I had the pleasure of working with CN in the summer and fall of 2015 on a collection of his short fiction. I was already familiar with his work, so I knew that I should expect a series of challenging, engaging, sometimes mysterious, and often heart-shaking stories. CN’s objective in working with me was to have an honest, rigorous editorial review of a few of the sections that he had divided his stories into within a larger collection. We weren’t working on a specific deadline, so we spaced our conversations out over several months. He’s continuing to work with the stories in the hopes of publishing some of them individually and, eventually, as a full collection in a book. I sat down with him not long ago in one of our favorite watering holes to review our editorial process and how working with LSE was useful for him.
LSE: I’m so glad to have a chance to talk with you about our somewhat unusual editorial review process and what it was like to work with me as your editor. You have some truly unusual stories. How might you describe the genre of your project?
CN: It’s a collection of short stories with what I believe to be distinct themes.
LSE: Tell me the story of your project. Let’s start at the beginning. What led you to this project?
CN: I’ve been writing for a while, but I went through a personal matter that I felt needed to be communicated, specifically to my sons. My sons are in their twenties now, so the project began when they were young adults. I knew they were amenable to listening to and reading stories, so I thought the story collection would be a safe way for me to maintain distance while still providing a lesson. The stories were a means for channeling that information to them so it wouldn’t come across as dad simply lecturing them.
LSE: At what point in working on the project did you decide that you wanted to consult an editor?
CN: I was already receiving feedback from [a writing group that I coordinate] and other writing groups where I regularly share my stories. I had never really had in mind to market my stories, but I’d heard enough from other people who said, “Hey, you ought to think about getting these published.”
An editor is more than just another set of eyes. You were an alien voice, which was useful since I was already getting feedback from familiar sources. You had insight. Your expertise is unambiguous. And I enjoy ambiguity, as you know from working with my stories. But in a way, I think that’s what my stories needed. They needed a critical eye that would look not just at the story as a story.
LSE: Where are you at with the project, currently? What future plans do you have for it?
CN: There are still things left to be said to my sons, and I’m still looking for ways to say those things. I think I’ve discovered which particular stories I want to keep working with to improve that communication.
I’ve written enough stories now that they are showing different thematic connections, which is a positive that I didn’t initially realize. You helped to reveal that, not so much by pointing out the connections but by prompting me to look for them. You also helped immensely by encouraging me to think more carefully, closely about the characters and why they’re doing what they’re doing. When I look back now, I ask myself similar questions about characters in stories you didn’t review.
Now I’m hoping to develop those particular stories, and I envision developing them into a novel. But certainly not a traditional novel. It would have to be something unusual.
LSE: What are your hopes for the project?
CN: To have my sons read it finally. Well, that’s not really true. Maybe I’ve already used the word “legacy” as we’ve been talking. If I haven’t, I should because that’s probably the right word. And writers say that often enough, so it’s probably pretty trite, but I want the legacy I leave to my sons and other readers to be more permanent than it would be if I were just speaking the stories to them. Writing goes beyond that. People read stories to be able to talk about them with other people. What you do with the story after you read it might have nothing to do with the story itself, but the story is a place to start.
LSE: What was it that you felt you were struggling with and hoped that having an outside perspective would help you with?
CN: The order of the stories and the thematic sections I was breaking them into. I write very traditional stories—especially my earlier stories—though now I’m trying to do something different with them. In spite of the traditional form, I wanted to see if others would notice the more subtle subtexts, which aren’t always about very traditional themes. I’m ok with it, either way. I like story for story’s sake. But I’m interested in those subtexts because that’s where readers get away from the story and start talking about the true magic of life. So I’m always looking for that, from any reader. It can be frustrating at times, not because readers didn’t get the subtext but because I couldn’t always strike the balance I wanted between making it clear enough and obscure enough.
LSE: What do you feel more confident about regarding your writing now that you’ve worked with a professional editor?
CN: I’ve always considered myself a risk-taker as a writer, but I’m much more of a risk-taker now because I know there are sharper minds out there that can figure out the hidden complexities of the seeming banalities that I might try to slip into stories. I like to think that that’s what editors should provide for writers. I used to have the notion that writers would cower from their editors, but it turns out that it really should be more of a collaborative process.
LSE: What advice do you have for other people who are writing short stories and who might have similar difficulties or concerns?
CN: They should read Infinite Jest, like you and I did last summer. I suppose that I was fortunate to find an alien voice, so I would tell them to find an outside voice, a different perspective. Don’t become provincial in your core group of readers or listeners or even friends. As a writer, I hope to invite other ideas into my limited imagination.