Editors' insights

[Dozmonic]

Just had this forwarded to me, thought it may be of some interest. It's a piece of short fiction submitted anonymously, critiqued by eight highly experienced editors. The piece itself isn't too long and it's interesting to see how they each approach the work, what puts them off and how far into it that happens.

Editor Roundtable: A Story Critique | Wonderbook

 

[The Judge]

That was interesting. I haven't gone through the specific nit-picky comments yet, only the general overviews, but I'm glad to see my own thoughts on the piece were more or less on a par with the editors.

I'm not sure this is a Writing Resources matter though, so I'll shift it over to GWD.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Very interesting! I haven't gotten to the specific comments yet, either, but, like TJ, I find the general ones to be about what I was thinking.

I wasn't sure if it was meant to be the original Dust Bowl of the thirties, or a future one for the next thirties. It kind of bounced me back and forth on that.

If I were a slushpile reader, I wouldn't have made it very far, either -- the dialect is forced and difficult to read. I probably wouldn't have even made it to where I discovered it was a zombie story. The title should have warned me anyway.

I disagree with quite a few of the editors on one point, though I may be wrong since I don't read zombie stories -- they kept saying it didn't do anything new, and it seemed to me that the (spoiler)"good zombie healer" part was probably not standard.

 

[SciFrac]

This is very informative, thanks for posting. Always wondered how professional editors critique new work. So this is just a short story, or the first chapter of a novel? Either way, this is very helpful. I had several of the same thoughts as the editors as well, but not all.