Really? Did I really write that first post without mentioning how good fiction editors are first and foremost enthusiastic readers?

Indeed I did, but only because I can’t imagine anyone seriously considering a career as a book editor who’s not an avid reader and hasn’t logged more than a few all-nighters with a book they’ve been unable to put down. So let’s assume that as a given.

While I suppose copyeditors and proofreaders need not be passionate readers to do their jobs well, developmental editors who work with story craft or the effort to elevate their  authors' prose style really do need to be. This is partly because many genres of commercial fiction (mysteries, romances, sci-fi, etc.) utilize conventions that authors sometime need to pay more (or less) consideration to, especially if they’re looking to traditionally publish.  But more importantly, this is because some of the best lessons in how to do something well are more readily found in novels themselves rather than books about how to write novels.

As owner and managing editor of The Editorial Department, I’ve hired a lot of professional editors, and for my money good editorial instincts are just as important as whatever formal training might attract me to a resume. The sensibilities at the root of those instincts really can only come from the experience of reading the best (and worst) of what’s out there. There are lots of writers and books (and even an occasional screenplay) I turn to all the time in my workshops and work with authors for such lessons. A few of my own personal favorites:

• The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy, for a fascinating effort to make a setting for a book so interesting and memorable, it feels almost like a character.

• The Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger, for a lesson like no other in distinctive narrative voice.

• The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, for insights on how to make a really horrible bad guy likable and memorable, and how to build chemistry between protagonist and antagonist

• Fargo (screenplay), by Joel and Ethan Coen, for somewhat over-the-top but nonetheless very useful insights on how diction, cadence, speech rhythms, and regional dialectical markers can work with character voice.

The list goes on and on and meanders through all sorts of genres. There are mystery writers I love because they can make the most mundane aspects of police work remarkably entertaining. There are authors who write dialogue brilliantly, who can keep a remarkable number of balls in their air with complex plots, who write amazing narrative description, who do great things writing in the present tense and what have you. There are authors who can keep me laughing and on the edge of my seat at the same time. And there are of course those authors whose book are so boring and whose writing is so flat and pedestrian, it’s a wonder they ever got published!

The point I’m trying to make is that a prospective editor’s reading tastes and sensibilities weigh heavily in my decisions about who to bring on board here. I like people who know what they like and know who does it best. I value strong convictions about what works and doesn’t in fiction craft, but also the understanding that there’s no single right way to do anything when it comes to writing a novel.

I feel like I learn something every time I read a good novel and sometimes I learn even more from the a bad one. James Patterson is a writer who I feel has gotten a lot better in later years (sometimes with the help of coauthors), but whose writing just bores me to tears. John Grisham’s early novels are terrific examples of what happens when interesting things befall   utterly forgettable characters. And Dan Brown in Angels and Demons....No, let’s not go there. I won't tell you why I stopped reading five pages from the finish line and never picked it up again.

I don’t mean to put down these authors or ignore that their books sell in the gazillions, especially since I have been totally caught up in books by all these folks. But I learned early on that the standards can be very different and that many authors succeed despite and not because of their habit of (apparently) ignoring some very valid principles of story and writing  craft. This is something that the best editors get. And I think that  this understanding is central to encouraging authors to embrace higher standards than whatever is at the top of the bestseller list might sometimes represent.

More next week!