandoah gets to practice.
Do these practices and precautions allow me to sleep at night? Sometimes. Do I wish we had other options at our disposal? Certainly. But we soldier on, try to be good stewards of the work entrusted to Shenandoah and wish all our would-be contributors good luck in proportion to their careful and original writing.
