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So I'm one of the editors for the fiction section of a literary magazine. Anyway, we only get four measly submissions this year. #1 is a juvenile piece of garbage that the author is trying to pass of as a parody. Ugh, he even spends an entire paragraph defending it within the story. Despite my objections, which were as dimplomatic as could be 
, it's being accepted so long as the author talks with another editor about fixing it. Depending on what the final version is, I may threaten to remove my name from the whole deal. #2 is a poem. We have a poetry section, why it was submitted here, I don't know. #3, oh how I trashed this. Turns out it was submitted to our group by mistake, should have been nonfiction. I think I know who wrote it too. It's very "her" style: good writing, bad ideas.
Anyway, on to #4. This one got a maybe from me and yeses from all the other editors. Since I had the most "constructive" things to say, they put me in charge of editing it. It's not a bad story. The author is very good at setting the scene and making analogies. He over does it a bit. And has some sentence structure issues, but it's not a bad read. However, I felt it was too descriptive. Worse, the descriptions didn't seem to match with the story's theme. I also thought that the motivation of the main character could have been brought out better. So I edited the sentences and wrote out my critique and then sent it off to the author.
I've yet to hear back from the author. I'm afraid that I may have been too harsh and frightened him off. He has talent, but I think he doesn't write often and may be upset about the changes. Of course, I was comparing all of these stories to the ones I've read in the Harvard Summer Review (damn, those kids can write). Our submissions, however, come from mostly medical students. Maybe I set the bar too high. Hopefully, he'll reply with his own changes. Otherwise, I'll just put in my sentence structure changes and have it submitted as is. . .incomplete.
, it's being accepted so long as the author talks with another editor about fixing it. Depending on what the final version is, I may threaten to remove my name from the whole deal. #2 is a poem. We have a poetry section, why it was submitted here, I don't know. #3, oh how I trashed this. Turns out it was submitted to our group by mistake, should have been nonfiction. I think I know who wrote it too. It's very "her" style: good writing, bad ideas.Anyway, on to #4. This one got a maybe from me and yeses from all the other editors. Since I had the most "constructive" things to say, they put me in charge of editing it. It's not a bad story. The author is very good at setting the scene and making analogies. He over does it a bit. And has some sentence structure issues, but it's not a bad read. However, I felt it was too descriptive. Worse, the descriptions didn't seem to match with the story's theme. I also thought that the motivation of the main character could have been brought out better. So I edited the sentences and wrote out my critique and then sent it off to the author.
I've yet to hear back from the author. I'm afraid that I may have been too harsh and frightened him off. He has talent, but I think he doesn't write often and may be upset about the changes. Of course, I was comparing all of these stories to the ones I've read in the Harvard Summer Review (damn, those kids can write). Our submissions, however, come from mostly medical students. Maybe I set the bar too high. Hopefully, he'll reply with his own changes. Otherwise, I'll just put in my sentence structure changes and have it submitted as is. . .incomplete.
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