(no subject)
Volume 2 Postscript-A Day in the Life of the Editor
by liroa15
Okay, so a very brief explanation of how this postscript came about. A couple of months ago, I was struck by a very distressing thought (or at least it was very distressing to me.) This thought? That I was somehow mismanaging netcord. So I asked my friends list, and then the people at the netcord community, what do you think of netcord and how it’s run? (That post is here by the way. Feel free to add anything to it. I’m always looking for suggestions.) Are there things you don’t like or things you would you change? And a lot of people mentioned that the process seemed very exacting, and they felt uncomfortable with me editing their work.
I’m not afraid to admit that my first reaction was one of hurt. How could anyone think I’d just change their work without their consent? The answer, of course, is that I’m the editor of netcord, such as it is and such as it needs one, and that’s what editors do. They edit.
According to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the noun editor is defined thusly:
editor (n.) 1a a person who edits material for publication or broadcasting. b the head of a department at a publishing house. 2 a person who selects or commissions material for publication. 3a a person in charge of the running and contents of a newspaper, periodical, etc. b a person who directs the preparation of one particular section of a newspaper etc. (sports editor). 4 a person who cuts and edits films, videotape, sound tracks, etc. 5 a computer program enabling the user to write or alter programs, text, or other information. 6 a machine used to edit film, videotape, etc.
Obviously, the job of editor is open to quite a bit of interpretation, and there are actually several different kinds of editor. With netcord, I look at the position as managerial. Mostly, I make sure I have all the stories for the volume, read them, and put them into the order I think makes the most sense. This order depends mostly on the length and mood the various submissions. For example, I try to pair longer stories with shorter ones so that people who read the collection in order don’t feel overwhelmed by several long stories all in row. (I know everyone reads their friends’ stories first, don’t worry.) I also try to match stories that contain a lot of angst or sadness with stories that are fluffier for much the same reason. I don’t want any reader to leave the collection feeling morose or sad simply because there happen to be two or three really sad stories at the end of the list. So, these are obviously a couple of considerations that go into sorting the stories for netcord. (And also two good reasons to read it in order. ;))
One of the first things I try to do when ordering the stories is choose the first and last stories in the collection. I think these positions in the collection are particularly important because they’re the first and last things a reader sees. If you’re reading the collection in order, the first story keeps you reading; the last story makes you come back, makes you want the next volume, wait for it, anticipate it. It’s not a decision I make based on pairing or author, but rather one I make on the impact the story has on me when I read it. It should convey a certain mood, be it wistfulness, joy, or sorrow. netcord often forces me to read players and pairings I wouldn’t otherwise read, but I find I end up enjoying each and every story submitted for different reasons.
Once I have them sorted by length and mood, and I’ve decided on the stories to start and end the collection, I attempt to find an order that works. This is mostly just a lot of guesswork. I’ll take all the stories and order them a certain way. Next, I’ll read the collection from start to finish to see the impression with which I’m left at the end. Then I’ll change it about and do it all over again until I get the order I think best suits the collection. For example, in volume 1, I ended up pairing a short, powerful story about missed opportunities and second chances as told with a dream with the story that ended the collection, a longer one which featured an afterlife that was almost a dream itself. It really struck me the way they resonated with each other so subtly, and I felt that reading them one after another really made them both that much stronger. In volume 2, I chose to start with a longer piece that was obviously set in the now, and I ended the volume with a piece set quite a ways in the future. I like how this shows a natural progression and leaves the collection open to possibility of the future. I’m pretentious like that, I think.
The order from volume 1, however, is the third order I tried. (With volume 2, it’s the fifth, I think. Or maybe the sixth.) I like these orders the best by far, but they took me a while to come to it. I quite literally spent an entire day ordering and re-ordering the first volume, reading and rereading the stories, searching for something I can’t quite describe or explain. The second was done over a period of days with a lot of trial and error.
So, that’s one aspect of what I do as an editor. Another is very simply this: I nag. A lot. Quite well. It’s another one of my jobs to check in with the writers from time-to-time (mostly via check-in posts/polls) to make sure there’s no problems. My nagging extends even beyond these check-in posts/polls though. When I don’t hear from someone for a while, for example from sign-ups until two weeks before the challenge deadline, I’ll often send private messages asking if that person is still planning on completing and turning in a story. I try to work around schedules as well, offering extensions in extenuating circumstances. And I do this all while trying not to be too annoying. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve started a message to the effect of ‘I hope this doesn’t seem creepy or like I’m micromanaging you…’ when writing to the authors who are a part of netcord. I want to be there for anyone who needs my help, but I don’t want anyone participating to feel like I’m smothering them. I’m not sure I’m always (or even often) successful, but this is always my goal.
And possibly the best part of preparing for any volume of netcord is choosing the icons. In some cases, it’s really fun to go through icons for certain players, trying to match them to the general feel of the existing netcord icons. Sometimes it can also be a pain, but that’s usually only with players who aren’t as well known or who aren’t as popular. All the icons currently in use for netcord can be found here.
And now we come to the part that worries people the most, I think. What happens when someone actually submits a story but before we reach the point where they’re being arranged as a larger collection. I’ll start out by saying this. Yes, I am an editor in real life. My real-life job basically consists of editing lessons and questions for study guides and the like mixed in with a little bit of editing manuscripts for my university’s press. And it’s a job that I actually enjoy quite a bit for the most part. But this is the bottom line: they pay me to do that. As lovely as you all are, the only thing I receive from netcord is the satisfaction of a job well done. When I receive a story, I read it. If the spelling and grammar are truly terrible (it hasn’t happened to me yet), I would try to work with the author to revise, much like a beta reader does. (That’s also a position I fulfill for several people.) However, I would never change anything without the explicit consent of the author. (I have received stories with command to fix any errors that may occur when it comes to the grammar, but that’s mostly from people who know me very well, and with whom I’ve worked before.) Otherwise, I send emails back to the authors with any questions I might have. Everything from ‘You haven’t included an LJ-cut line in your story. Would you like anything in particular or will the title suffice?’ to ‘This sentence seems to stop rather abruptly. Was there something else that’s missing?’ to ‘This seems like a typo. Did you mean this instead?’ has been sent back to authors, usually prefaced with something along the lines of ‘I hope you’re okay with me asking this…’. I’ve also received emails and messages from authors asking me to make certain changes to their stories because they noticed this or that wrong with it after they’ve already submitted it. That’s the extent of the actual editing I do to any story not my own. As for my own, well, that’s a different story all together …
The final part of being the managing editor (which is how I think of it) is the continuous changes made to the challenge in response to what our contributors and readers say. For example, during sign-ups for the first volume, there were some questions about multiple submissions. Unfortunately for volume 1, it was already too late to add rules, but for volume 2, I talked with several people, and we came up with a new rule which allows for a second submission after the first one has been completed. Only a few people took advantage of this rule for volume 2, but I’m hoping more people will realize it exists in the future, and more prolific writers will consider contributing a second piece of work to future volumes.
I’m also looking into making changes again for volume 3, namely in that I want to add a category for visual art and/or graphics. I’m absolutely hopeless at anything artistic, but I honestly believe that netcord can only be strengthened by contributions from the wonderful graphic artists I know exist in tennis fandom. I haven’t quite figured out how to govern that yet, and any suggestions, especially in regards to things like size (both in pixels and file size) would be greatly, greatly appreciated. I feel like including people who render their art graphically instead of with words will only strengthen netcord. A lot of artists do things of which I could only dream, and I would like to give anyone who wants it a chance to contribute to netcord in whatever way suits him/her best.
Another thing that will be making an appearance for volume 3 is a community for netcord writers to ask other netcord writers and/or simply writers questions and voice their concerns about their stories/receive encouragement. I know the writers who contribute to netcord are by and large a self-sustained lot, but several people have said it would be nice to have a community to which they could go in case a problem arose. Because of this, let_call has been created. Hopefully, it will become a place for writers to ask questions to which they need to find answers, even if the need is only to satisfy their obsessive desire for factual correctness. Past results, names of coaches and physios, are tournament dates are all things that could be asked at let_call, not to mention questions about the food, music, and dress in certain places (since tennis is a truly international sport). I hope it’ll become an all-purpose community for netcord writers.
Also, special thanks are owed to calzamante for the layouts for netcord, let_call, and chair_umpire. They look absolutely fabulous, and she has been endlessly patient with me and my ineptitude when it comes to layouts.
I hope that this has made the editing process, such as it is, around netcord more transparent and that writers who may have decided not to contribute for various reasons reconsider that decision for volume 3. It’s going to be awesome, guys.
by liroa15
Okay, so a very brief explanation of how this postscript came about. A couple of months ago, I was struck by a very distressing thought (or at least it was very distressing to me.) This thought? That I was somehow mismanaging netcord. So I asked my friends list, and then the people at the netcord community, what do you think of netcord and how it’s run? (That post is here by the way. Feel free to add anything to it. I’m always looking for suggestions.) Are there things you don’t like or things you would you change? And a lot of people mentioned that the process seemed very exacting, and they felt uncomfortable with me editing their work.
I’m not afraid to admit that my first reaction was one of hurt. How could anyone think I’d just change their work without their consent? The answer, of course, is that I’m the editor of netcord, such as it is and such as it needs one, and that’s what editors do. They edit.
According to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, the noun editor is defined thusly:
editor (n.) 1a a person who edits material for publication or broadcasting. b the head of a department at a publishing house. 2 a person who selects or commissions material for publication. 3a a person in charge of the running and contents of a newspaper, periodical, etc. b a person who directs the preparation of one particular section of a newspaper etc. (sports editor). 4 a person who cuts and edits films, videotape, sound tracks, etc. 5 a computer program enabling the user to write or alter programs, text, or other information. 6 a machine used to edit film, videotape, etc.
Obviously, the job of editor is open to quite a bit of interpretation, and there are actually several different kinds of editor. With netcord, I look at the position as managerial. Mostly, I make sure I have all the stories for the volume, read them, and put them into the order I think makes the most sense. This order depends mostly on the length and mood the various submissions. For example, I try to pair longer stories with shorter ones so that people who read the collection in order don’t feel overwhelmed by several long stories all in row. (I know everyone reads their friends’ stories first, don’t worry.) I also try to match stories that contain a lot of angst or sadness with stories that are fluffier for much the same reason. I don’t want any reader to leave the collection feeling morose or sad simply because there happen to be two or three really sad stories at the end of the list. So, these are obviously a couple of considerations that go into sorting the stories for netcord. (And also two good reasons to read it in order. ;))
One of the first things I try to do when ordering the stories is choose the first and last stories in the collection. I think these positions in the collection are particularly important because they’re the first and last things a reader sees. If you’re reading the collection in order, the first story keeps you reading; the last story makes you come back, makes you want the next volume, wait for it, anticipate it. It’s not a decision I make based on pairing or author, but rather one I make on the impact the story has on me when I read it. It should convey a certain mood, be it wistfulness, joy, or sorrow. netcord often forces me to read players and pairings I wouldn’t otherwise read, but I find I end up enjoying each and every story submitted for different reasons.
Once I have them sorted by length and mood, and I’ve decided on the stories to start and end the collection, I attempt to find an order that works. This is mostly just a lot of guesswork. I’ll take all the stories and order them a certain way. Next, I’ll read the collection from start to finish to see the impression with which I’m left at the end. Then I’ll change it about and do it all over again until I get the order I think best suits the collection. For example, in volume 1, I ended up pairing a short, powerful story about missed opportunities and second chances as told with a dream with the story that ended the collection, a longer one which featured an afterlife that was almost a dream itself. It really struck me the way they resonated with each other so subtly, and I felt that reading them one after another really made them both that much stronger. In volume 2, I chose to start with a longer piece that was obviously set in the now, and I ended the volume with a piece set quite a ways in the future. I like how this shows a natural progression and leaves the collection open to possibility of the future. I’m pretentious like that, I think.
The order from volume 1, however, is the third order I tried. (With volume 2, it’s the fifth, I think. Or maybe the sixth.) I like these orders the best by far, but they took me a while to come to it. I quite literally spent an entire day ordering and re-ordering the first volume, reading and rereading the stories, searching for something I can’t quite describe or explain. The second was done over a period of days with a lot of trial and error.
So, that’s one aspect of what I do as an editor. Another is very simply this: I nag. A lot. Quite well. It’s another one of my jobs to check in with the writers from time-to-time (mostly via check-in posts/polls) to make sure there’s no problems. My nagging extends even beyond these check-in posts/polls though. When I don’t hear from someone for a while, for example from sign-ups until two weeks before the challenge deadline, I’ll often send private messages asking if that person is still planning on completing and turning in a story. I try to work around schedules as well, offering extensions in extenuating circumstances. And I do this all while trying not to be too annoying. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve started a message to the effect of ‘I hope this doesn’t seem creepy or like I’m micromanaging you…’ when writing to the authors who are a part of netcord. I want to be there for anyone who needs my help, but I don’t want anyone participating to feel like I’m smothering them. I’m not sure I’m always (or even often) successful, but this is always my goal.
And possibly the best part of preparing for any volume of netcord is choosing the icons. In some cases, it’s really fun to go through icons for certain players, trying to match them to the general feel of the existing netcord icons. Sometimes it can also be a pain, but that’s usually only with players who aren’t as well known or who aren’t as popular. All the icons currently in use for netcord can be found here.
And now we come to the part that worries people the most, I think. What happens when someone actually submits a story but before we reach the point where they’re being arranged as a larger collection. I’ll start out by saying this. Yes, I am an editor in real life. My real-life job basically consists of editing lessons and questions for study guides and the like mixed in with a little bit of editing manuscripts for my university’s press. And it’s a job that I actually enjoy quite a bit for the most part. But this is the bottom line: they pay me to do that. As lovely as you all are, the only thing I receive from netcord is the satisfaction of a job well done. When I receive a story, I read it. If the spelling and grammar are truly terrible (it hasn’t happened to me yet), I would try to work with the author to revise, much like a beta reader does. (That’s also a position I fulfill for several people.) However, I would never change anything without the explicit consent of the author. (I have received stories with command to fix any errors that may occur when it comes to the grammar, but that’s mostly from people who know me very well, and with whom I’ve worked before.) Otherwise, I send emails back to the authors with any questions I might have. Everything from ‘You haven’t included an LJ-cut line in your story. Would you like anything in particular or will the title suffice?’ to ‘This sentence seems to stop rather abruptly. Was there something else that’s missing?’ to ‘This seems like a typo. Did you mean this instead?’ has been sent back to authors, usually prefaced with something along the lines of ‘I hope you’re okay with me asking this…’. I’ve also received emails and messages from authors asking me to make certain changes to their stories because they noticed this or that wrong with it after they’ve already submitted it. That’s the extent of the actual editing I do to any story not my own. As for my own, well, that’s a different story all together …
The final part of being the managing editor (which is how I think of it) is the continuous changes made to the challenge in response to what our contributors and readers say. For example, during sign-ups for the first volume, there were some questions about multiple submissions. Unfortunately for volume 1, it was already too late to add rules, but for volume 2, I talked with several people, and we came up with a new rule which allows for a second submission after the first one has been completed. Only a few people took advantage of this rule for volume 2, but I’m hoping more people will realize it exists in the future, and more prolific writers will consider contributing a second piece of work to future volumes.
I’m also looking into making changes again for volume 3, namely in that I want to add a category for visual art and/or graphics. I’m absolutely hopeless at anything artistic, but I honestly believe that netcord can only be strengthened by contributions from the wonderful graphic artists I know exist in tennis fandom. I haven’t quite figured out how to govern that yet, and any suggestions, especially in regards to things like size (both in pixels and file size) would be greatly, greatly appreciated. I feel like including people who render their art graphically instead of with words will only strengthen netcord. A lot of artists do things of which I could only dream, and I would like to give anyone who wants it a chance to contribute to netcord in whatever way suits him/her best.
Another thing that will be making an appearance for volume 3 is a community for netcord writers to ask other netcord writers and/or simply writers questions and voice their concerns about their stories/receive encouragement. I know the writers who contribute to netcord are by and large a self-sustained lot, but several people have said it would be nice to have a community to which they could go in case a problem arose. Because of this, let_call has been created. Hopefully, it will become a place for writers to ask questions to which they need to find answers, even if the need is only to satisfy their obsessive desire for factual correctness. Past results, names of coaches and physios, are tournament dates are all things that could be asked at let_call, not to mention questions about the food, music, and dress in certain places (since tennis is a truly international sport). I hope it’ll become an all-purpose community for netcord writers.
Also, special thanks are owed to calzamante for the layouts for netcord, let_call, and chair_umpire. They look absolutely fabulous, and she has been endlessly patient with me and my ineptitude when it comes to layouts.
I hope that this has made the editing process, such as it is, around netcord more transparent and that writers who may have decided not to contribute for various reasons reconsider that decision for volume 3. It’s going to be awesome, guys.