TM: If I have to choose one thing, the word that comes to mind is succinctness -- saying the most with the fewest words. In truth, good screenwriters also teach us this. A few years ago, I saw the movie of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. It drove me back to the book where I was surprised to find that Scorsese and his screenwriter, Jay Cocks, repeatedly knew where a scene ended, but Wharton would profitlessly write on. Beware, though: this less-is-more dictate does not apply to novels where the richest rewards lie in something other than the action or dialog.
AC: You describe two key ways an editor can fail a book: through a defective sensibility and a lack of craft. How can writers tell whether or not their books have fallen into the right hands? What can writers do if their books have not? What questions should fiction writers ask potential editors and agents?
TM: I always told editors the best kind of suggestion an author can hear is one that strums a chord already subliminally humming in the author's mind. “Agh -- I knew you'd say that! You're right -- I suspected I was indulging myself there.”
It's important not to just slap something down on paper and send it to a hard-working editor to do all the heavy-lifting of rebuilding it. The reason is, it's best to be sure about the kind of book you want to write. Being convinced about this is the best protection against editorial suggestions aimed at getting you to write another book entirely, perhaps a book the editor wants rather than what you want.
One clue to watch for is a stream of suggestions designed to make the book more orthodox, more like all the other books the editor is familiar with. The most damaging editorial comments I've seen have all come from the editor's inability to take on board something new. Such commentators can go through a manuscript and unerringly suggest deleting exactly the aspects that make the novel fresh, unique, and cherishable. Those people shouldn't be editors, but unfortunately the industry is rife with them.
There's no sure way to find the best editor for you. Certainly try to learn who was the editor of various books you respect and love. (It's easy; just call the publisher and ask, “Who was the editor of such-and-such?”) If you're the writer of ladies' romances or mysteries, you don't want to be in the hands of an editor whose specialty is kitchen-sink tragedies translated from the Lithuanian and Czech.
Don't let the mere offer of a contract blind you with ecstasy. Meet the editor; ask questions. Ask two things: what did you like in it, and what not? Strange to say, if an editor gushes with praise over elements you consider minor or beside the point of what you were after, watch out. Metaphorically, you're like the beautiful young woman who should realize she'd be in trouble with this guy if all he can coo about is her looks. And, of course, you don't want an editor who will be asking you to change all the major things you prize the most. Get the editor to talk about recent popular books he disliked. That will tell you at least as much as hearing about those he approved of.
In short words, if the editor is a fool -- run. Say you need to think about it, and try to find someone better. If the next forty publishers turn you down, go back to the fool, courteously resist his foolish suggestions, and hope someone else in the house chain-of-operation recognizes the real value of what you've done. That someone could be the editor's boss, or someone in sales, or, most likely, someone in subsidiary rights.
AC: Many fiction writers imagine that a career in publishing is a good way for writers to support themselves. Do you think this is true?
TM: It's certainly true there have been working editors who were also flourishing novelists. In my time, signal examples are Michael Korda and E.L. Doctorow (though Ed quit as soon as his books could pay the rent). Problem is, no signal is given off when a would-be writer enters publishing and his ambition is smothered by the demands of working with the manuscripts of others all the time. When I was in my twenties, I wrote a short story that caught an agent's eye. He took me for drinks, and when I told him I'd just taken a job at Doubleday, he all but stood instantly and wished me and my writing career goodbye and good luck.
Ten years later I wrote my first play -- a one act. It was published by the Dramatists Play Service and mounted in small houses across the country for the next fifteen years. I decided I'd found my calling. But about a week after writing it, I joined St. Martin's as director of the trade division. Within forty-eight hours the man who hired me went down with an ulcer and suddenly I was in charge. Only then did I learn the company was fibrillating in red ink and about to die. To keep it alive I had to put my playwright's pencil in the drawer, where it stayed until I retired over twenty-five years later. The writers lost to publishing constitute what might be called “invisible evidence."
In sum, if you can find a sustaining job elsewhere, I wouldn't urge going into publishing.
AC: Are you working on a play or another creative project at this time?
TM: I am. I have a “finished” script for which I'll now seek a "reading," in which actors perform with the open book in hand. Whether or not anything will come of it is no sure thing. When I was in publishing, I used to think the period between finished manuscript and finished book was infernally long. I now see that compared to the gestation term of plays, books feel like newspapers. Oh -- the new play has an apt title, considering I wrote a book labeled The Fiction Editor, the Novel, and the Novelist. It's called The Storytellers.
