I have often been asked, over the years, for advice on how to submit short stories to publications--mostly magazines. I don't know how helpful that's been, but I've always tried to deliver honest guidance, and the only reason I feel qualified to advise at all is that I've submitted a lot of stories and I've done some of it the wrong way.
The truth is, in the old days it was much harder to submit stories to editors and much easier to make a submission mistake. I can recall forgetting to sign my name on cover letters, leaving pages out of manuscripts, not putting enough postage on envelopes, binding the pages the wrong way, using the wrong kinds of envelopes, forgetting to enclose cover letters, and forgetting to enclose SASEs (remember those?). I once put together a neat submission, packed it all into one of those 9 x 12 envelopes, and then forgot to mail it. My wife found it under some papers in the back seat a month later.
But even in our modern, electronic world, you (I should say I) can still make submission mistakes. One of the worst, of course, is an error in the story itself. Some of those are minor (misspellings, typos, punctuation errors, etc.) and some are major (plot holes, factual mistakes, unintended POV switches, etc.). All are embarrassing, and are a good reason to try harder in the future to proofread, proofread, proofread before sending a story off into the hard and competitive world.
It's something that's especially important to me because one of my so-called rules for the submission process is to not read a story again after I've sent it off to the publication. After I hit SEND to dispatch my emailed submission to an editor, I try to forget that story, and I mean completely forget it, until I receive a response. If the eventual response is a rejection, fine--I then re-read the story, make any changes that I think are needed, and submit it elsewhere. If the response is an acceptance, I usually also re-read the story. But--I'll say it again--I don't re-read the story while it's out for consideration. I erase it from my mind and start working on another one.
Now, consider this. What if ignore that advice, and decide to take another look at your story after submitting it? Hopefully you won't find any mistakes, but . . . what if you do?
If the error is really minor, I would let it go. Everybody makes mistakes now and then. Make a note of it to yourself if you want to, but do nothing more. Don't contact the editor. Go back mentally to the point when you emailed the submission and think no more about the story until you receive a response.
But what if it's a major mistake, like one of those I mentioned earlier? What if you re-read the story while it's in transit or under consideration and find that action B cannot logically follow action A in your plot? What if the geography's wrong, or the timeline is wrong, or the hero knows things he couldn't possibly know, or the device your character used in your historical mystery hasn't been invented yet? Or maybe Janet Bradley on page 2 has changed to Janice Brady on pages 4 through 10. After you slap your forehead and spew a few words that shock both your family and your dog, what do you do?
That's happened to me. (Well, except for the dog.) In my case, it was an error in a fact that I just hadn't researched as well as I should've. It not only made my plot look stupid, it made me look stupid. I still remember thinking Did I actually write that? But I did. And I submitted it to a magazine, only a few days earlier.
What happened then was, I reluctantly send a followup email to the editor, one I thankfully knew, and I told her I'd screwed up a story I'd sent and would like to resubmit a corrected version of that manuscript. She was kind enough to allow me to do that (she probably hadn't read the botched submission yet)--but even so, I suspect my request annoyed her. And annoying editors doesn't top anyone's list of smart things to do.
But what if I had found the mistake and hadn't sent the followup note? One of three things might've happened, and they're the same things that might've happened if I hadn't found the mistake: (1) the story could've been (deservedly) rejected; (2) the story could've been (undeservedly) accepted, after which the editor would probably have corrected the mistake or asked me to correct it; or (3) the story could've been accepted and published with the mistake intact. And believe me, that can happen as well.
Anyhow, it has become my practice to submit a story and then leave it alone until I get a response. Call me irresponsible, call me unreliable, but that's my policy. I make sure my submission is written as well as I can write it, I send it off, and I forget it. My reason is, if you re-read it and don't find any mistakes, you've wasted your time. And if you re-read it and do find a mistake, you either alert the editor or you don't. If you don't, you'll probably still worry about it for the next few weeks or months, and if you do alert the editor, you run the risk of irritating her and could be wasting your time anyway, because the acceptance/rejection outcome might be the same. Bottom line: I'm not convinced that finding an error once the bird has flown does anyone any good.
One more thing. I think my decision to not look at a story again after it's submitted has made me a more careful writer. It's forced me to look a lot harder at the story beforehand.
So here's the question. What's your policy? Do you forget your stories after they've been submitted for consideration? Do you re-read them after submission but before you've received a response? Have you ever found a gastric-distressable error at that point? If so, what did you do about it, besides Maalox? Did you contact the editor, and if so, how'd that go? Was the story accepted or rejected anyway? Have you ever made story mistakes, small or large, that somehow got past all the guards and found their way undetected into print? (I wish I hadn't--they don't stay undetected long.) Come on, be honest. Confession's good for the soul.
Meanwhile, keep writing the best stories you can, check them carefully, and send 'em in. Some of them will surprise you, and actually make something of themselves in the world.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
I, "keep writing the best stories (I) can, check them carefully, and send 'em in." Then, if accepted, I carefully reread and edit if necessary. (My editors usually ask if I want to make changes before they publish. I don't send out a lot because my stories often don't fall within the submission limits in word count, and I have so far never been inspired by the songs of . . . .
ReplyDeleteHey Jim. I feel your pain, on not meeting word counts. But have you never been inspired by the songs of . . . !?!? Just kiddin'--you're right, there are a LOT of music-based anthologies out there right now, and have been for the past couple of years. Sometimes those calls hit the right button, sometimes they don't.
DeleteOne thing: You are fortunate that your editors usually ask if you want to make changes before publication--that doesn't always happen. Hey, whatever you're doing, it seems to be working, right?
As always, thanks for your thoughts.
I revise, revise ... when it's out on submission, it's gone, no regrets (until it's published and I find a typo that everybody missed, damn!). I broke that rule for a book manuscript. It was edited (multiple times), beta-read, accepted by the publisher, final-final cast in concrete final. Then I gave it a once over and boom, mistake found! Something materially impossible that probably nobody would have spotted. I fixed the paragraph and begged the publisher. He was very gracious... I guess the thing hadn't been formatted yet!
ReplyDeleteWell, that one turned out good, Martine. I agree that it's amazing how often a completely proofread manuscript, long or short, can always seem to have at least a few errors you just weren't able to catch. I re-read 'em until I'm blue in the face, and still I sometimes can't find all the mistakes. All we can do is the best we can do.
DeleteJohn, my process is similar to yours. I found, early on, that I needed to 'transfer my love'. It was all too easy to obsess about a story written. So I have what I tell students, my 'rule of six'. The second I finish a short story and send it out, I start working on the next one. I write that and send it out. Then start another one. Usually by the time I have six in the mail, the first will have a response. I find if I transfer my 'love' to the one I am working on, I don't have an urge to revisit the ones in the mail. Merry Christmas, my friend!
ReplyDeleteExacty right, Mel--good advice! (Hey, you probably advised me on this in the past and that's the reason I do it that way . . .) Either that, or just great minds, right?
DeleteThanks as always, and Merry Christmas to you too. Keep up the good work!!
I don't reread the story once it's sent, but I sometimes REALIZE I've made a mistake, on the principle of what the French, bless 'em, call "mots d'escalier"—the words you think of on the staircase afterwards and wish you'd said. If the desire to correct something important comes up within 15 minutes of sending the story and I know the editor well, I may send an "Oops!" email asking if they'll accept a revised version and destroy the first one. The key point is that I know they won't have read the story yet. Otherwise, I don't point out the error and request the change unless and until they've accepted the story. If it's rejected, I review and revise it very, very carefully before sending it out again.
ReplyDeleteHey Elizabeth! Yep, I agree on every count. I do hate to send that "followup" note saying I've found a mistake, but--as you said--it helps if I only JUST sent it out, and also if I know that editor well. Keep sending those stories in!
DeleteLiz, I don't think I've ever addressed you as Elizabeth. Sorry. Just part of the pre-Christmas brain drain.
DeleteEarly on, I was such an eager writer, pleased that I could create a story that read like a flowing river, had the right word count, the right theme...off it would go. Rejections followed. But enough acceptances to make me feel I'd done a good job. But then, alas, I had a story that was 'really' good, and I was waiting for the big acceptance. How could they not respond quickly to this 'masterpiece'? I went to the file and started reading--in the very first line was a gross typo. My stomach went psycho. Of course, the response was slow to come--while I chanted and danced around a fire, blew smoke signals, read scripture till my eyes were sore, gave up cheese, with the wish they'd overlooked the first line type. Three months...Rejection. Of course. Since then, I've gone back to cheese, said phewy on wishing and hoping, scan and rescan my stories until my eyes are sore. Acceptance and rejection rate about the same. Go figure. (But I'm a better writer now due to the rereads and read aloud feature on computer.)
ReplyDeleteYou know, Wil, I've never tried the chanting/dancing method before--I bet that's why I've had so many rejections! And hey, you are so right: Go figure.
DeleteYes, I think both you and I are better writers because of the rereads. They do help. I have not tried the read-aloud feature, but I know I should!
Mostly recently, I downloaded Grammarly after an article rejection. At the same time, I also got a complementary rejection from a short story magazine saying "there was much to like here", "very ambitious", but there were problems with the execution.
ReplyDeleteAfter this, I ran all my unpublished stories through Grammarly and went through with their suggested edits. Currently, I'm working on a True Crime book and sprucing up a few older Kindle titles that sold again. I plan on proofreading each of them and running them through Grammarly.
One Kindle short story collection I revisited had a story in present tense (it was a film treatment for a screenplay I wrote) and had another in passive past tense (culled from a 300 page novel). I rewrote/edited them to display a voice in active past tense. The second story had an incident midway through that shifted to a one person interior monologue and pages of nothing but text.
I separated the text into paragraphs and lines of dialogue, resulting in a more convincing two person exchange to make the story more interesting. And I moved the incident from the middle to the last few pages to make the ending more effective.
Justin, I bet all those things you've done will help--and especially separating the narrative to include paragraphs of dialog.
DeleteI personally don't like Grammarly--I happily do a lot of fragmenting and infinitive-splitting and comma-splicing in my fiction writing (especially in dialog), which would run a grammar-check program crazy. But anything you feel you're doing to improve a manuscript is certainly worth trying.
Please keep me posted on the results you get from all this. Sounds like you're learning all the time, which a very good thing.
Once it's sent, I also forget about it until I see it in print. Once while checking on the status of some submissions I noted that the title of one story was wrong. I went back to the file on my computer and saw that it was correct there and so contacted the editors who were very gracious and told me I could delete the story, correct the title in the submission form, and resubmit. Or they would make a note of it and make sure it was correct in print. I went with the latter option because I didn't want to get bounced back to the end of the queue. Story got rejected anyway so now I plan to rework it and resubmit elsewhere!
ReplyDeleteAh, the good old title-switch trick. I've done that myself (I've probably committed every mistake in the book at one time or another). Glad to hear you got a good response to your correction--but boy do I hate to send them those corrections, in midstream. Main thing is, the story'll be right the next time an editor looks at it, right?
DeleteThanks as always. Love these true stories of what writers see and go through.
I had a reprint accepted for publication recently. The editor had asked for a short 3rd person bio, which I included, but after the story was accepted I realized I didn't list *any* of my very few publication credits. I sent an expanded version of the bio with a note of apology, & the editor very kindly substituted the rewritten bio with the fiction publication credits.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the acceptance! As for correcting your bio the way you did, yes, I would've done the same thing. What I worry most about is contacting the editor in reference to an error in whatever story of mine he/she (usually she) might be considering at the moment. I suspect that any extra contact with the editor, if polite and to-the-point, should be a okay thing to do--I just don't want to overly annoy her.
DeleteThose folks have enough to do without my pestering them. Again, in your case, it sounds as if you did the right thing.
I usually send it out and leave it be. BUT, very recently, I sent a story out, and the next day thought of a subplot that would make it so much better, and I contacted a very understanding (so far) Michael Bracken, who agreed to shelve my submission and allow me time to write a whole new subplot in. Working hard on that, Michael! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Eve! Sounds like a good move, contacting Michael about the improvement in the story. But don't you wish you'd thought of it before sending it in!!
DeleteYou're certainly correct about Michael's being understanding, about that kind of thing. Heaven knows I've pestered him enough times, over the years. Good luck on that story!
Once a story is in its final form and I have sent it out, I never look at it again, unless I get a comment from an editor. Otherwise, I just move on to the next story.
ReplyDeleteWith one exception. I have occasionally slightly reworked a story to fit an anthology's theme.
Bob
Good practice, Bob. Once it's outa sight, it's outa mind. Saves you a lot of money on antacid pills.
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