Six Tips for Submitting Fiction

You can discover a lot simply about what it takes to place a story in an ezine by starting up one of your own.

Last month we started activity on a new ezine for writers, which we intended to use to publish high-quality, contemporary fiction, from writers all over the world. We placed a few adverts asking for submissions of simply that. What we got was a revelation.

As a writer myself, I cognize how competitive the market is. Even as non-paying markets are deluged by applicant writers desperate for a by-line and several publicity. Competition, I had thought, would-be for certain lead to a high quality of submissions, with every writer determined to submit only their really better work. Not so.

Of the handful of submissions we received the day after the adverts went out, only about four were fiction. One was a “how to write” style article. One was an essay on “the day my grandmother died”. Two were stories simply about vampires. One guy simply sent us his CV – in Arabic.

Lesson one, then: see the guidelines carefully. If the market you’re aiming at publishes fiction, then no matter how brilliant your essay or article is, it’s not going to be accepted. Neither is your CV….

Lesson two, I hardly even as need mention: If the publication is in English, don’t send your submission in Arabic, on the off-chance that the poor, beleaguered publisher wish understand it. Simple.

Having deleted the non-fiction submissions, I captive onto the “good stuff”. Or so I thought. Of the four remaining pieces of writing, none had been ascertain too carefully. One story ready-made reference to a bourgeois “clenching the deal.” One ready-made frequent use of the word “teh" and had apparently random. Punctuation. A bit like. This. The different two were … stories simply about vampires.

Lesson three: Proofread. Or, ideally, get being else to do it for you. Any writer knows that once you’ve worked on a piece of writing, you become blind to its mistakes. You can “proof” it as many a times as you like, but you’ll still simply see what you think is there, rather than what really is there. In any artistic endeavour, a fresh pair of eyes is essential in providing a little bit of clarity and perspective. For this reason, I present:

Lesson four: constructive criticism is your friend. There are a lot of aspiring writers our there. Get together with one, even as if it’s only by email, and swap stories with them. Chances are they’ll be able to point out thing simply about your story that you’ve missed. They may have several noesis simply about your subject matter that you lack – for example, the fact that it’s called a “bass” guitar, not a “base guitar”, as one enlightening submission had it.

Finally, a quick note simply about bio’s. Once you send your activity to an ezine, of course you want a little thing in return – different than cold hard cash. You’re looking for publicity, and your author bio is the ideal way to do it. Support it simple, though. Of all of the submissions we’ve received so far, the one that sticks out the most is the one from the author with the most impressive credentials of the lot. So impressive, in fact, that her bio ran on for four A4 pages.

The problem was, her activity stood out for the wrong reasons. She had for certain been publicised in a lot of magazines (I know, because she’d listed every single one of them) and won a brobdingnagian figure of competitions (yep, she’d listed all of those too. Every one of them.) , but by the time I’d waded through all of the story titles, publication dates and different non-essential info, I was warmly tired of her. Her bio was four pages long: her story only two. Once that happens, you cognize you’ve gone into overkill.

Essentially, too, after such a tremendous build-up, I was expecting thing utterly spectacular which her writing unsuccessful to deliver. It seemed all but as if she was trying to use her bio to persuade me to publish her – the story was simply an afterthought.

Lesson five: let your writing do the talking. Once it comes to account info, less is more. I want to see your story, not a breath-by-breath account of the last twenty years of your life. Support it simple, support it short.

And lesson number six? Well, if you’re thinking of submitting your writing to a publisher, consider submitting it to us, 1st – the Hot Hovel proofreading service, at www.hotigloo.co.uk/proofreading.htm

About The Author

Amber McNaught is a proofreader, writer and editor, as well as co-owner of website development firm Hot Hovel Productions. See much articles like this by subscribing to the Hot Hovel Account at www.hotigloo.co.uk/newsletter.htm

amber@hotigloo.co.uk

This article was denote on Gregorian calendar month 02, 2005