In July 2013, I served as the “editor-in-residence” for the Codex Writing Group, which meant basically I was asking a month-long AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) interview. With Codex’s permission, I’m re-posting the Q&As here on my blog. The questions were all provided by members of Codex.

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What’s the experience of reading a story that you decide to buy like? It probably varies, but what are the more common things? Do you get to the end and realize you were completely immersed in the story? Are you thinking analytically about it as you read? Does it feel more like reading for pleasure than editing work? How many times do you tend to re-read or ask for other opinions before you buy?

It does vary, of course, but usually it’s like you say: It feels like reading for pleasure. That’s the goal: To forget I’m even working. I don’t really think about the story analytically as I read, at least not more so than any reader does; I don’t edit it on the fly in my head as I go along or anything, though occasionally I’ll come across something in an otherwise good story that I think should be tweaked that I just pick up right away on first read, and I’ll jot a note down.

Sometimes I read a story and I know right away when I’m done with it that I want to buy it, so I do–usually immediately. Like I’ll go right to the computer and issue the acceptance right away. Other times, I’m not 100% sure about a story, so I need to re-read it; in those cases I usually ask my staff for some second opinions in the meanwhile since I usually won’t re-read the story right away (both because I have other things to do and also it’s usually best to give it a little time so I can approach the story as freshly as possible on the second read). As for how many people I ask to read the story, that can vary quite a bit, depending on how much trouble I’m having making up my mind about a story. I also tend to ask for lots of second opinions when an author sends me a story whose work I USUALLY like, but for some reason this one wasn’t quite connecting with me and so I want to see what other people think of it, because maybe it’s just me.

Answering some of these questions gets a little tricky because I can think of some examples for some things that might be handy for providing context, but then I worry that if I say something bad about an unnamed story, every author I’ve published will assume I was talking about them and feel terrible (or vice versa, which I suppose isn’t the WORST thing in the world, but still it seems like a cruel game to play!).

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