Customer Reviews

The Fiction Editor, the Novel and the Novelist: A Book for Writers, Teachers, Publishers, Editors and Anyone Else Devoted to Fictoin

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For every published book, there are many editing steps from rough draft to finished product. If math alone were the determining factor, that should mean there would be many more books on editing than on writing. In fact, there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of books on writing and only a handful on editing. To be sure, there are stylebooks that concentrate on grammatical and punctuational form. And most respectable writers give shelf space to Strunk & White and Zinnser and a few others. But while their efforts address precision of thought and clarity of form, McCormack takes the plunge and talks about artistic sensibility and the effective use of craft in a way that enlarges and energizes like no other book I've run across.

His main premise is that artistic sensibilty is something innate. We like or dislike something because it strikes a chord within or fails to. This resonant characteristic of art doesn't need to be taught. It is simply there. The purpose of craft is NOT to teach the writer how to hit that mark but to help him diagnose the ailment when he doesn't. A writer begins with a vision that drives him. The study of craft, at the outset, may hinder more than it helps. When the attempt falls short, there is plenty of time to apply technique and identify the lack or the excess that caused the work to be less than hoped for.

McCormack says there are two basic failures--bad things which have crept in and good things which have not. He demystifies the whole spooky process and makes it seem much more manageable and achievable.

He also encourages writers to find, cultivate, and appreciate good critiquers whether they be someone in the industry or astute and articulate readers. He encourages critiquers to focus on reader reaction (I had no sympathy for George at this point) rather than specific item that triggered it (George shouldn't have screamed at Alice). This allows the writer to address the effect of his choices rather than become bogged down and defensive of the choices themselves.

This is the best book I have read on the subject although I have to admit, it's not a light read. McCormack has a tendency to invent and run with jargon, a minor distraction but an occasional irritant nonetheless. Still, his obvious respect for writers overall and his passion for the subject matter give this book great value. I return to it every six months or so just to soak it all in again.

To be honest, the tone of the book didn't grab me. I had trouble reading this book in one sitting. This is not a bad book. It is just that there many books by editors who lambast their colleagues in front of writers in an effort to sign the writers. At first thought, McCormack seemed to be attacking other editors just to look better.

After completing the book, I see that is not the stance the author is taking. He acknowledges that editing is still an art, but avers that a more standard practice and terminology is needed to better the quality of writing today.

To this end, he suggests a vocabulary to help editors describe what works or does not work in a novel. One such word is the prelibation, which is the effect the writer is trying to get from the reader. After reading his suggestions, I am inclined to agree. McCormack also points out the contradiction in many fiction textbooks today. No wonder we have a disparity in editing ability.

I would recommend this book to writers and editors. This book will help you think about the novel in ways that can only help it become stronger.

As shocking as it may sound, many books on editing fail to give helpful, practical advice. This book succeeds where others have failed. McCormack's chapter on craft stands out like a shining beacon in the field of publishing books. Because of that chapter alone, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to write, edit, or teach fiction (or even non-fiction, which is actually what I want to edit).

McCormack's ideas on sensibility (you either have it or you don't) are interesting and, in some places, very insightful. I agree with him that not every editor is ideally suited to edit every book and that his/her taste must be similar to the taste of the "ideal reader" of a particular book. But at the same time, I'm not so sure that there are a "gifted few" who are born with editorial genius and the rest of the world are just a bunch of Philistines. I think everyone has some artistic sensibility. Whether or not they have the ability or inclination to use and develop this sensibility might be a different story.

However, my opinion once again coincides with his when he points out the important relationship between craft and sensibility. Craft gives you a "bag of tricks" or a set of practical skills and strategies for making a book better. But only artistic sensibility can guide you in how (or if) to use particular elements of your craft. For example, craft would say to avoid using the same verb repeatedly in one paragraph. But one of my classmates brought in a poignant paragraph from Neil Gaiman's American Gods that repeated the verb "believe" over and over to a marvelous effect. Clearly, the editor of American Gods needed to rely on sensibility to say, "Go ahead; break the `rules.' It's powerful, it's beautiful, don't ruin it because of your devotion to Strunk and White!"

Now in a revised second edition that incorporates author's additional years of experience in the publishing industry since the publication of the first edition, The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist: A Book for Writers, Teachers, Publishers, and Anyone Else Devoted to Fiction is a no-nonsense guide to planning, writing, and revising a novel. Written by award-winning publisher Thomas McCormack, The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist offers constructive advice for each step of the creative process, from how to structure a novel, choose characters, and drive the story, to identifying common flaws in narratives, and apply appropriate remedies. Written in an amiable tone, often using examples, hypothetical writing scenarios, or dialogue-style discourse between industry professionals to clarify its points, The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist is a superb handbook for fiction writers but especially recommended for prospective and professional fiction editors.

I have been around publishing houses, publishers and editors for many years. This is not only the best book I have ever read on the art and the craft of editing, but it is also the best of which I have ever heard. No editor I have known, and there have been many good ones, has described the goals and techniques so clearly.

I am inspired by this book, and you will be, too. You will also be left understanding exactly what should be happening between editors and their authors.

There is a lot of really useful information in McCormack's book. In particular, I found two notions to be quite helpful: the notion of "circuitry," which details how one character's motivations and agendas connect with those of others; and the notion of "master effect," the overall impact the author wants to achieve. There were a number of other useful things, too, along the way.

However, in general, the book the book lacks the unity and cohesiveness needed to make it a really effective teaching tool. The first three sections each deal with a different aspect of fiction editing, along with three characteristics of the competent fiction editor: sensibility, craft, and art. In Part One, we are told that sensibility - an intuitive understanding of what will work or not work for readers - is key, yet in Part Three, we are told that sensibility can't be taught. And then, he spends several pages dissecting this unteachable concept of sensibility (why? - if it can't be taught). Likewise, art cannot be taught, he claims, yet in Part Three he analyzes "artful writing" into four distinct stages.

On one page McCormack speaks directly to writers, on the next, to editors. He piles metaphor against metaphor, sometimes in the same paragraph, and sometimes spinning out the metaphor at length rather than focusing on how it illuminates editing or writing. He indulges in irrelevant asides on such diverse topics as theatre and philosophy; quotes William Sloane and E. M. Forster without identifying the sources of the quote; and chooses arcane terms with no intuitive appeal - prelibation, gustatory sensibility vs. salivary sensibility (!) - to capture his insights. Moreover, any number of sentences barely make sense ("The word 'narrative' is usually used to mean the lamination of things imagined and the words used to describe them.").

Moreover, the book is overburdened by what McCormack is AGAINST, specifically, almost all fiction editors, almost all introductory texts on literature, and a number of well-respected fiction writers vis a vis their opinions on writing. He spends 17 pages - one-tenth of the entire book! - denouncing the use of theme as a tool to teach literature, and another 12 pages on the topic of trigger (whatever initially motivates the writer to write), only to conclude that it doesn't really matter what the trigger is, only what the writer does with it. And this in a book less than 170 pages long!

The result is a book that risks sinking under the weight of its own author. As a career (non-fiction) editor myself, I understand the desire to shape one's own experience as an editor and pass that wisdom along to others. But this book would have been far more effective if McCormack had listened to his own editors (per his final chapter). There is gold to be found, here, but the reader will have to process a lot of slurry to find it.

I am an editor, and I'd like to think I'm a good one. In my effort to become a great one as I embarked on a publishing venture, I chose this book to start, and I'm glad I did. This book is not for a writer looking for a successful editor telling him/her how to get published. It's also not for someone who wants a quick weekend read: this book is deceptively breezy and short; its concepts are colossal and profound. This book is for sincerely, passionately dedicated writers and editors who want to understand the role of art and science in evaluating and improving story. From McCormack's initial question (What is the author's intended effect on the target audience?), he proceeds to his premise that the editor's job is to help the author achieve his/her intended effect. This requires both an artistic/creative sensibility (to determine if there are problems in the manuscript) as well as an analytical/craft-oriented ability (to determine where and what those problems are). Diagnosis suggests elements of the book to put in and leave out while acknowledging that craft alone is insufficient as a solution: craft does not (cannot) *create* art, but it can (and does) *enable* art.

A former editor, McCormack knows the territory well. He admits that he doesn't have all the solutions (some of which may never exist because of the nature of the current publishing industry), but his grasp of crucial issues is strong. He also examines some of the ways "we"--readers, writers, editors, agents, educators--think about literature, and his debunking of myths is also insightful and provocative. I especially enjoyed his views on the concept of "Theme." The book also gives writers another way to look at their writing for revision, never a bad thing. Two quibbles: first, the aforementioned lack of solutions. McCormack admits that he has none, and I'm not sure that editors can function differently in today's publishing industry. Indeed, if the industry changes enough, editors might become redundant, a truly frightening thought. Second, McCormack's background in philosophy makes some of his style unnecessarily (?) complex. He says that this revised edition cuts through some of the thick language, but he could simplify even more without doing any damage to his ideas or message. I recommend to book to serious writers--and any English Teacher who still makes students answer the questions at the end of the chapter.

I bought this book on the recommendation somewhere of some agent, in a list of books he said every novelist should have. But I found it irrelevant. Too left-brain for me. The question about writing fiction is this: How do you make it all come together -- the story, the narrative voice, the main character in motion, some kind of meaning, realistic detail, etc. -- to create the magic that is fiction? We want to lose ourselves in an imaginary world. How do you make that happen? I didn't find the answer here.