by Clarke, Neil
If the scoping document looks good, and if I have a title in mind, I’ll use it as the basis for a written proposal. There are a lot of variations from here, but if we’re talking about an invitation-only anthology it’s at this point that I send out invitations, see if people would be interested being involved in the book should it happen. I then complete the proposal and send it to my agent. We knock it around a bit and then send it out to publishers.
If the book sells, I then confirm with all the likely contributors that the book is happening and that they want to be involved. I like to give writers as close to a year as I can to get stories done. This often isn’t enough, but seems a pretty reasonable amount of time, and gives me some flexibility. I then wait. Stories come in, are accepted or not, changed or not and generally go back and forth as the deadline approaches.
I’d say about three months before the deadline I look at what I have for the book and review who still has stories to do. I’ll often write to people and see what sort of story they’re doing, to make sure the book is as varied as possible.
Once the stories are in, I line edit them, write the introduction, and then do the story notes. I then spend a week or so playing with running orders and so on, complete the manuscript and email it in. There are things that come after that, but that’s basically the
process.
Ellen Datlow: First of all, there is a big difference between all-reprint anthologies and original anthologies for which the stories are requested. And there’s also a difference in theme anthologies vs. non-theme anthologies.
For a theme anthology of original stories I always begin with the theme. Next it’s the writers. I think of the writers I’d like to have in the anthology (leaving some room for serendipity, i.e. the unexpected submission received through word of mouth).
For a non-theme anthology it starts and ends with the writers. I try to acquire a good variety of writers and stories from the get-go by telling the writers that they can write whatever they want — but, as I say in the next paragraph, the closer the anthology comes to being done, the tighter the parameters.
Then I wait for the submissions, encouraging the writers periodically and asking how their stories are coming along. I generally get in most of the stories way before deadline, which is good. I pay as much as I can from the advance on signature of the contract, so the early birds don’t have to wait until I hand in the book to get paid. Also, there’s more flexibility in the type of story I’ll buy in the beginning. As the anthology begins shaping up I’m much more careful of repetition in point of view and sub-themes.
A couple of months before my deadline I start nagging, and I also may alert the writers who haven’t yet submitted their stories that I don’t want any more of a particular type of story.
Also, as I buy stories I ask for an afterword (if that’s the type of anthology I’m editing) and a bio.
A month or so before I hand in the finished manuscripts I do the final line edit of each story — although for most of the stories I’ve already worked with the author on any substantive editing before I’ve committed to buying the story. But every story gets a final and thorough line edit towards the end of the process.
John Joseph Adams: Since every anthology I’ve done so far has been a theme anthology, it’s started with the theme.
My first anthology, Wastelands, is post-apocalyptic, and I chose that topic simply because it’s a favorite sub-genre of mine, and also having done some research on the subject for an article, I discovered a distinct lack of anthologies on the subject, and sensed a resurgence of interest in the sub-genre from both writers and readers.
Each of my projects after that grew out of discussions with the publishers of the books. After being thrilled with the way Wastelands turned out, Night Shade approached me with the idea of doing a zombie anthology. For Seeds of Change, Prime approached me first with just the idea of doing an original anthology, and then we batted around some ideas until we settled on a theme.
James Lowder: I start with the anthology’s controlling concept. From there, I’ll usually sound out a couple of potential authors on their interest and then talk with a publisher. Sometimes a publisher will love the idea as first pitched, sometimes I’ll have to tweak the project a little so that it fits the publisher’s line or budget or schedule. If too much tweaking is required, then it’s not a good fit and I take the pitch elsewhere. Once the anthology is underway, it’s a matter of being flexible enough to incorporate the unexpected great ideas or stories that come along, but disciplined enough to keep the overall project true to the original concept.
How do you select stories?
Ann VanderMeer: Our brainstorming sessions point us in the direction and then we read, and we read a lot! We’ll both read different things, then weed them out and come up with a finalist list. From that list we re-read all the fiction and make a spreadsheet of the possibles. Then we typically re-read again and see how the stories work with each other. From this process we select the stories.
Jeff VanderMeer: I am more of an initial skimmer. I usually figure out I’m going to like something or not by a very quick read. Ann is more systematic and thus her initial readings are more accurate. At the same time, I sometimes bring in something that we wouldn’t otherwise have thought about considering.
Ellen Datlow: For original anthologies I request stories from at least a third over the number I need because not everyone I approach will submit her story in the time required and at least a few of the stories won’t be right for the anthology and will be rejected. I pick the stories that I love and that fit within the broad boundaries of the theme. Towards the end of the process, I try to make sure that I’ve got a variety of types of stories.
For a reprint anthology, I make lists of stories that I’ve published and love and those that have made an impression on me during my long and wide ranging reading experience. Then I reread everything (sometimes multiple times) and decide what goes in, balancing all the way.
Jonathan Strahan: I guess the core process is the same, regardless of whether you’re talking original or reprint stories. I sit down with the story and I read it. I try to be as fresh as possible and have as few preconceptions as I can. My intent is to give it as fair a reading as I can. I’ll scribble any thoughts I have about it on the last page of the manuscript (or make a note if it’s in a book). I’ll then set it aside for at least a day, before re-reading it. If it knocked me out both times, and it fits the project I’m doing, I’ll buy it. If I’m lukewarm on second reading, I’ll set it aside for a week or two and then try again. If I don’t love it at that point I’ll either let it go or discuss it with the author.
Things are a little different for the year’s best. I read throughout the year, usually stopping in mid-to-late October. During the year I look at every story I can, making notes on any that I think are possible contenders for the book. I’ll note what genre it is, something about theme, and how long it is. As the deadline approaches I start re-reading the stories I thought were terrific. If they stand up on re-reading, I then enter them into a spreadsheet I have. Then I juggle word counts, genre and so on to come up with a balanced book.
John Joseph Adams: You have to [solicit stories from well known authors], if you want anyone to buy your anthology. You don’t have to only solicit stories from known authors, of course — you can have an open reading period during which anyone may submit a story. But in general, it really behooves the anthologist to have as many stories to consider as possible, so it seems to me that keeping a book invite-only is a dangerous proposition.
There can be trouble if you have a very, very specific theme; for instance, if you’re editing an anthology of stories about monkeys discovering rocketry and leaving the Earth to settle other worlds, well, you almost have to keep the pool of writers writing for you somewhat limited, because any story that doesn’t make it into the book would really have nowhere else it would fit.
But anyway — for my first original anthology
, Seeds of Change, I kept it invite-only by necessity; because I also work at Fantasy and Science Fiction, Gordon [Van Gelder] felt like the theme of the anthology was so broad that having an open reading period would kind of be a conflict of interest with my duties at the magazine. For Federations, however, [I did] an open reading period.
As for how I select stories, I first think about which stories first come to mind when I think about a particular theme and I jot those down. Then I think about authors that I like and/or big names that seem likely to have written something on the theme, then I browse through my anthologies and collections and do research online to see if I can find anything that might fit.
As I find likely candidates I put them all into a spreadsheet to keep track of them, and as I read them, I give them a rating on a scale of 1-10 to help me remember what my initial reaction to a story was (which might change when I go back to read it again, so it’s important to know what that first reaction was). Actually, the scale is more like a 6-10 scale, because anything that I consider less than a 6, I’m not going to include it in the book.
I’ll also keep a separate column to numerically note the story’s relevance to the theme; stories that are iffy on the relevance scale are often among those easiest to cut, no matter how good they are. Then, once I’m ready to start finalizing the table of contents, I just think about balance and diversity and theme, and try to conceptualize what group of stories would work best together in between two covers.
James Lowder: I try to find the best possible stories that display a variety of approaches to the anthology’s theme or concept, working from the story pool available. How large that pool is, and who it might include, will depend upon the project and its budget. For the anthology Worlds of Their Own, which reprinted creator-owned works by writers known for their shared world novels, I had a relatively limited pool of stories compared to, say, the All Flesh zombie anthologies I put together for Eden Studios. The zombie anthologies were “open call,” meaning I received literally hundreds of original submissions. In all cases, I read through many more stories than I eventually use and search for the ones that are the best written and most evocative when placed in a sequence.
I particularly enjoy working on open call anthologies because of the surprise factor. I always get a few really startling, inspired tales, things I never would have expected. These often come from writers I don’t know or know only a little. Open call projects, or those with a significant number of open slots, are also great places to give fledgling authors a break. About a third of the stories in each of the All Flesh books were first professional sales. It’s a lot of work reading through all the submissions you get from an open call, but the hard work usually pays off.
How do you determine the order of stories?
Ann VanderMeer: This is a very important part of the process. We are very careful about how the stories are ordered because we know that the typical reader will read the anthology from beginning to end. We make sure that stories flow naturally from one to the next. We ensure that stories back-to-back are not too similar to each other. Since some of our anthologies have a particular, narrow bent, this is especially important. We don’t want a “sameness” to infect the book. Each story and its placement must have a meaning and purpose for the project.
Jeff VanderMeer: In the New Weird anthology, we went one step further. We had the challenge of creating an anthology useful to both general readers and academics. So we sectioned it off, with two sections more of interest to academics, two sections more of interest to general readers. The progression went: introduction, then the stories that influenced New Weird, then the actual New Weird stories, then the discussion that created the term, and then an experimental section with writers trying their hand at a “New Weird” type of writing.
Ellen Datlow: I try to pick a strong story to go first and the strongest story to go either last or next to last. Then I try to make sure that there’s a good mix of lengths, tone, voice, character, point of view, etc.
John Joseph Adams: The first thing I do is write all of the story titles and bylines on a series of index cards, then lay them out on my desk. By the time I’ve finalized the TOC, I usually have a good idea of what I might want to lead with and end with, but other than that I probably don’t have much idea what will go where.
I like to lead with one of the strongest stories in the anthology, and if possible, a very strong story which is also by one of the bigger names in the book. I also close with one of the strongest, and then try to put another of the strongest somewhere in the middle, kind of like the support poles of a tent. In between the poles, I try to focus on story flow: sometimes you want to avoid two similar stories, but other times they might complement each other, or you might want to place a lighter piece immediately following a story with a downbeat ending.
So, once I get the index cards laid out, I look for my tent-pole stories, then start shuffling things around until I get something that feels right. It’s hard to explain what makes something feel right, but it’s something I think you get a feel for after having read so many hundreds of anthologies over the years. Ultimately, I’m not sure how much it matters to the casual reader, but I think a well-structured book will be more satisfying to the reader. Of course, that’s assuming the stories are read in the order the anthologist chooses, of which there is no guarantee.
James Lowder: I pace the stories with an eye toward tone, topic, and theme, so that readers starting the book on page one and reading the tales in sequence find the experience rewarding. The first story sets the overall mood and the last story somehow closes the book. I also try to structure an anthology so that the story juxtapositions suggest additional meanings, along the lines of the Soviet montage theory of film editing. But the ordering process is dynamic, since adding one new tale to the mix might require the entire table of contents to be rearranged. Sometimes the order needs to be changed to resolve formal or mechanical concerns — two stories close together that are too similar in setting or narrative voice, for example. Other times editorial intuition kicks in. A story just doesn’t read as strongly when placed before or after another tale, so you move it. I tend to shift around the story order several times during the editing process, even after I have all the works selected.
Jonathan Strahan: A lot of this is intuitive, to be honest. I used to follow an old approach: open with your strongest story, second strongest goes last, third strongest in the middle, then shuffle from there. I’ve stopped doing that, though, because I’m not sure it makes for a great reading experience. Now what I try to do is find the story that is the best story in the book which is also the most accessible and the most typical of the theme of the book. I think it’s really important to open with a story that is really accessible and entertaining, and which sets the readers expectations (i.e. if you’re editing an anthology of dragon stories make sure you open with a story that has a big dragon in it!). I will usually then put the longest story in the book towards the end, either last or second last. I’ll put the second best story in the middle, and then try to balance length and theme from there. I want the book to have a rhythm: vary long and short stories, make sure you don’t get three vampire goblin stories in a row, that kind of thing.
How has your understanding of the process changed since your first anthology?
Ann VanderMeer: Not really a change so much as a refinement of our process. I believe that our process works very well. Because our talents compliment each other, we work very well as a team.
Jeff VanderMeer: I agree. I’d just say that as we’ve worked closely, we’ve kind of been able to channel each other’s strengths. I’ve become more patient and thoughtful, for example.
James Lowder: By studying successful anthologies such as Ellen Datlow ’s Blood is Not Enough or Skipp and Spector’s Book of the Dead, even single author collections such as Ellison’s brilliant Deathbird Stories, I’ve become more conscious of the art of pacing and the editor’s ability to make an anthology more th
an just a simple collation of tales. And each new anthology I edit or simply read teaches me something new.
Datlow: It hasn’t much.
Jonathan Strahan: Enormously. I know I have a much better understanding of what I’m doing. I now know what it takes to edit a story, sequence a book and so on. That said, I’ve only edited five original anthologies at this point. I’m still learning all the time about stories, about writers, about assembling books. I’ve learned an enormous amount from editing The Starry Rift and from editing the Eclipse series. I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning, truthfully, because the next book can always be better than this one.
Any funny anecdotes from any of the anthologies you’ve done?
Ann VanderMeer: I’ll let Jeff tell you about the time Clive Barker called the house. I had just had surgery that day for my shoulder and was pretty much out of it, on pain medication. The phone rings and Jeff answers…
Jeff VanderMeer: …and this raspy voice comes on and says, “Clive Barker here. It’s opinions not onions.” And I’m like, “What?” “Opinions, not onions.”
And it turned out there’s a recurring typo in the story of his in our New Weird anthology, where “last breath and opinions” is reproduced as “last breath and onions.” He’s been chasing it down for 18 years. The thing is, in the context of “breath,” “onions” makes a weird kind of alternate sense. Anyway, he was very complimentary of the anthology, and we told him we’d correct the error in foreign editions and any reprint of the US one.