Author: Ramona DeFelice Long
Fudging Facts in Fiction
Consider, if you will, three scenarios:
When To Leave A Writers Group
Six years ago, a casual email from a writing friend changed my life. “Hey, I heard through the grapevine a critique group near you is looking for a new member. Are you interested?”
I was interested. I inquired and found out this group was heavy on rules and expectations: 20 pages a month from each member; written as well as face-to-face critiques; a try out period; a set meeting at a set date with a set period of time between submitting and the meeting.
10 Things to Check Before You Hit Send
The wrong place, the wrong name, the wrong page count….Much of what influences a submission’s acceptance or rejection is subjective. You can’t control the market or a particular editor’s taste, but you can make sure your manuscript gets to the right person at the right address in the right format. Double check the following before you lick the stamp or hit the Send button.
1. Names: Misspelling your own name on your own submission would be embarrassing. Misspelling the agent or editor’s name hints that you are careless. Showing your name on a blind submission can get you disqualified. Review names for spelling, but also be certain a journal or contest wants to see your name on the submission at all. Check the guidelines.
2. Formatting: Pulling out a chunk of pages for a partial submission may monkey with spacing, headers, footers, indent, and margins. Don’t assume your settings will transfer to a new document or to a submission box. Also, remember to remove the extra space Word likes to add between paragraphs, and beware of those off again, on again Widows & Orphans.
3. Contact info: Yours, that is. Do you have multiple email addresses? Does your Submittable account remember what you typed into it last year? Treat every submission as new information, or carefully check what has been stored. Don’t assume what is remembered is remembered correctly or is up to date.
4. Records: Unless it is a revision or resubmission, sending a formerly rejected piece to the same editor, agent, or publication is a faux pas. Who needs duplicate rejections? Submittable keeps tracks of each submission and its status. For other submissions, you can use a spreadsheet or a notebook or a white board and marker—the format doesn’t matter. What matters is to record where, when, and to whom your work has been sent. Don’t trust your memory. Put the piece, the date, the place, and the person in writing, and double check for repetition before you send. Every time.
5. Deadline: Meet it. That means, send off the submission before the deadline. If it’s an online submission, that means the Send button must be whacked one minute before midnight, the day of deadline, at the very latest, and only if you like to live dangerously. (Give yourself 5 minutes or a half hour. Your blood pressure will thank you if you hit a glitch.) If you are sending snail mail, a deadline may mean a postmark or a received by date. Check the guidelines. NOTE: A deadline is equal to a “firm” price at an antique shop. No wiggle room or bargaining. An extra day (hour, month) does indeed matter
6. Payment: If you are entering a contest or there is a reading fee, you do need to pay it. A paper submission will need a check (signed, made out to the right entity and in the correct amount) and attached to the submission. An online submission usually means PayPal. Most of the time, an online submission requiring a fee won’t go through until you pony up with the cash.
7. SASE: In the olden days, writers had stacks of stamped, self-addressed envelopes at the ready for the weekly/monthly/occasional trip to the post office. You may no longer descend upon the P.O. bearing multiple manuscripts, but some venues still work with paper. Check the guidelines. If an SASE is requested, send one. If you don’t, you may never hear back.
8. Cover letter: Who are you, what are you sending, why are you sending it—these three questions get answered in a cover letter. If you’ve met the contact recently, mention it. If you have a personal recommendation from a client, name drop it. If your story has been workshopped by Alice Munro or Stephen King, go for broke. Just make sure you include the genre, title, word count, and other pertinent facts so the recipient can know immediately what is being pitched.
9. TMI: Too much information in submitting means you cc (electronically carbon copy) multiple contacts, and you allow all contacts to see all other contacts. This is TMI because what agent or editor wants to be included in a mass mailing? None. If you are doing a multiple mailing, have the courtesy (and the smarts) to keep that to yourself. Use bcc (blind carbon copy) or, better, send individual emails to individual editors or agents. Treat people in the industry with courtesy, and as individuals.
10. Guidelines: You’ve probably noticed that guidelines are important. Despite this, every time I attend a conference or a workshop and hear a discussion about submissions, someone (or many someones) beg writers to check the guidelines. Sending the wrong piece to the wrong person is a waste of everyone’s time. Don’t waste everyone’s time. CHECK THE GUIDELINES.
You may note that none of the suggestions above address the actual content or quality of the manuscript. Sending clean copy is another blog post. This one is to make sure it gets to where you want it to go, free of errors, oversights, or shots to your foot.
How To Annoy A Literary Agent
This past weekend, at a writer’s conference, I attended an agents panel. The moderator asked a laundry list of questions, including one about pet peeves. I won’t name names because I think these comments are fairly universal. The agents were a little reluctant, at first, to share what bugs them when writers send queries, but eventually they warmed up to the topic. The comments were made in the spirit of helping writers appear professional and save everyone time, so read them in that spirit of useful advice.
How to Revise in Three Steps: Part 3
Definition of POLISH from Merriam-Webster online
verb
- : to make (something) smooth and shiny by rubbing it
- : to improve (something) : to make (something) better than it was before
Step 3 – Polish
The third and final step in revising a manuscript in three steps (Revise-Edit-Polish) may not include rubbing, exactly, but the goal of Step 3 – Polish is to produce clean copy. In the publishing industry, “clean copy” means error free.
Ideally, in Step 1 – Revise, you repaired structural weaknesses, plugged holes, built tension, revealed character growth, moved the plot from an engaging beginning to an exciting climax, and provided a satisfying and logical story for your reader.
Ideally, in Step 2 – Edit, you evaluated the narrative sentence by sentence and allowed good grammar and a pleasing style to give the story its own special voice and sound.
Ideally, in Step 3 – Polish, you will go through the manuscript one final time to make sure every plotline is closed, every false suspect is cleared, every character with red hair remains a redhead, and every word is spelled correctly, every i dotted and every t crossed.
Ideally.
Although this post is about the final step in the 3-part revision plan, this does not necessarily mean your story will be ready for submission. Perhaps it will. Perhaps you will run it by a beta reader. Perhaps you will hire an independent editor.
These three steps are to guide you to working on your own. It is my belief that, circumstances permitting, you should treat your MS to these three steps before you send to a beta reader or independent editor, or agent. These three steps will help you get the MS to the best shape YOU, the author, can reach with on your own, with your single set of eyes.
If you work with a critique group and submit weekly or monthly, I think this system will work for chapters and scenes. Before each partial submission of a draft, Revise-Edit-Polish to save your critique partners from reviewing raw or rough material.
You would do this ideally. Remember–this is not the only way to revise. It is a way to revise.
What does the Polish step do?
Each of these three steps has a specific purpose:
Step 1 – Revise is to strength the story as a whole.
Step 2 – Edit is to insure the words are correctly and pleasing put together.
Step 3 – Polish is a final look to judge if all errors and weaknesses are caught and repaired.
Revise looks at the broad landscape of the story. Edit looks at the smaller pieces of scenes and sentences. Polish looks at words—word by word by word.
For Step 3 – Polish, you will want to examine your pages with sharpest eye—at a time when your eyes are pretty tired of it! At this point, you may be suffering from Manuscript Fatigue Syndrome: the inability to “see” the details of your story because you’ve rewritten, tinkered, cut, pasted, and corrected it to the point of mental blindness.
With up to 100,000 words to examine, one by one, mental and visual fatigue are no joke. How can you help yourself see the words with fresh eyes for Step 3 – Polish?
In Step 1 – Revise, I noted that the work could be done on paper or by screen. In this step, changing your vision in a concrete way may help you see it more clearly. Here are some ways to do this:
~ If you have been working online, print out the manuscript and red pencil it.
~ If you have been working on paper, review the manuscript online.
~ Change your physical location: go to a library, coffee shop, your basement, a hotel for the weekend.
~ Change the background color of the manuscript.
~Change the size of the font, or change the font.
~ Read it aloud.
~ On paper, place a ruler below each line to keep your eyes train on one line at a time.
What are you looking for?
A clean and polished manuscript goes beyond finding typos.
As you read with your sharpest eye, look for:
Technical/mechanical errors: typos, omitted words, single/double quotation marks, ellipsis/dash errors, missing punctuation, dialogue tag errors.
Continuity: Unless a change occurs within the story, characters should have the same name, hair color, job title, number of siblings, pets, address, etc. throughout the story.
Redundancies: Each sentence should offer a unique bit of information. Once the information is shared, such as identifying Sgt. Wilkes as your police character’s boss, you do not need to ID Sgt. Wilkes as the boss again. An exception to this is if the character appeared so briefly, you think the reader needs a reminder.
Word Choice: Are verbs as precise and as strong as they can be? Are adjectives employed for a specific purpose, and not because you want your writing to sound pretty?
Repetition: Check for words or phrases in close proximity. If “she made up her mind” in one paragraph, in the next paragraph she might decide, vow, promise, instead of “she made up her mind” again. Also look for individual words used twice in the same sentence or paragraph. Variety is good.
Clarity: Is every sentence clearly written to convey an easily discernible thought? Is the wording smooth, without awkwardness?
Sentence Variety: Six word sentences are very easy. They can do an okay job. After a while they get dull. The sentences’ sounds will be blah. Your head will bob like a duck’s. You will soon want a nap. Please give your sentences some variety.
Likewise: Pausing at the door, she felt in her pocket for the key. Checking down the hall for Zeke, she slipped inside the apartment. Holding her breath, she made sure no one was in the TV room. She tiptoed down the hall, stopping at each open door. She went into the kitchen, pulling the phone off the hook as she went by. She opened the oven, sticking her head inside after reading so many boring sentences.
Transitions: Do paragraphs and scenes segue naturally forward? Do you use transitions—later, meanwhile, after a while, a week later, post-lunch—to jump ahead when necessary?
Grounding: Is it clear in every scene who is where and where is where?
Extraneous words: Are you adding to the word count, but not to the content, by overloading the writing with deadwood? Cut out just, very, somehow, that, was, then, suddenly, and so on. Don’t forget pleonasms: the up in walked up the stairs, and the down in descended down the stairs.
Your writerly habits: Every writer has favorite words, turns of phrase, quirks and style giveaways. This may make your writing unique, but it can also become repetitive with overuse. If you can hear or recognize a habit, that means you are overdoing it.
Can you stop now? Please?
After Revise-Edit-Polish, this is probably the question you’d love to ask, and have answered with a resounding, “Yes!” Well, sorry, the answer is “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Where you go from here depends on you. No matter if you send this manuscript to a beta reader for feedback, a critique group for review, a professional editor for strengthening, or an agent for consideration, revising through these three steps of Revise-Edit-Polish will give you a stronger, tighter, more coherent, and cleaner work.
Because your work is worth it, right?
How to Revise a Manuscript in Three Steps, Part 2
Definition of EDIT from Merriam-Webster online
Transitive verb
- to prepare (something written) to be published or used : to make changes, correct mistakes, etc., in (something written)
- to prepare (a film, recording, photo, etc.) to be seen or heard : to change, move, or remove parts of (a film, recording, photo, etc.)
- to be in charge of the publication of (something)
Step 2 – Edit
Once you go through Step 1 – Revise and feel confident your manuscript’s story elements (plot, conflict, characters, etc.) are in place, the next step is to make a pass focusing on technique and style. The Internal Editor you tied to a chair in Step 1 gets to have his day.
If Step 1 – Revise focused on the big picture of the story, the middle step of Revise-Edit-Polish will examine how the story is delivered to the reader: the writing. By “the writing” I refer to elements that run from artistic choices to basic mechanics:
Style and Voice–the author’s distinct use of words and her selected manner of expression for this story;
Diction and Syntax–the choice of words and how they are arranged in phrases and sentences;
Grammar and Punctuation – the set of rules that explain how words are used in language and the marks used to regulate text;
Errors and Other Considerations – typos, missing words, padding, and other boo-boos.
Editing goes beyond catching typos. A manuscript may contain a series of grammatically correct sentences, but if the sentence structure is the same every time, the MS will be repetitive; if the word choices are unimaginative, the MS will be dull; if the voice is indistinct, the MS will unremarkable; if the words contain no action, the MS will be aimless; if the style is affected, the MS will sound false; if scenes are told instead of shown, the MS will be distant.
You may think of this step as examining the sound of your story—what your words say and how they will sound to a reader.
Separating Style and Technique
Editing the manuscript at this level means you will examine it paragraph by paragraph and then sentence by sentence, for style (the author’s artistic choices) and technique (the mechanics of grammar).
Style asks, Is this sentence pleasing to the literary ear? Does it work best in this spot? Are word choices strong?
Technique asks, Is this sentence grammatically correct? Is it efficient? Is it necessary or redundant?
Every sentence in your manuscript should serve a purpose: to advance the plot, reveal vital information about a character, describe the setting, inform about an important past event, ask a narrative question, introduce a thematic concept. Every single sentence needs to have a function. If a sentence does not do a particular job—meaning, if the scene will fall apart or be less effective without it—that sentence should be cut.
How those sentences are arranged and delivered will create the sound of your story. You want a manuscript that will be pleasing to the literary ear, and entertaining, and technically sound. You can do this by writing a series of strong sentences that perform a particular function to advance the plot.
Editorial Considerations
Many writing guides have been devoted to self-editing, so distilling a guide into a blog post means hitting the basics. Not all writers are strong grammarians. Not every writer is gifted with a unique literary voice. For an overview such as this one, some self-examination is necessary. Do you recognize good grammar? Can you be brutal and cut out what is not necessary in the narrative?
The first step in good editing is to distance yourself from your writer’s ego. In Step 1 – Revise, you had to fight off the Internal Editor. Here, in Step 2- Edit, you have to push away your Writer’s Pride, pull back, and examine your words with as little bias as possible. Editing is as much mental as it is task-oriented.
Editorial Tasks
I’m going to focus on what I often see as common editorial problems in manuscripts. These may not be your particular issues, but these are the repeat offenders for me. Check your manuscript for the following:
~ Cutting: Some writers write long, some writers write short, and a few lucky ones write just right. If you write long, you’ll need to trim the bloated parts; if you write short, you’ll need to take care you don’t pad to hit your targeted word count. As written in bold above, if a sentence doesn’t do a job, it should be cut. Bigger than that, however, is when a section or a scene doesn’t perform a vital job in the story. Vital means that the story (plot advancement, character development, background) will fall apart without it. Cutting out the extraneous should have been handled in Revision, but Editing should reaffirm that every sentence in the story is there for a reason. A good reason.
~ Repetition, Overwriting, Over-explaining: Do your pages contain sections like this:
“She entered the basement. It was pitch dark. The dank room was as black as night. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She felt along the clammy wall for the light switch.”
^^Here, the writer tells us three times that the room is dark. By the time I get to the hand, I’m ready to yell “I get it!” at the author.
“The door was locked. She needed the key to open it. She scrabbled in the drawer for the key and used it to open the door.”
^^Readers know how a key works. “The door was locked. She scrabbled in the drawer for the key” does the job.
“Mickey cursed and charged at Evan. Evan, half a head shorter, realized his best chance was to call in his old wrestling skills. He crouched and head-butted Mickey in the stomach. Mickey oofed and stepped back. Knowing his upper hand was temporary, Evan crouched again and took Mickey down at the knees, and then used his left arm to bend back Mickey’s right arm….”
^^Is this the most boring takedown ever? In a fight, there is no time to explain (realized, knew, used his arm). In an action scene, stick to the action.
Writers repeat, overwrite, and over-explain for two reasons: They don’t trust themselves, or they don’t trust the reader. If you have written a good strong sentence with a clear purpose, relax. The reader will get it.
~ Weak Word Choices: Run, look, hurry, walk, turned….these are useful verbs, but for each, a stronger choice can paint a clearer picture for the reader. If you change walk to amble, the impression changes. If you change amble to strode, it changes again. A look is not the same as a glance which is not the same as a stare which is not the same as a stare. Don’t play it safe and stick to the same-old, same-old in word choices, but take care when playing around with the thesaurus.
~ Distinct Dialogue: A person’s speech reveals a great deal about their economic, social, and educational background—plus their self-image. What do your characters spoken lines show about them? Do your characters sound the same, or do they show their distinctions in speech?
~ Balance: Exposition, action, dialogue—these are three types of writing to be balanced in the manuscript. Some things need to be explained. Action scenes need to move the plot. Dialogue is necessary for intimacy. However–too much exposition may make the narrative ponderous. Too much action may leave the reader gasping for subtext. An overload of dialogue can make the setting disappear. Read for balance and give the reader a break by shifting from one type to another. If you find page after page of long paragraphs, add dialogue, and vice versa. A reader will appreciate variety.
~ POV Slips: No matter the editorial choice of 1st Person, 3rd Person, close or omniscient, a manuscript works best when delivered via one Point of View at a time. A character can only report what he sees, feels, and knows. He can interpret or guess at what other characters see, feel, and know, but a slip occurs when he reports from someone else’s head. In Editing, put yourself in the character’s head. If you can’t see it, feel it, or think it, the character can’t report it. Check your narrator’s words to be sure she is only thinking what she is thinking, feeling what she is feeling, seeing what she can see.
~ Show, Not Tell: Are your scenes live—action that is happening in the now of a story? Telling is appropriate in circumstances of the story, but if you choose to tell, make it a choice. Telling about a location or past event, or any type of background pauses the forward motion of the plot and makes it stay into neutral for a while. That may need to happen, but know that you are pulling the reader out of the now of the story. Don’t linger so long in telling that the story stalls.
~
The following are a mixed bag to consider while you read through your manuscript sentence by sentence:
Is this sentence grammatically correct?
If not, is that a style choice?
Does the construction of this sentence match the author’s style?
Are sentences constructed in various ways?
Is the voice of the sentence active or passive?
Am I using dialogue tags effectively?
If I’m using a semi-colon, is each side an independent clause?
Am I using an ellipsis to show a line fading out, and a dash for an interruption?
Is it clear what I am trying to say?
Is this sentence giving unique information, and not redundant?
If I open a scene with dialogue, do I immediately thereafter ground the setting?
Do my scenes open in a variety of ways?
Do my scenes close time after time with the same punchy type of line?
Are my verbs sharp and distinct?
Do I hold back from using too many adverbs?
Do I show emotion through action (clenched fists) rather than clichés (her heart pounded in rage)?
Do I avoid clichés in general?
Do I use similes sparingly?
Do I disrupt character’s dialogue with non-productive actions?
Do I stick with said in dialogue tags?
Do my characters take deep breaths, roll their eyes, and ears perk up, while their hearts beat faster, their pulses race, and their eyes water?
Do my characters speak or make speeches?
~
Overwhelmed? If so, let me simplify the Step 2 –Edit step.
Read through your manuscript, sentence by sentence and ask:
- Is this sentence grammatically correct?
- Does this sentence perform a specific function, in this spot, for the story?
- Does it advance the plot?
- If read aloud, is it pleasing to the ear?
If yes, move on to the next sentence. And the next. And the next. That’s what editing is, evaluating sentence by sentence.
Tomorrow, Step 3 – Polish.
How to Revise a Manuscript in Three Steps
Definition of REVISE from Merriam-Webster online:
Transitive verb
- a : to look over again in order to correct or improve <revise a manuscript>
b British : to study again : review
- a : to make a new, amended, improved, or up-to-date version of <revise a dictionary>
There are as many approaches to revision as there are writers with manuscripts to revise, but the goal is universal: to review a draft with the goal of making it stronger, tighter, and clean. The approach below is a task oriented system of reviewing a manuscript to achieve that goal. It requires three steps: Revise, Edit, Polish.
Why three steps? Can’t you revise in one intense, comprehensive manuscript review?
Of course you can, if that works for you and if you are able to juggle multiple mental tasks at the same time. There is no one correct way to revise.
However, measuring a manuscript’s story power, language use, and effectiveness while simultaneously checking for grammar and correcting typos can be overtaxing. And overwhelming. If you are trying to evaluate too many things at once, it’s easy to become frustrated and to miss problems. You can get mired in the same spot of your manuscript. By the time you move on to the next section, you’ve forgotten the details of what you’ve read before.
What’s the quote about doing one thing well, or a lot of things halfway?
Doing multiple intense passes on your manuscript will require time and focus. This is not a quick-fix approach. You will need to draw upon patience and dedication, but your manuscript is worth it, right?
Revise, Edit, Polish
The following approach employs three steps: Revise, Edit, Polish. If you like acronyms, you can call it the REP system. Ideally, you have a completed draft that needs to be reviewed. To get it into shape for submission or publication, you will read and rework it three times, from beginning to end.
Today’s post will discuss Step #1: REVISE
The first pass is to examine the manuscript as a story. Some writers call this a global review. Others call it reading like a reader. The point of this first pass is, foremost, to make sure the story works. You will read with the goal of finding weaknesses and/or omissions, and make notes on how to repair them.
For the Revision pass, you’ll need to view it as your Internal Storyteller and read without stopping to edit. Turning off your Internal Editor may be difficult, but it is temporary. You can indulge the itch to delete, fix, correct, in Step 2. Your Editor is waiting in the wings, but this is your Storyteller’s crack at the manuscript.
How to do a Revision pass:
A Revision pass will take on the big picture questions:
~ Does the MS have all the necessary parts to insure the plot makes sense?
~ Is there conflict-climax-resolution?
~ Do characters act consistently?
~ Is every scene grounded in a specific place?
~ Does the reader have all necessary background info on place, character, events?
~ Does the plot move forward in a logical way?
~ Do all subplots and secondary storylines support the primary plot?
~ Does every scene have a purpose pertinent to the plot?
~ Does the story make sense?
~ Is the story saying something?
Reviewing for the big picture items means you ignore smaller issues (typos) and mechanics (grammar and style.) Every time you stop to correct a typo or rewrite a sentence, you pull yourself out of the story. Your focus moves out of the world you have created back into the real world. So, ignore the writing. Those typos won’t dissolve on their own. Those sentences will still be poorly constructed or dull tomorrow. That’s the next task. You may have to grit your teeth and sit on your hands at first but, with practice, turning off the Internal Editor is a useful skill.
To Revise, stay in the world of your story. Pretend you are hearing the story and can’t see the errors. Be a Storyteller.
For the Revision pass, first I recommend you read through without making any changes to the manuscript. You can do this on a screen or paper. Keep a notebook or document and record concerns as you go along; use Track Changes to record your questions/concerns in comment bubbles; color highlight parts that clearly need to be reworked.
Read through from beginning to end, noting what you need to note as you go along. Don’t stop to make changes. Read it as a story.
Some questions will be small scale: Do I clear up why she asks about the motel receipt (page 4)? Do I explain how he got this fear of heights (chapter 11)?
Some will be bigger: Is what happened to her when she was 7 traumatic enough to affect her adult decisions? Does his abruptness to his sister make him look like a jerk? Do I need to explain the history of the mill? Does my killer have a valid revenge motivation? Is this detective incompetent because I’ve developed him as hostile and close-minded, or is he bumbling around foolishly because I need to give my amateur sleuth time to sneak around? Are clues glaringly obvious?
Some will be about structure: Is the inciting incident big enough to set up the climax? Is there a constant increase of tension? Does my plot flat line in Act 2? Is the plot too linear? Does this need some umph or humor or a second focus? Do all events happen in a sensible order, or are my scenes bouncing around in time?
After a read-only pass with notes and highlights, go back and make the necessary changes. That question about the motel receipt on page 6? Maybe you resolved it after all on page 229. Your character’s surprising ability to use a welding torch reads like a Hail Mary skill because, oops, you forgot to show earlier that he worked repairing hulls when he was in the Navy.
This making changes part is hefty work. Your Revision read-through may take a couple of days. Your Revision work may take weeks. Nobody said it was fast or easy.
As an independent editor, I read dozens of manuscripts a year. I depend on that first story-only read to let me see what the author is trying to achieve, and how well he/she achieves it. As an editor, I read once for story, viewing it from the Storyteller’s perspective. I focus on the story and only the story. I make notes as I describe above. After that, i go into the manuscript and make revision notes. With my own writing, I use this same process.
To reiterate, Step 1 – Revise is the Storyteller’s turn at the story. Immersing yourself in the story and the story world – without the distraction of technique or technical errors – will help you to see the full landscape of the tale you’ve written. Was it enjoyable to read? Did you get bored? Did it meander? Did it end too quickly? Did it end twice? Did the beginning and the end mirror, contradict, or have nothing to do with one another?
After you’ve read through, made notes, and gone back in to revise, your manuscript is ready for review on the next level: Editing. The Editing pass reviews the manuscript for language—how it is written. That means grammar, style, syntax, and finally, typos. Your Internal Editor will get to come out and do his/her happy dance.
Tune in tomorrow for Step #2 – Editing.
March Madness
No, not basketball, but literary events galore this month! The following are classes, contests, workshops, and launches.
~EVENTS~
March 1 – Publication date for EXTRAORDINARY GIFTS: Remarkable Women of the Delaware Valley. This collection of prose and visual art salutes noteworthy women with connections to Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, with contributions by local artists and authors. I was honored to write a piece inspired by Delaware environmentalist Dorothy P. Miller.
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March 8 – Book Launch party for EXTRAORDINARY GIFTS! at the Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club, the oldest club on Boathouse Row, and founded in 1938 by one of the extraordinary women featured in the book.
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~WORKSHOPS AND CLASSES~
March 1, 17, and 25 – First Write: Now Edit, a three part editing series sponsored by the Havre de Grace Public Library. I will be presenting on March 25. This is a follow-up to a terrific series in October that pumped up writers planning to participate in NaNoWriMo.
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March 9 – 16 – Online workshop: Submission Preparation: Everything You Need for a Perfect Pitch – This week long intensive is sponsored by the Pittsburgh Mary Roberts Rhinehart Chapter of Sisters in Crime. I will lead the group in preparing log lines, queries, synopses, and summaries.
~ CONTEST ~
March 1 – The entry period opens for the second Rehoboth Beach Reads short story contest, sponsored by Cat & Mouse Press of Delaware. The 2014 theme is “The Boardwalk” and I am pleased to be one of the judges for this year’s book!
So much going on in March! I hope somewhere in here is something you’ll find beneficial and fun.
Fear of Submittment
Is this you?
You have a great idea for a story or article. You write it. You tweak it. You run it through a critique group. You send it to your beta reader. You revise it. You polish it. You get it all spit-shined and ready for publication.
And then, you do…nothing.
Are you a “do nothing” when it comes to submitting your work? Do your great ideas loll on a flash drive or stagnate as a Word doc because you can’t work up the courage to hit send on Submittable? Are you depriving your stories of their right to be published because you have a fear of submittment?
Failure to submit hobbles many writers for a variety of reasons. Some writers love the creative process, the joy of transforming a nebulous concept to a completed story, but despise writing a businessy cover letter. Some writers are overwhelmed by the needle-in-the-haystack search for markets. Some writers don’t have fear, exactly, but never quite get around to submitting. Some writers—well, all writers, really—hate rejection.
It’s easy to find an excuse not to submit. If you are writing for yourself and don’t feel the need to share your work with the work, that is fine. You don’t have a problem.
But if you do want your work to be published but find the submission process a hurdle, read ahead for how to get over it:
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Be realistic. Your work will be rejected, perhaps multiple times. It will happen. It will hurt. Consider it character building, or a challenge, or a notch on the belt of paying your dues. Most of all, understand that no matter how personal the subject matter of your story may be, the rejection of it is not personal. While much of the acceptance process is subjective, editors and agents are making business decisions based on the particular piece of writing you submit, not on your value as a human being. A rejection may come for the simple reason that, while your story fits the guidelines and is well crafted, it is not what the publication needs now.
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Have a plan. Continuing the business theme above, for each piece you write, research more than one possible market. Keep a Plan B. Plan B choices create a built-in defense against lolling and stagnating, because if your piece is returned, you can turn it right around. If a rejection arrives from your first choice, go to your Plan B choice—and choose your next backup, so Plan B is always active. Additionally, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by sending to the wrong market or think your story is so special, a publication will bend its guidelines just for you. You are not special. A word count limit of 3,000 does not mean 3,985. A journal that publishes fantasy does not want to consider a short mystery. Don’t waste your time, and the publishing world’s, with laziness or ego.
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Keep records. Some writers use spreadsheets. Some use a notebook with columns. Keep track of submissions in at least one physical place, online or on paper. Check that place regularly. Is Monday your business day? If so, every Monday, open the file or spreadsheet or notebook and check the status of your submissions. Just as writing every day keeps a story fresh in your head, regular checking up on your submissions helps you to keep track of what is where, but it’s also a reminder that submitting is an ongoing process.
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Use resources. If the plethora of publishers and publications is overwhelming, there are beaucoup places and ways to narrow down the available markets for a piece. Choose a day—once a month, perhaps—for market research. Write a list of pieces you feel are ready for submission, and then hunker down online with NewPages, Duotrope, AgentQuery, Poets & Writers, or any other resource with publication listings. Market research can be tedious, so if you hate it, consider it a necessary chore and do it anyway.
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Set goals. One submission a week? A month? A year? Depending on what you write, your goals will reflect how often you produce work to be submitted, but you can’t meet a goal if you don’t set a goal. So, set a goal. Here’s something to help you with that:
Ramona DeFelice Long 