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A Writer’s Guide to Understanding the Copyeditor

by Terry McGarry Originally appeared in the Bulletin of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Spring 1995. Copyright © 1995 Terry McGarry. Reprinted with permission. Many copyeditors prefer to spell the word “copyeditor.” I laughed when I got page proofs of a short story I had written about a copyeditor: the anthology’s copyeditor […]

Murder Your Darlings

It’s the nature of writers to fall in love with words, particularly their own. Clever turns of phrase excite us; we beam like proud parents when our protagonists take on lives of their own; a shapely plot twist can turn our heads. There is nothing wrong with indulging in the occasional fling-as long as it stops in draft. When time comes to make that final revision, however, you must harden your heart, sharpen the ax and murder your darlings.

Doyle’s YA SF Rant

by Dr. Debra Doyle This rant first appeared in the book review section of hwæt!, my zine for Apanage, a children’s literature apa. Later on, I posted it in the Doyle&Macdonald topic on GEnie’s Science Fiction RoundTable. And after that, it seems to have taken on a life of its own. The Giver (the 1994 […]

The Sobering Saga of Myrtle the Manuscript

From March, 1986, until its untimely demise in February, 1989, I was the Editor-in-Chief of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, and Editorial Director of its “twisted sister” publication, Night Cry. During that time, we received an average of one hundred manuscripts per week, in addition to a backlog of more than 2000 manuscripts left behind by my predecessor.