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I know how you feel.

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At least most of you. I’m sure there are writers who don’t find writing to be a bone-crushing, nausea-inducing festival of self-loathing. I just don’t happen to be one of them. Faced with a blank screen, I am invariably seized with the overwhelming desire to clean out my garage. Give myself a root canal. Do anything other than write.

The problem seems to be standards. I have some. And I’m terrified I can’t live up to them. Does that sound familiar? I’ve found that to avoid paralysis, I have to begin by actually trying to write something bad. Don’t even write, I tell myself, just type.

Because once the story is out there, even in a horrifyingly inept and inarticulate form, the real work can begin. Now I can see where the words are working, and where they’re not. I begin to grasp the possibilities and see the deficiencies. The ideas that should be in the piece, but aren’t, speak loudly with their silence. The holes flash like neon signs. The awkward phrases swell up and stink. The good ones hum.

This is the fun part, especially when someone else has done the miserably hard work of writing the first draft. It’s why I’m a good editor, and why I love editing.

And that’s why I can help you, as I’ve helped innumerable writers over 25 years as editor of The Washington Post Magazine and Tropic magazine of the Miami Herald. Among those I’ve worked with are multiple Pulitzer winners and some of the biggest names in fiction. But I’ve also worked with hundreds of regular folks who had never published a word, but had a compelling story to tell. In the end, the most powerful thing I’ve learned about working with writers is this: it is always about the story.

Your story.

If you’re a published author or a neophyte, if you have a manuscript you want to improve, are just struggling to begin, or desperately trying to get unblocked, click the SUBMIT A FILE  button above. Let the fun begin.

About Tom

Tom Shroder has been an award-winning journalist, writer and editor for more than 30 years. As editor of  The Washington Post Magazine, he conceived and edited the story, Fatal Distraction, which was awarded the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He also  edited  and contributed to Pearls Before Breakfast, which was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. In addition to being an author and editor of narrative journalism, Shroder is one of the foremost editors of humor in the country. He has edited humor columns by Dave Barry, Gene Weingarten and Tony Kornheiser, as well as conceived and launched the internationally syndicated comic strip, Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson.

Tom Shroder

Tom Shroder

Shroder was born in New York City in 1954, the son of a novelist and a builder, and the grandson of MacKinlay Kantor, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his civil war novel “Andersonville.” Shroder attended the University of Florida where he became Editor of the 22,000 circulation student daily newspaper despite the fact that he was an anthropology major (an affront for which the university’s journalism faculty was slow to forgive him). After graduation in 1976, he wrote national award-winning features for the Fort Myers News Press, the Tallahassee Democrat, The Cincinnati Enquirer and the Miami Herald. At the Herald he became editor of Tropic magazine, which earned two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. In that same period, with humorist Barry and novelists Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard, he concocted and edited “Naked Came the Manatee,” a satirical serial novel that became a New York Times bestseller. Shroder is the author of “Old Souls: Compelling Evidence From Children Who Remember Previous Lives,” a consideration of the life and work of Ian Stevenson, a University of Virginia psychiatrist and researcher who spent four decades investigating cases of small children who claimed to remember previous lives; and “Seeing the Light”, a biography of Everglades naturalist photographer Clyde Butcher.

Shroder is also known for his creation, along with Barry and Weingarten, of the Tropic Hunt, which has become the Herald Hunt in Miami and the Post Hunt in Washington, a mass-participation puzzle attended by thousands each year.

Services

I can help you fully realize your fiction or non-fiction, from short pieces to book-length manuscripts. To submit an article for a read and critique, you can upload your manuscript, along with a payment of 3.5 cents per word via Paypal using the form below. For example, a critique of a 1,000 word manuscript would cost $35. The critique will include an analysis of  your work and  suggestions for improving it, as well as a price list for more intensive editing. Word documents only, please.

Testimonials

TO COMMENT ON STORY SURGEONS, OR READ MORE COMMENTS FROM CLIENTS, CLICK HERE


“Tom Shroder is the best in the business – the rare editor who has the analytical skills to see what needs to be done, and the writing ability to show you, when necessary, exactly how to do it. He is especially good at finding the flaws in long, complex pieces, and getting writers to perform at the highest level they’re capable of. I’d trust him with anything I’ve written.”

~ Dave Barry | Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and author


“I am extremely grateful to the basic principle of journalism holding that all communication between reporter and editor is privileged — as private and sacrosanct as between doctor and patient or priest and penitent. This means, thank God, that no one will ever know how much of my Pulitzer Prize in feature writing belongs to Tom Shroder.”

~ Gene Weingarten | Pulitzer Prize winning writer, columnist and author


“Tom Shroder is a tough-love editor, a demanding behind-the-scenes coach who pulls the best work out of you. He sees more potential in my writing than I’ll ever see, and he doesn’t quit until I’m sure I’ve maxed out. He’s a magician who makes my work shine—and if he were editing this paragraph he would say, “You sure you want to mix up so many metaphors in one graf?”

~ Jeanne Marie Laskas | author, columnist, national magazine writer


“Throughout the course of my career as a feature writer and investigative reporter, Tom Shroder stands out as one of the best and brightest long-form editors in the business. He routinely transforms raw copy into award-winning prose with his deft touch, impeccable judgment and mastery of the written word.”

~ Scott Higham | Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter


“Great editors are so rare, in my experience, that most writers don’t even know if such creatures truly exist. Well, Tom Shroder is the real deal—he makes your ideas better, makes your sentences better, and leaves no fingerprints showing. Amazing.”

~ David von Drehle | Time Magazine correspondent and author


“Tom Shroder has the qualities all writers treasure in an editor: he sees the strengths and weaknesses in the work, manages to convey those to you gently, and most important, has the tools to fix it. He improves every piece of writing he touches.”

~ Sally Jenkins | author, sports columnist

Client Comments

T.M. Shine says:
March 1, 2010 at 10:09 am
The amazing thing about Tom Shroder is he can cut to the heart of a complicated story with one quick reading. Like most writers, I can spend days mulling over a muddy plotline but Shroder can instantly see what I’m going for and, of course, nonchalantly mention nine ways to make it better.
There’s a certain creative camaraderie that develops when you work with Shroder. I like to compare the experience to a low-rent Lennon/McCartney collaboration. Writing is a lonely deal but with Shroder it’s as if all of the sudden you have a partner. You bring him what you’ve got and maybe he throws out a verse, adds a chord change, or an extra beat on the intro and all the sudden it’s exactly what you envisioned the second you picked up the guitar. But make no mistake, finding this this kind of writing partner is rare. I’ve written for dozens of publications for over 20 years and plenty of people want to give you input and can adequately edit your words but ask yourself three things. 1. Do you want them to? 2. Do you trust them? 3. Are they good enough? Are they the best?
After a lifetime of searching, I can truly say Shroder is the best.
Note: Tom, please edit the above before posting. Maybe add a chord change.
- T.M. Shine

M. Gruss says:

In the daily newspaper business, too many editors worry only about tomorrow.

That’s why I sent my work to Tom. I needed help with the big picture and Tom’s critique did just that. My experience with Story Surgeons has made me a stronger writer and reporter.

Tom pinpointed the areas in my clips that needed greater focus and he explained exactly how to make my stories better. He challenged me to think harder about the logic behind every line. All of this was blended with just the right amount of encouragement to soothe a writer’s fragile ego.

Without a doubt, I plan to work with Tom again.

Michael Mcgrath says:

I travel a great deal and I have always send stories of my experiences back to my children. They have often suggested that I write about my adventures and while I have no desire to do so when I came across Tom’s site I was curious and took the opportunity to obtain an objective view of my writings.

I feel I received much more than I expected. Tom’s comments shed a light on certain things, certain prejudices, even beliefs of my own, which I had taken for granted and gave me a lot to think about.
(It also helped me improve certain repetitions of words and phrases!).

I certainly learned a great deal from all of this and I hope to return and take advantage of his assistance and insights in the future.

Work with him – you will be surprised and pleased!

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