The Weekend Writer: The Story Behind My Latest Publication In "Literary Mama"

 

My short story The Mother Suite has been published in the latest issue of Literary Mama. Literary Mama is one of the first literary journals to focus specifically on the work of mother writers and is celebrating its 20th anniversary next year. It publishes a blend of poetry, book reviews, profiles, fiction, and nonfiction. 

Now The Mother Suite has a history that may be of interest to writers who haven't done a lot of submitting yet.

• According to my records, I first submitted The Mother Suite in 2005. I submitted it 9 times over the next 17 years.
• I continued to tinker with it during that time and didn't just keep submitting the same thing over and over again. Come on. There's always a possibility that a piece of work is rejected for a reason. My submission records indicate that around 2020 the story evolved into a flash version. That is about the time I became interested in flash fiction.
• Sadly, I have no hard copies of the original, presumably longer, version. Nor can I find anything pre-flash on my hard drive. As a minimalist, I believe that is good. As a writer...not so much.
• The first publication I submitted the original story to in 2005 was...Literary Mama! I thought it was worthwhile submitting it again this past March for two reasons. 1. The story had changed over the years. 2. Publications change editors over time. A new person would be seeing this. 

Working With A Developmental Editor

Literary Mama has department editors who function as real developmental editors (I published a piece of creative nonfiction with them in 2007, and the situation was the same.). This is unique in my limited experience publishing short work, but it was a big part of publishing my books with G.P. Putnam. It's hard to describe what developmental editors do to someone who hasn't worked with one and especially to people who aren't writers. But, essentially, they help develop the story. Developmental editors working for a publication or a book publisher see something in a submission that appeals to them in some way, that they think could work for their publication or company. Writers and editors agree to work together to develop the story, to help it evolve into something they all believe enhances the original submission.

In this case, the original submission, called Take It From Me, was written as an older mother's advice to new mothers. The main character had two children, and she had more experiences that she talked about. It was essentially a superficial rant. Looking back, I think there was a feeling that the children were at fault somehow. Literary Mama's fiction editor liked a particular aspect of the story. She suggested dropping one of the child characters and creating more of a relationship between the mother and remaining child. She suggested dropping some of the experiences the mother originally talked about and elaborating on the ones I did use. She also suggested dropping the advice frame I was using, which went a long way to eliminating the ranting.

Maintaining the mother's voice was important to me. Among the good things that happened as this story evolved is that the daughter developed a voice as well.

The story became much more sophisticated than it originally was. I hope that the experience of working with this editor will have a positive impact on my future short story writing.

The Weekend Writer: You Really Can't Say Too Much About Developmental Editing.

Yeah, I know I’ve written about editing, particularly developmental editing, before. But it is one of the most important aspects of professional-quality writing, so I’m going to mention it again. At Prolixme a new, unpublished writer discusses developmental editing. She is interested in whether or not it is necessary before submitting a manuscript to agents. I’ve heard this question before over the last few years. But only in the last few years.

Because the eBook edition of Savingthe Planet & Stuff is self-published, I’m more interested in the question of developmental editing for books that don’t go the traditional route of agent to editors at publishing companies to the public. STP&S did receive professional developmental editing when it was originally published by G.P. Putnam's Sons. An issue my editor brought up? In early drafts, the adult characters were more interesting than the YA main character. Yet this was supposed to be a YA book. Good catch, Kathy.

Having been through the the developmental editing process with eight books, myself, I think it's pretty clear when a book I'm reading hasn't had developmental editing or has had the wrong kind. I've read a self-published book in which the title only connected with the last quarter of the book. If the last quarter of the book was what the story was about, it took way too long to get there. A developmental editor would have pointed that out. I've read a self-published book that described itself as YA in which the YA character disappeared for a third of the story. That portion focused on an adult character we hadn't seen before. The author's note sounds as if there may have been developmental editing for that book. I wonder if the editor was familiar with YA. Long, unnecessary passages...characters who sound too much alike...awkward point-of-view switches...all these things should be pointed out by a good developmental editor.

I don't think developmental editing is necessary before submitting to agents, but it's certainly necessary before publishing. From what I've read, knowledgeable self-publishing writers realize this.