Last week we spoke about doing your research to find the right publishing house for you.
Brief recap:
· Your story falls within their word count requirements.
· You’ve reviewed their requirements and removed/don’t have any content they don’t accept
· You have researched them as a publishing house, possibly even talked to some of their published authors and are happy with what you found
Great, let’s get this thing submitted!
Ahhh but wait. Are
you sure it’s ready? A clean
manuscript can be the difference between a form letter “doesn’t suit our needs”
rejection and a request to review the full manuscript, or at the very least, a
rejection that asks you to make some revisions and resubmit. Before we get to the why’s and wherefores of
rejections, let’s do our part to make sure your story gets some positive
attention from an editor:
Disclaimer time. Obviously I don’t know how many years you
have spent learning the craft of writing, how far along in the process you are
or what your skills are. I only know
from an editor’s perspective and the perspective of one who has often been asked to look at
the work of beginning authors for feedback.
Let me pause here a moment and say every author needs
feedback. No matter how good you are, or
think you are, there is always something to learn. If you are only just starting out—just typed
“the end” and have had no feedback except from family members or friends --who
may or may not know the writing craft and may or may not know how to be honest
with you-- I’d take a big step back from “ready to submit” and focus on the
writing and the story. Find a writer’s
group, or an online group. A good
critique partner can be as difficult to find as a good fitting pair of jeans. And
all the trying out can be just as frustrating, discouraging and disheartening
as trying on a hundred pairs of jeans in a department store fitting room. But keep
going until you find the right fit.
Anyway, with the rise in self-publishing and people’s
attention spans ever shorter, not as many people focus on the actual craft as
they used to. And why would they? As
I’ve already noted, self-publishing is just a few mouse clicks away, people
don’t want to write well anymore, they just want it out fast.
I feel it’s important to wait and get it right, but that’s
just me.
End of rant, let’s get back to where we were. Whether you are a true novice or a seasoned
writer, giving your MS a once over to search for key issues before submitting
to a publisher is never a bad idea.
Don’t fall into the trap of over-editing your story. Constant reading and tweaking is not
what I’m talking about. I mean search (Ctrl
F) for key issues. While genres like
mainstream fiction, YA and women’s fiction are not quite as picky about things
like telling and passive voice, it doesn’t hurt to look for these things in
your story and address them. Active
writing, after all, is what makes a reader feel as if they are “there”.
I won’t get into the nitty gritty on active versus passive
writing, viewpoint, showing rather than telling or dialogue tags just now—each of those are a
subject on their own and could fill pages. We will save those lessons for later
in the series. But some basic things I
would recommend you address before submitting are:
Name over use.
How many times are you using your characters’ names per page? Does almost every line of dialogue begin or
end with someone saying the other character’s name, and that character then responding
using the other character’s name? Trust
me that gets old fast. Soap operas are
not much of a thing these days, but once upon a time they were notorious for
doing that so that new viewers could keep track of who is who. But I still see it
a lot on TV and in movies. So let’s fix
that. As long as the reader knows who is
in the scene, it’s not necessary to hit them over the head with names. You can easily substitute things like “the
dark-haired woman” or “the older man” or “the boy” in place of proper
names.
So do a search on those—you may be surprised how much you
have actually used them. And just a
warning… once you get in the habit of noticing this, you cannot not
notice it—in every book, television show or movie.
Word overuse. This
same repetition can also be applied to pet words. Most authors have a word or phrase they love
and use way too much. Frequent ones are that,
just, and really. But it
can also be a phrase or gesture. A good way to know if you are doing this is to
read your work aloud. To yourself, to
your dog, to your spouse—whoever will listen.
If that doesn’t work for you, search for the “read aloud” feature in
your version of Word (only newer version have this) and have the computer read
it to you.
Passive words.
Other passive words that can drag the pace of your writing down are: was and words that end in ing or
ly. This is especially true if
the word preceding those ing or ly words happens to be was. Other words you might want to look for: saw,
watched, heard, thought, felt, knew, moved, reached. We all use them, and sometimes there is no
way around them, but it’s important to eliminate where you can. So quick lesson: he was riding becomes – he
rode. She was crying – she cried. He was ugly—describe it instead. As for the filtering words like watched, saw,
heard—just describe what they are seeing instead “he saw a blue sky” instead
try describing it. White clouds floated
in an azure sky—you get the gist.
Search and Highlight.
You can do a simple search in Word and see the actual number of times
you have used these words and in newer versions, you actually will get a
snippet with all the results. But you
can also do a search and highlight (Ctrl+H) and highlight those words to better
show you. Your goal at this point should
be to eliminate at least half.
Now this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
writing craft. But let’s start there.
Spelling and grammar. Next run a spelling and grammar
check. You’d be surprised how many
manuscripts I’ve seen with typos and misspelled words. While the odd typo is not grounds for
immediate rejection, too many of them suggest to me that you rushed or are
careless. There is a very good spell/grammar check in Word, or you can download
the free version of Grammarly. If
spelling and or punctuation are areas you struggle with, you may want to go
into your version of Word and enable the “check spelling as your type” option
(with so many versions of Word out there, it would be difficult for me to
pinpoint where to find it, but a search in the help field should do it).
Formatting. And finally, once all of that is done,
make sure your MS is formatted to the standards required by the publisher. Every publisher is different, so pay close
attention to their specifications. If their
website says all submissions must be in 12-point Times New Roman or Courier with
one-inch margins all around, then you better be sure your format is exactly
that. Well Nic, surely they wouldn’t
reject an author for not submitting in the proper format, would they? It’s hard to say, but why take the chance—and
does an editor really want to work with someone who can’t follow
directions? I know I don’t.
Now that we’ve done all of that, you may be ready to submit
your story to a publisher. And while
taking the necessary steps listed above will not guarantee you a publishing
contract or even a request to review the entire story, they are important craft
issues, and it never hurts to be aware of them.
If my years in the publishing industry have taught me one
thing, it’s that everyone has a story—but not everyone can write it. The good news is writing is a process we
learn by doing, so keep at it!
So let’s move on to the next step---insert spooky music
here—The Query.
We will talk about that next week!
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