90 percent of rejections are not due to bad prose

[DLCroix]

If this happens with a single novel, imagine if the project is a saga as is so fashionable these days. In such a case, it is not a question of having everything tied up, at the plot level above all, but that it must be very tied.

 

[sknox]

The advice is well-meant, I'm sure, but I have objections.

>The writers in your group should be serious about craft and dedicated to swapping feedback.
That's fine to say, but an inexperienced writer is not going to know how to choose such a group, isn't going to be able to judge seriousness or dedication, and anyway these things wax and wane over time, and anyway members in the group come and go.

>then move backwards to show how the opening event perspired
Now, I've had characters perspire. I myself have been known to perspire. But my opening events do not sweat.

>A skilled author can make a character brushing their teeth
Indeed, indeed. And if I were a skilled author, I wouldn't need this advice column, would I?

>a lot of slush readers don’t
This is significant. Slush readers are not normal readers. They don't come to your story for the same reasons a normal reader does. If they are an exceptionally good slush reader, they'll be able to read the story *as if* they were normal, but the thing about slush pile readers is they are at the bottom of the editorial ladder. They're the first-pass people. Like with resumé readers, their primary job is to reduce the size of the pile, to find any reason at all to toss out your story.

Here's an example:
>The character’s circumstances might have changed externally, but by the end of the story they are unchanged
This is absolutely true ... for some genres. And not at all true for others. There's a massive tower of short stories in the detective genre, to pick one at random, where the main characters absolutely do not change. Same goes even for novels. The formula that is crucial for one genre is fatal in another. But the slush pile reader lives in their own particular swamp. It's easy for them to start to believe that what is true locally is true universally.


Still and even so, thanks to @ckatt for posting the link. It's always worthwhile for us to hash through this stuff because it's all going to resonate differently for each of us.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I get a slightly different message from the article. I do not believe it is saying that good technical language skills are unimportant, it is saying that by the time a story is submitted, the grammar, punctuation, and syntax are adequate and the author should become aware of other aspects. I assume that the slush pile submissions are not first drafts, but things the writer has spent time on editing and that the writer also needs to be looking at rewriting aspects to improve the story as well.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

A BBC producer once told me that they were not going to reject the story that was going to make them money just because the format was wrong or the commas in the wrong place.

Take Mrs Brown's Boys. On a comedy level - the dialogue is perhaps not the best and it is not critically the best comedy. There are reasons it was rejected a lot. However, one producer believed in it, didn't care about the issues and it's the biggest grossing comedy the BBC has ever produced.

As important as prose is getting the right person reading the right story and the right time.

I know my first book told a reasonable story and had memorable characters. These days my prose is much, much better. I still come back to that first book and think it's my best story.

 

[JS Wiig]

Whenever people who are not writers tell me about a story they’ve enjoyed, it’s usually about interesting events or characters, and rarely (if ever?) about clever turns of phrase, mind-blowing metaphors or fantastic sentence construction.

Of course, as writers we do need to be on top of those things, because an ignorant reader will still sense that something is “wrong” with the piece if the prose is too atrocious.
,

 

[ckatt]

@sknox
I like your take. I thought the same thing about the character change point.
What can't be avoided though, is that these people are the ones who get the first crack at rejecting stories.

 

[ckatt]

I get a slightly different message from the article. I do not believe it is saying that good technical language skills are unimportant,

Who said anything about language skills being unimportant? If that was your takeaway from my first post you have misunderstood. My point is that I maybe spend too much of my time on sentence-level edits. Others may find different parts of the article more helpful to them.

 

[DLCroix]

Whenever people who are not writers tell me about a story they’ve enjoyed, it’s usually about interesting events or characters, and rarely (if ever?) about clever turns of phrase, mind-blowing metaphors or fantastic sentence construction.

Of course, as writers we do need to be on top of those things, because an ignorant reader will still sense that something is “wrong” with the piece if the prose is too atrocious.
,

That is a perfect example of the lessons we can learn from living storytellers that we sometimes find in teachers, grandparents, and even bosses. Some tend to be very entertaining, true storytellers, while others tend to digress and we immediately find them boring, inadvertently our internal editor tells them: "sum up, man, you're going the other way."
But the authentic narrators that life gives us are true page turners if they were writers who dedicated themselves to that, in some way they are so funny when telling a simple anecdote that we do not want them to end, we listen to them fascinated and that, eye, they also tend to give infinite details that many might consider superfluous but are not. They even color parts of their stories with jokes or jokes or make a kind of fourth wall when they speak directly to us saying: "But what would you have done if the same thing had happened to you?"
This, applied to literature, is also a defect that I have noticed in the stories or parts of stories that I usually read:
1. There is too much haste in telling things such that the matter is not chewed and therefore the story loses substance and seems more like a movie script than a story. This, in my opinion, has several causes, which are:
a) It is not written thinking about the paper.
Or that a story is being made; rather, it is written thinking that the reading will be on the screen and therefore the Internet news writing principle is applied. That is: central idea, two supporting ideas, total: no more than five lines.

This defect is serious, because it loses the idea of continuity in pursuit of a misunderstood synthesis. I'm not saying that summarizing isn't okay; in fact, I am a faithful believer that at least 30% of the original text can be cut from all writing. But the paragraph is an organic unit that has a life of its own. Many wonder what its extension should be. Well, the paragraphs should last exactly as long as they need to tell an idea, nothing more and nothing less.
There is nothing wrong with a paragraph spanning one or more pages. Nor is it usual. But, on the other hand, seeing what mainstream authors do, it is even possible to detect that they tend to long paragraphs. The difference, of course, is that, returning to the example of innate or family narrators, this type of writer knows how to add narrative substance to their stories, their details may seem superfluous but they are not, since it is a whole technique to make that we turn page after page without realizing it. In short:
The good writer is a professional trickster.

b) The prejudice of telling versus showing.
If we fall into the trap of believing that everything has to be shown in the dialogues, we are simply fried.
On screen a lot of inconsequential dialogue sounds good; but on paper it looks horrendous.
We must lose the fear of exposure. Someone tells us a story on the street and makes infodumps all the time but it doesn't bother us, it is even possible that their information is biased or prejudiced but it even amuses us.

2. The central idea.
The grace of that innate narrator who tells us a story or anecdote is that he concludes the idea of this story or anecdote, which in general terms we could perfectly apply to the purpose that each chapter should have, if it is a novel.
But it should also be an attractive idea. That's why, I think, most stories fail. Because even if we write well, and even if we have good characters and original worlds, without a good base idea we will only end up doing the same thing that so many others have already done. Then, it is very likely that a professional editor, who already knows many stories, will end up asking: "And what is the point of this story? What is new about it?"
The idea or premise of a story is what supports everything else. The question is very simple, if I tell you: What is your story about?, you should be able to summarize it in one sentence. Nothing more, nothing less. There must be complete conceptual clarity.

 

[sknox]

>first crack at rejecting stories.
Not, of course, if you self-publish. That said, every short story I've ever written I've submitted to a magazine--physical or online. In every case, there's been at least one reader between me and the editor who makes the final decision. So the slush pile mindset does very much apply there.

My trouble is, just getting the story told in a way that satisfies me is so much of an effort, I seem unable to apply external standards. Does the story wander or not have a point? Well, first it has to seem not to wander and to have a point *to me*. Whether it does to anyone else isn't really my concern. That's what separates me, I suppose, from the editors and slush readers of the world. They're supposed to be able to overcome their own provincial perspectives and see the work from the General Reader's point of view. I can hear and take to heart their critiques, but I can't for the life of me anticipate them. All I can do is tell the story as best I know how, and hope that next time I'll know how just a little bit better.

>My point is that I maybe spend too much of my time on sentence-level edits.
I good one to take to heart. I seem to be innately good at ignoring that level--unless the change is easily and quickly made--until after the first draft and after at least a couple of revisions. I've been able to identify a copy-edit phase and leave the wordsmithing for then. I tell myself (though I've been known to be an unreliable narrator) that there's little point in tweaking the sentence if I'm going to have to change or remove the whole paragraph during revision. It's possible I'm right.

I guess it would be possible to spend too much time (notice I dropped "my" there; an easy edit) on sentence-level edits even during copyedit. Happily, I'm so sick of the story by then, all I want to do is groom and trim and get on to the next story. I have a whole queue of stories standing out in the hallway, and they're all tapping their feet and looking at their watches.

 

[Swank]

b) The prejudice of telling versus showing.
If we fall into the trap of believing that everything has to be shown in the dialogues, we are simply fried.

Showing vs telling isn't using dialogue for exposition. He was sad and "I am sad," are both telling.

 

[ckatt]

@sknox
I don't recall who said it but I once heard that you write the first draft for yourself and revise for your readers.
For me, this means working on the initial draft until I think it's "done." Then I set it aside and don't come back until I've forgotten all about it and when I read it months later (sometimes longer) it is like I'm reading something written by someone else. At that point, I try to forget what I thought the story was originally supposed to be about and ask myself what is "this" story about. Answering that takes time but when I think I know, I look at every aspect on the page and check whether it's reinforcing or detracting from what this story is (or wants to be).

As far as the sentence-level stuff goes, I used to be terrible at grammar and commas, and it always bugged me that critiquers couldn't look past that and just comment on the story. Once that was good, I'd worry about the copy edits.
Then I realized that the real story was hiding behind the errors, that readers couldn't see the story I wanted to tell because the errors created too much interference. So I spent a few years becoming a grammar Nazi. Grammar rules were easy to learn and practice when I put in the effort.
Now critiquers regularly tell me the prose is smooth and well crafted. Still, I don't sell too many stories so I've decided to shift my focus a bit.

 

[DLCroix]

Showing vs telling isn't using dialogue for exposition. He was sad and "I am sad," are both telling.

You are absolutely right, but the problem with the exposition is that there is a certain prejudice in which there is a tendency to underestimate the occasions in which it is more useful to count precisely because it shortens a lot of words. This is very clear in the creation of new worlds in fantasy and science fiction stories, in which, unless the narrator explains what these worlds are like, the reader can hardly imagine them. So no need to worry about saving words. But most authors tend to think that if they say "jungle" they don't need to provide any details because everyone is supposed to know what a jungle is like. Mistake. This is just intellectual laziness.
Worse yet, there are writers who have their characters describe these things in the dialogue itself, with which the result ranges from contrived to appalling. In fact, the most classic objection to this is: but a first-person narrator can't do it? And the answer is yes, but something else happens there, and in which the reader becomes an accomplice of the author. That is to say, he excuses all his tricks perhaps because he does it with singular mastery. Otherwise it is impossible for a fifteen-year-old boy to describe these worlds from the point of view of a first-person narrator but using the literary preciousness that NO ONE usually has at that age. And yet mainstream authors do it all the time. For example: Pérez-Reverte, Bioy Casares, Vargas LLosa, Borges, Bolaño, etc.
So I wouldn't have a problem. What I always recommend is that you first write the story as it comes from your heart, as if you were writing a letter (well, in my day it was done, with stamps and everything) to a lover, and then see what things can be translate into dialogues without these seeming artificial but you also have to be careful with the rhythm of the narration itself, something we haven't talked about yet but it defines a lot how the very structure of a paragraph is according to the narrative tension of the moment.

 

[DLCroix]

@sknox
I don't recall who said it but I once heard that you write the first draft for yourself and revise for your readers.
For me, this means working on the initial draft until I think it's "done." Then I set it aside and don't come back until I've forgotten all about it and when I read it months later (sometimes longer) it is like I'm reading something written by someone else. At that point, I try to forget what I thought the story was originally supposed to be about and ask myself what is "this" story about. Answering that takes time but when I think I know, I look at every aspect on the page and check whether it's reinforcing or detracting from what this story is (or wants to be).

You have to see how much truth there is in those words! Because that's another classic mistake that new authors make: as soon as they put the word "end", instead of celebrating that they finished something, what do they do? They immediately start revising what they wrote instead of letting it sit. In this regard, I think the minimum, according to S. King (I highly recommend getting a copy of On Writing right now, it's the bible of aspiring writers), is two months.

 

[Steve Harrison]

You have to see how much truth there is in those words! Because that's another classic mistake that new authors make: as soon as they put the word "end", instead of celebrating that they finished something, what do they do? They immediately start revising what they wrote instead of letting it sit. In this regard, I think the minimum, according to S. King (I highly recommend getting a copy of On Writing right now, it's the bible of aspiring writers), is two months.

I'm not a new author (getting quite ancient, actually!) and I've never subscribed to this opinion. I dive straight into extensive editing as soon as I finish a novel, often on the same day, and work on it until it's ready for my two trusty readers. I find the excitement of finishing and having everything fresh in my mind suits my editing process.

I tried the 'hiding the manuscript in a drawer for a month or two' in my early days, but it simply doesn't work for me. It's not a mistake or recommendation, it's just another way of working.

 

[WickedRootsJay]

Interesting article here for those interested in the short form. While for some this may not be news I think it's a good list of things to look at in your writing.


Writing Advice From A Slush Reader -Evelyn Freeling

I tend to spend a lot of energy agonizing over word choice and sentence structure. This is in spite of the fact that it's one of the things my critiques generally praise about my work.
So maybe it's time to worry less about it. After all, haven't we all read something where the prose was just wretched and left you wondering how on earth it got past an editor?

I'd hate to sound like a caveman but I'm a new writer and I have no real literary achievements as far as a formal education goes but I hate reading most books because they don't get to the point or action. So I wrote my own book called Wicked Roots: Heart of Man. It is my first book ever. It took me two years to get where it is.

 

[DLCroix]

I'm not a new author (getting quite ancient, actually!) and I've never subscribed to this opinion. I dive straight into extensive editing as soon as I finish a novel, often on the same day, and work on it until it's ready for my two trusty readers. I find the excitement of finishing and having everything fresh in my mind suits my editing process.

I tried the 'hiding the manuscript in a drawer for a month or two' in my early days, but it simply doesn't work for me. It's not a mistake or recommendation, it's just another way of working.

Perhaps your case is a notable exception, because it always works for me. Curiously, the only case in which I did not apply it was when I won an international contest for short science fiction novels (close to 80 participated), since I could no longer complete the review process, just one night, so I sent the manuscript just on time. The only explanation I can find is that two halves of that novel came from some stories that I had previously edited, so in a certain way it was just about changing some names, adjusting one or another detail and, of course, notifying the magazines which I had sent those stories so that they would not publish them. There was a bit of anger from one especially, but that all changed when the contest organizers announced that my novel was chosen as the winner!

 

[Steve Harrison]

Perhaps your case is a notable exception, because it always works for me. Curiously, the only case in which I did not apply it was when I won an international contest for short science fiction novels (close to 80 participated), since I could no longer complete the review process, just one night, so I sent the manuscript just on time. The only explanation I can find is that two halves of that novel came from some stories that I had previously edited, so in a certain way it was just about changing some names, adjusting one or another detail and, of course, notifying the magazines which I had sent those stories so that they would not publish them. There was a bit of anger from one especially, but that all changed when the contest organizers announced that my novel was chosen as the winner!

That worked out well!

I have a few writer friends who, like me, consider the editing to be part of the main process of writing a novel and plough on to the end without a break. I'm impatient to finish so the thought of putting a manuscript aside for any length of time is horrifying. However, I suspect you are right that most writers do like to leave gap before editing.

 

[Swank]

Perhaps your case is a notable exception, because it always works for me.

This is a question of how people's individual brains work in terms of processing, stress, etc. It really isn't a writing question. Two people of very different temperaments can produce very similar writing through very different processes. Using mental organization advice for a very different brain than yours is going to cause problems.

Not that it isn't worth trying, but it nothing like this is universal.

 

[DLCroix]

That worked out well!

I have a few writer friends who, like me, consider the editing to be part of the main process of writing a novel and plough on to the end without a break. I'm impatient to finish so the thought of putting a manuscript aside for any length of time is horrifying. However, I suspect you are right that most writers do like to leave gap before editing.

Well, due to my training as a publicist I have also found out quite a bit about the creative process; in fact I based my thesis on that (you would be surprised to know that there is even a so-called "creative diet"), so my theory about it is that when you are writing the process is combinatorial, both because while you write you are thinking so much about the writing, the order of sentences, grammar, etc., as in the ideas that you must transmit according to your previously outlined outline or a simple guideline that tells you what comes next. But it's a different process than review, which is more analytical and not as creative or visually random. I even think that within the writing process itself, we should not stop until we are sure that all the ideas and all that boiling broth have cooled down properly, and that, as you know, can take up to a week after putting the word "end" of the first manuscript, because it is guaranteed that you will continue to receive a bombardment of ideas even while you sleep.

 

[DLCroix]

This is a question of how people's individual brains work in terms of processing, stress, etc. It really isn't a writing question. Two people of very different temperaments can produce very similar writing through very different processes. Using mental organization advice for a very different brain than yours is going to cause problems.

Not that it isn't worth trying, but it nothing like this is universal.

Of course. In fact, it is known of famous authors who perhaps produced just a couple of paragraphs or even just a few lines per day but with the great advantage that they did not need to edit anything afterwards.