Tag Archives: fiction Writer Struggle

Ten Things That Cause Immediate Rejection

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If you are submitting short fiction, there are a handful of things that can move a story from the submission pile to the rejection pile almost immediately.

Here are ten that will lose an editor’s interest:

1. Use of AI

If a publication says it does not accept AI-generated fiction, take that requirement seriously.

It is much easier for editors to spot this than you might think. They have years of experience understanding how a story sounds that comes from an actual human. And there are also tools out there that can help identify AI. It is unlikely they will every mention AI in the rejection but, it is likely you will get secretly blacklisted.

I feel that there is an important distinction between using a tool to check grammar and spelling and asking an AI system to write the story for you. But every publication draws that line differently, so read the rules.

2. Incorrect Word Count

If the submission guidelines say stories must be between 1,000 and 5,000 words (like BITC) do not submit a 7,500-word story and hope the editor will love it enough to make an exception. Odds are it will be rejected immediately.

Going 50 words over may not seem like as big of a violation, but it tells us editor types a lot about the way you operate. You have either not read the word-count requirement or feel that it is a loose suggestion rather than a rule. We also wonder if you think it’s impossible to cut 50 words from the story, which tells us something too. For any story over 1,000 words getting rid of 50 should be rather easy.

3. The Wrong Type of Story for the Market

This one should be obvious, but it happens a lot.

If a publication wants lighthearted fantasy, your relentlessly cold-blooded serial-killer story is probably not going to find a home there.

Before submitting, spend a little time looking at what the publication actually publishes. Read several stories they have published (most publications recommend this). Read the submission guidelines.

4. Content That Crosses the Line

Every publication has different boundaries, but some material can quickly make an editor stop reading.

Racial slurs, gratuitous sexual content, misogyny, graphic violence involving minors, or cruelty included purely for shock value may be enough to end consideration. Once again, this can vary by publication.

Writers should also remember that editors are selecting material for an audience. Even if something can be justified as a crucial part of the story, it still may not fit the publication.

I should also mention that you can still cover a lot of disturbing or unpleasant scenes without describing them in detail. Oftentimes implication of a situation can actually be the stronger way to go.

[Warning: disturbing content ahead]

Seeing a child character we have grown to love get into a car with a stranger allows the reader’s mind to fill in the blanks in horrible ways. We don’t necessarily need to see what actually happens.

Sorry about that example, but if you were disturbed by it, it proves the point.

5. No Ending

One of the most frustrating submissions is a promising story that seems to reach the point where the real story is finally beginning, and then it just stops.

These are the worst for me because there is so much hope. I like the story; there is a good chance that, if it ends well, I will get to send out an acceptance email.* But if it instead just drops off, or wraps up in a totally unacceptable way, I am out.

To me it often feels like the authors have not put in the time to really think through what kind of exciting ending they can put on their story. I like the David Mamet approach of having the ending be something that is unexpected and inevitable. Another author (I can’t recall who at the moment) says your approach should be to come up with every possible ending, then pick the one that is the most unusual while still being plausible. This is often the best and most rewarding ending for the reader.

*Yes, despite what it seems, editors are probably more exited than you are when we get to accept a story.

6. Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation

Editors understand that an occasional typo survives even careful proofreading.

But if the first page is filled with misspellings, missing punctuation, random capitalization, incorrect dialogue formatting, and sentences that have to be read three times to understand them, the story is already in trouble.

You want the editor to be thinking about your characters and what happens next instead of trying to decipher what you meant.

Proofread your work, then proofread it again, then put it aside for a month and proofread it a third time. If you don’t want to wait that long, give it to a friend who is good at that kind of thing, then brace yourself for the embarrassment of everything you missed.

7. Using Someone Else’s Intellectual Property

Be careful when borrowing characters, fictional worlds, distinctive settings, or other creative material belonging to someone else.

Writing a story about your own characters stopping at McDonald’s is one thing, but writing an adventure starring Harry Potter is entirely different.

Fan fiction has enormous communities built around it, but that does not mean a commercial publication can legally publish your unauthorized Spider-Man story or Star Wars sequel.

References to popular culture are common in fiction, but taking someone else’s characters or world and making them the foundation of your story is a no-no.

Create your own world. Create your own characters. They are probably way more interesting anyway.

8. Derogatory Use of Brand Names

Real brands can absolutely appear in fiction. Our characters can drive a Ford, eat at McDonald’s, wash clothes with Tide, or put Goodyear tires on a truck. These kinds of references can actually help establish place, time, and character.

The problem comes when a writer uses a real company as the target of accusations. There is a substantial difference between:

“The Goodyear tire blew out.”

and:

“Goodyear secretly knew these tires were defective and sold them anyway.”

If your plot requires an evil corporation knowingly selling lethal products, you should invent a brand. No editor wants to take the risk of publishing something that carries any defamation risk.

9. No Clear Conflict or Objective

You do not need an explosion on page one.

You do need a reason for me to keep reading.

A short story has very little room to wander around. You need to let the reader know who the protagonist is, what they want, and why they currently can’t have it.

A description of a farmhouse can be beautifully written, but if I am three pages into the story and the farmhouse is still just sitting there while nobody wants anything, nobody fears anything, and nobody needs anything, I am probably going to stop reading.

Always give the reader a reason to keep going.

10. Humor That Is Not Funny

I know that humor is the most subjective item on this list. What makes one reader laugh may leave another rolling their eyes.

There are certain types of humor that lose me very quickly and, I suspect other editors share this view. Flatulence jokes are high on that list for me. Yes, some people find them hilarious. I typically do not.

I also feel that comedy needs to do more than just be there because it is funny.

Good humor usually comes from character, timing, expectation, contradiction, embarrassment, misunderstanding, or an unexpected but perfectly logical reaction. But it’s more important that the action around that comedic event is actually necessary for the story. If you are putting in humor just for humor’s sake, that is often a mistake.

In short, if the entire joke is that somebody farted, you had better have one spectacularly original fart for me to get a kick out of it, and it had better be essential to the story.

The Common Thread

Most of these problems come back to this:

Respect the publication guidelines and respect the reader’s time.

Read the submission guidelines, submit the kind of story the publication actually wants, and proofread it a couple of times.

Give your protagonist something to want, something standing in the way, and an ending that makes the journey worthwhile.

After all of that, there is a good chance the editor will still reject it.

I think we all know that is just part of the writing game.

But at least you have a better chance of them reading all the way through the story because you didn’t give them an easy reason for rejection.

Take care,

-James

Traversing the slush pile

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The insight I have gained reading slush for Allegory has been amazing.   I already have a list of common mistakes from the story submissions I have read.

Here are things you shouldn’t do if you want me to move your story along for further consideration:

1. Telling instead of showing.

Telling:

Sarah liked Michael.

Showing:

Michael was in the hall. Sarah felt the same lightness in her stomach she had the first day he talked to her. If only he would come talk to her now.

Ok, so I am no romance writer, but hopefully you see the difference.  The first one is a report of what is going on. In the second example, we get to experience what she is feeling.

Telling is not inherently bad, unless you are going to write the whole story that way.  The strength of telling lies in its ability to cover a lot of ground quickly.  Showing typically can’t do that.

The strength of showing is the ability to immerse your reader in the world you have created.  It takes a lot more work, but the reader will enjoy the ride so much more.

 

2. Lack of clarity

There are too many stories that try to be cute and whimsical by hiding essential information so they can build suspense or use the lack of information for a surprise reveal.

Guess what? the protagonist is actually a ghost!

It’s even worse when syrupy sweet prose clogs up clarity so bad that sentences become barely understandable.  It takes a long time to get to the point where you can turn out high-brow literary prose (I can’t).  In my opinion, there are very few pros who can do it well. The best bet is to focus on clarity and brevity.  Tell me the story and don’t let your words get in the way.

3. It’s not a story.

There is this whole concept of a story arc that is often omitted. I want a story where there is conflict. This usually (but not always) involves a protagonist and  antagonist.   And in the end, I really love it when the protagonist wins by some method where he has grown in some way, or figured something out, or done something clever that I didn’t expect.   This all may sound a bit formulaic, but it works to keep a story interesting. It doesn’t always have to happen this way, but when the main character gets out of a scrape by just running away, or by defeats evil via sheer luck, I can’t help but feel a bit cheated.  I am also not a big fan of  slice-of-life type stories, unless the character is particularly interesting.  If they are just lying on the bed doing their nails, I am probably going to start fast forwarding until I get to something that piques my interest.  If I don’t see it in a few pages, I am going to click the little “x” to close the document.

4. Unrealistic character actions or dialogue

I usually see this when there is a need for something to happen with a plot point. A character will do something like murder another character for a very weak reason, like “they never liked them.”  If that were true to life, I should go on a gun-toting rampage because I have a whole lot of people I need to take out. I would start at the DMV and work my way through to every shitty waiter who has left me with an empty drink glass through my entire meal. Real life  just doesn’t work that way. Unfortunately.

I am also put off by anything unrealistic for the world the author has set up. If your story takes place 1000 years from now, and people are still using Facebook, you may not have the best grasp on how quickly technology can change.

If you absolutely insist that your character to do something atypical, all you have to do is give a sufficient reason or motivation for them to do so.  A God-fearing Nun won’t shoot someone, unless she is already questioning her beliefs, and her life is in danger.

 

 5. Not beginning at the right place.

I think a lot of pantser writers need a bit of a warm up before they get into a story. Most of the time this warm up can be cut completely without lessening the story.   Here is one of my examples of this:

Searching or creating, that’s all we really want. Even if we don’t know it, it’s what we are working for. We all want enough money for that new car, or new life, enough money to go someplace else, someplace new.

Three million seemed new enough for me, even if they were old bills.

Jen was driving, and I sat in the back. On each side of me were two duffel bags full of cash. There was another bag in the front seat with her, and one more sittin’ between my legs – that one had the guns.

If we were to cut everything before “Jen was driving” nothing critical is lost.

Other times I see stories where I have to go through several unnecessary pages before the plot or conflict becomes clear.  Most of the time these pages can be cut.

6. Not following the submission guidelines.

This is a no-brainer.  If you can’t take the time to read and apply the rules for submission to a publication, how can you expect the publication to take your story seriously?  I won’t penalize a story for improper formatting, or an undesirable font, but I can’t promise you that others won’t, so why even risk it?  My advice is to take the time to properly format one story for submission, then cut and paste other stories into that format for the next time around.

7. The handy plot point.

This occurs when an author needs something to happen, but is so in the middle of the flow of writing that they grab the first thing that comes to mind.  It’s similar to those times we use a steak knife to excitedly cut open a package we have been waiting for, because the knife is right there on the counter and the scissors is all the way inside the junk drawer. For example:

Sarah wasn’t wearing her glasses because she had lost them earlier that day.

If this is the first time in the story that I hear about Sarah’s lost glasses, or her poor eyesight, it will read like this was sloppily tacked on because the author needed a convenient reason.  If authors take the time to think about these seemingly insignificant parts of the story, they can use them to develop their characters much further.  If instead, Sarah choose to not wear her glasses because she thought they made her feel ugly, and we were told this in well in advance of the event that required her to have blurred vision, then it would seem as though the whole thing evolved naturally. It would also tell us how Sarah feels about the way she looks.

The above are just a few from my list of slush reader pet peeves. Please take these with a grain of salt as they may not hold true for other slush readers.

 

– James

 

Rampant Stagnation

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I have been having a hard time feeling good about writing. I don’t feel good about doing it and I don’t feel good about what I have written.

I know that sounds depressing, like each night I go to bed curled up in the fetal position rocking myself to sleep with the barrel of a gun in my mouth, but that’s not the case at all. It’s really more of a matter of “this is where I am at” kind of thing.  I am still in good spirits, I’m just not getting anything worth while done with regard to writing.

Is it writer’s block?

No, I don’t think so.   It’s more like writer’s laziness.  I still have plenty of ideas; it’s just that none of them seem fleshed out enough to start writing. For example: I have one where I think it would be cool to do a story about a terrorist attack against the Space Elevator .  I just love the idea of a carbon nanotube rope leading into space and being held in place by a geosynchronous mass.  A Space Elevator could lead to rapid and cost effective deployment of satellites and space missions, not to mention making the prospect of a trip into space within reach of regular Joes, like you and I.

But somehow it just ain’t sexy enough.  Maybe because it  isn’t really a story idea, but rather a setting with a vague concept.

It’s like I am still waiting for that big “Ah-ha!” idea to hit, and so far I’ve just got a bunch of maybes

I also get sidetracked very easily. I am now fighting an urge to code another video game.  I program games using Dark GDK, which works with Microsoft’s C++ Express.

I recently had the idea to take photos of my nephews in various kick and punch poses, and integrate these photos into sort of an 80’s style side-scroller “Super Mario” style game.  I think my Nephews would really enjoy playing as themselves in a tailor-made video game.

I so want to be the cool uncle who does stuff like that.

But that’s a huge commitment; probably at least 100 hours of programming time to get something worth playing. And then there is the risk that it may not be that cool to them.  The “I’m in the game factor” can only go so far when I’m also competing against the Wii.

Then I get ideas for the game like how I could somehow make it educational, but real subtly so they wouldn’t know. I could do something like putting Classical music in the game instead of the normal techno crap.  But I know making it educational is the deathblow to any video game.  Ask any kid what the top twenty video games are, and none of them will list anything even remotely close to “Math-blaster”.

I resolve to get something written today, even if it’s crap, but currently find myself looking at cutting edge video cards for a fantasy desktop computer build.

James