January 28, 2018

POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY: Common (and some UNCOMMON) Mistakes From the Slushpile

Using the Programme Guide of the World Science Fiction Convention in Helsinki Finland in August 2017 (to which I will be unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy of the Programme Guide. The link is provided below…


Clearly, I wasn’t there, but this person was AND took notes! So, many thanks to David Alex Lamb. His blog is here: http://davidalexlamb.blogspot.com/2017/08/thursday-at-worldcon-75.html

Common Mistakes from the Slushpile: Slushpile readers share their thoughts on what they have seen in the slushpiles! Come and learn to avoid the most common mistakes when submitting a story!

David Thomas Moore: commissioning editor for Abaddon Books
Laura Pearlman: author in Shimmer, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction
David Pomerico: joined Harper Voyager US in Spring 2014 as Editorial Director, coming from Spectra, Del Rey, and 47North
Sam Bradbury: Science Fiction and Fantasy Editor at Hodder & Stoughton; previously worked for Jo Fletcher Books
Marcus Gipps: Commissioning Editor at Gollancz

“There was a lot on how editors and publishers deal with the slushpile (un-agented submissions), but also a bit of advice:”

My comment – all of these folks work with novels, so the applicability to short fiction, while similar I’m sure, isn’t exactly what I’m about. Hence, my own comments at the end!

1) Follow the submission rules on the publisher website, especially with regard to the genre or kind of submission they publish and the submission format they want (such as submitting a Word document).

My first thought is “duh”. Why WOULDN’T you follow an editor’s explicit guidelines? Then again, my own small experience with reading a bit of the slushpile for a magazine would bear CONSTANT repeating to would-be authors. The executive editor at SS was much more forgiving of this than I was. I wanted to read the manuscripts in any form of Word. People sent it in all sorts of formats that, when they appeared on my computer, took the shape of all kinds of weirdness. That automatically made it harder for the author to get past me. The story had to be totally and awesomely “stupefying” [which means:  shock, stun, astound, dumbfound, overwhelm, stagger, amaze, astonish, take aback, take someone's breath away] as opposed to “stupefying” [which means: stun, daze, knock unconscious, knock out, lay out, as in the Harry Potter magic spell]. Very rarely did any stories meet the first criterion. A truly stupefying number met the latter.

2) The first 3 pages are critical.

In a novel. In a short story, it’s a fair approximation of an aphorism that a short story writer has anywhere between the first sentence and the first paragraph to complete their mission of catching a reader’s attention. Novels have between three pages and the first chapter. After that, if you haven’t caught your reader, you’re toast.

3) Good ideas still require good writing.
Why does this have to be said? Oh, that’s right, HOW many stories did I read that took a totally cool idea and proceeded to bore the bejeebers out of me? About a third of them. Because, quite frankly, the writing that came into SS was two thirds…frankly…awful.

“Oh, that’s because you’re a minimum pay market! What do you expect?”

Hmmm…based on a submissions website I use to track my own subs on, I find that the TOP paying markets…well, let me just share this: my favorite SF market, ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact: Acceptance rate = 3.61%. Clarkesworld (a PREMIUM market): Acceptance rate = 1.10%. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction: Acceptance rate = .61%. Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Acceptance Rate = 4.4%. Any other you’d like to ask about? I can look it up and tell you. I can guarantee that these magazines see good ideas coupled with not-so-good writing.

4) Pace and plot have to be established in the first few pages.

Tougher to do than it is to write. What’s pace in a story? “…determines how quickly or how slowly the writer takes a reader through a story, explains Writer's Digest. The story itself determines the pace of the story. It relies on the combination of mood and emotion as these elements play out in the dialogue, setting and action.” (https://penandthepad.com/narrative-pace-3907.html). How about plot? Most simply it’s what happens in your story. In traditional storytelling, the plot is linear. In Speculative Fiction? Hmmm…depends on what kind of story you’re trying to tell! Michael F. Flynn’s novel EIFELHEIM takes place in the present and in 14th Century Germany, flipping back and forth between the two times; though within each TIME, the story is linear.

5) Tailor your cover letter to the publisher.

Again: “Duh.”

6) Avoid attacking other authors.

“Double duh.” If you go after some author (who is probably published), what’s the editor think is going to happen if they publish you and you don’t like something that happens? I wouldn’t say “avoid attacking authors”; I would say. “NEVER attack authors.”

7) You don’t need a big social media presence to submit. [“(at least to the panelists; I`ve heard other editors say they always check social media). One contradicted an agent I heard, saying you don’t need to compare your work to the market (the editor can do that better).”]

This is interesting and to tell you the truth, not something I can comment on with surety. What I CAN say is that when I start this blog almost eight years ago, I had roughly a thousand site visits per month. Now, taking into account the absurd hits by spambots, I average roughly double that. Some months more, a few less. I don’t have a huge platform, but I don’t have a novel to build a fan base. I have short stories, an ancient (1991 publication date) collection of children’s sermons, and a few other odds and ends. My platform pretty much consists of my friends and curious students from Young Author’s Conferences and my Writing to Get Published classes, and places I have taught in over the past ten years.

That’s what I’d say I gathered from the brief overview provided by the website

I’ve been a Slushpile reader for several years, on-and-off, for STUPEFYING STORIES (http://stupefyingstories.com/). Here are a couple of things I would share from that experience:

  1. SOMETHING has to happen in a story!
  2. Whatever the character was doing had to make sense.
  3. I have to somehow connect with a character.
  4. The story has to have clearly important events.
  5. Write a story that will “stick in my mind”.

Anything else anyone wants to add? Otherwise, have a great day!


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