Zing!

Question: What is an editor looking for in order to publish?

Answer/Quote: “Tom Dooley, Eclectica’s managing and fiction editor, wants to see submissions with zing. ’I define zing as the special quality of a piece of writing that grabs a reader’s attention,’ he explains, ‘makes her forget she is reading, and rewards her with an indelible emotional payoff, whether it be laughter, sorrow, anger, something else or all of the above.’ ”

Comment: Isn’t “zing” what ordinary readers are looking for? Sometimes it helps student writers to know what the end product of their writing should be. RayS.

Title: “Send Stories with Zing to Eclectica.” Melissa Hart. The Writer (July 2011), 47.