My most practical advice for authors sending their manuscripts out is to consider the circumstances in which editors will encounter it—and especially how that context might differ from how we, as people and readers, ordinarily interact with new books. And I know this sounds obvious at first; I am admittedly not reinventing the wheel by suggesting that you get some distance from your manuscript, try to see it through the eyes of a stranger, or imagine who your readers are. The reason I feel this familiar wisdom bears repeating is that I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the difference between negative capability and opacity—in essence, the distinction between a literary uncertainty that introduces expansive possibilities and one that hinders a text’s accessibility.
I think this is so important to me because I always want to ensure that I, as an editor, remain open to “difficult” work, complex books that reward solitary contemplation, collective dialogue, and rereading. In the classroom or a reading group, we can often put our questions on hold or engage in a “suspension of confusion,” trusting that everything will come together in the end or that we’ll have a space for illuminating discourse. When reading manuscripts for consideration, we’re not only experiencing the writing but evaluating its construction, composition, and impact.
Keats famously defines negative capability as a skill for “being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” And reading, as a function of time, is inherently a revelatory and cumulative process; it would be impossible (and defeat the point of literature!) for a reader to have instantaneous, complete understanding. However, a book’s beginning—and the way it establishes setting and point of view through the strategically sequenced release of information—matters a great deal.
And this brings me back to the question of opacity. When I’m reading, I can absolutely enter work that consciously handles mystery or uses uncertainty as a methodology; I can postpone my desire to immediately “know.” I can’t, however, enter work that confuses—that obfuscates unintentionally because of internal contradiction, overreliance on enigma, or formal disorganization. I would recommend identifying any place there is a lack of clarity, especially early on in the manuscript, and asking whether that is purposeful and effective (a function of the project that helps it achieve its desired impact) or counterproductive (an obstacle that prevents the reader from comprehending what the book hopes to express).
I love books that include surprises, combine unexpected materials, or harbor ghosts—but the writing must prepare the reader to fully grasp those delightful elements when they appear!
—Hannah Matheson, associate director and senior editor, Four Way Books