Tales of Submission

If you think this is some sort of BDSM blog, think again. There are many types of submissions. The one I’m going to talk about here is submission to a publishing house, like Champagne. I wear two hats, editor and author. And I angst over submissions, even though I’ve been in this business for several years. So thought I’d talk about the process I go through when submitting a story for consideration.

First, I write and do a round of edits on a story. I make a few notes about things I still need to work on. Then, if possible, I put it away for a month and work on the next story. That way, when I go through on round two of edits, it’s fresh and easier to see the places I need to fix. This is when I’m really looking closely at the emotion, where I need to slow things down, where to speed them up...and what to gut. After this, I go through one more time, looking closely at grammar and punctuation. Now, I’ve already been through the story three times, but you’d be amazed how many things I catch on this last pass.

Then, my story goes to my critique partner, who catches even more things to fix. After I’m done with that, I send it to a beta reader. Yep. She catches a few more things, but by now, they’re pretty minimal and easy to fix. While my story is being beta read, I check out what the publisher I want to send it to is looking for, making sure my story’s a good fit.

At this point, my story is polished and ready to go, so that’s when I format however much the publisher wants (like first three chapters) to the specifications they ask for. Champagne uses pretty standard formatting (TNR size 12, one inch borders, double-spaced, etc.)

Now it’s time to work on my submission package. Oh, that infernal synopsis. Ugh. I hate writing them. How can I tell my story in 2-3 pages? FYI - for a 2-3 page synopsis, I generally start out with a 4-5 page one and pare it down. For a one page synopsis, I first write what my story is about in one sentence. One very lo-o-o-ong sentence.  That’s the real trick to deciding what’s most important about the story, in my opinion. Then I expand it to a page.

Okay, so now I’ve got my chapters and my synopsis ready to go. Time to do that query letter. Remember that lo-o-ong sentence I wrote above that describes my story? I can use that here as a quick book descriptor, adding word count and genre. Then I need to do the bio. I hate, hate, hate talking about myself. I’m a crowd blender, not a leader. But I do it. It’s part of the business. One word at a time, I remind myself that there’s a reason why I write. That my submission is worthy. Early on, when I didn’t have a writing resume to draw from, I listed my affiliations in the business, what kind of volunteering I do (again, in the business), and what type of education or craft classes I’ve taken. Another good option is explaining why you are qualified to write the story you wrote (for instance, you write a story about an injured soldier, and in real life you’re a nurse.

I finally get it done. Read everything over (yep, chapters, synopsis, and query letter). Let it sit overnight, then read it over again. At that point, I think my OCD is definitely rearing its ugly head. So I plunk it into an email, attach my documents, and hit send.

At that point, I really should just walk away from my computer. Take the cat out for a walk, settle down with a cup of tea and a good book, or anything else that’s relaxing. But no, I have to drive myself nuts by reading over my query letter and synopsis AGAIN. I did mention I have this OCD thing going on, right?

And you know what? I find a typo. Almost every single time.  It’s infuriating, but it happens. Here’s the part I’m still trying to learn. It’s okay to have a typo in your query letter.  If you’ve gone through the process to make your story shine, and you’ve addressed all the important points in your synopsis and query letter, one typo is not going to keep the publisher from contracting you if the story’s right. Ten or twelve might, but one is not.

So the moral of my process is to make it shine, then forget about it. Easier said than done, but it’ll keep you sane in the long run. 

Happy submitting!

Laurie Temple

Editor at Champagne Books

Proof your Manuscript Before Submitting

Eck! You’ve just submitted a manuscript to a publisher and discover a typo in the first chapter, after you hit send. What to do?

Well, good news: one typo, even in the first chapter, won’t ruin your chances for a contract, as long as there aren’t multitudes of typos or other errors later on. Let’s face it, typos are ubiquitous. Even after edits, somehow, they’re still there. Those of you who have published will be familiar with proofing the galleys after both content and line edits, quality control, and formatting by the publisher. You still find errors, don’t you? Truthfully, I find errors in published books all the time. But not very many, and we try extremely hard to minimize them. By the law of averages, the more typos or errors in the initial submitted manuscript, the more errors will remain in the published version, making your work look amateurish. And no one wants that.

It never ceases to amaze me how many writers submit manuscripts without a meticulous proofreading. A poorly proofed manuscript gives a poor impression of you as an author. Why is this so important? Isn’t the story, characterization, timing, and so on, much more important? The answer is you have to do both to be taken seriously at acquisition time. Many fine stories are marred by lack of proofreading. Missing words, incorrect tenses, even sentences that make no sense as written, all combine to make an editor groan. In reality, a manuscript riddled with errors probably won’t get read past the first few pages, no matter how good the story is. The editor will be thinking the author is, at best, careless, and that doesn’t bode well for a productive editing cycle. At worst, she might think you don’t know the basics of how to write. Either way, she will conclude that it’s too much work to whip your manuscript into shape for publication, and you’ll get a standard rejection letter.

Why do you have to worry so much if the book will be edited anyway? The days when editors pored over every single word are past. Editors now are expected to guide you, the author, in preparing for publication. We aren’t expected to do the work for you. In fact, we’re encouraged not to. And in any case, contrary to the image we like to project, editors are not infallible. We miss things, too. And the more there is to correct, the more we might miss. This means it is ultimately the author’s responsibility to proof a manuscript.

A lot of my authors tell me they have trouble proofing their own work. They get caught up in the story, or they simply don’t see the errors. This is quite common, but there are ways around these problems. One is to read the manuscript aloud, even to yourself. The effort of reading aloud will cause you to be much more conscious of what you actually wrote as opposed to what you intended to write. You’ll be surprised at what’s on the page. Another method is to read backwards, sentence by sentence. Combine these two methods and you’re golden.

Why risk rejection of an otherwise good story? Proof your manuscript before submitting.

Diane Breton is an editor with Champagne Book Group

ANOTHER EPISODE OF ... ‘BEFORE YOU PUSH THE SEND BUTTON’

I know we sound like a broken record regarding submissions, but there are many things to consider before you press that all important send button.

After you’ve read your manuscript one last time to catch any little niggling mistakes, THEN run thorough spelling and grammar program check. You’ll be stunned and chagrined at what you find. I’ve experienced many a head-to-desk moment when I thought I’d fixed everything. Please spell check.  Please.

As you work through your manuscript, see if you have any long and complex sentences. She was taken at once by the beautiful and vast spread of the desert before her with small dips and hollows, and was grateful she had taken some time studying about the plants and animals that had lived in this area and thrived regardless of the harsh weather conditions.  How many times did you have to read this to figure out where it was going? You don’t want to lose your reader in a quagmire of unnecessary words.

Instead – maybe... She marveled at the vast and beautiful desert spread before her. After learning about the plants and animals that lived here, it still amazed her how they thrived in these harsh conditions. This brings the sentences into a pleasing cadence and simplifies it at the same time.

One trick to help detect these long, stumbling-block sentences is to read your work aloud. I know you’ve heard this before, and it can be embarrassing if you’re discovered reading to the family pet, but it really works. If you can’t read it aloud without tripping over the words, your reader will probably trip over them, too.

In your read-through, you may notice words you’ve used way too many times – pet words. Be aware of those as well. The Search and Replace tool is awesome for this job.

A necessary search-and-replace task will include eradicating ‘felt’ ‘began to’ ‘about to’ and ‘started to’.  As an example, ‘he felt like he was about to hurl’ could simply read ‘he nearly hurled’. More punchy? Yep. ‘Felt’ isn’t a very strong word – and there are so many replacements available. Try variations of these words instead: sense, experience, suffer, undergo, think, believe, consider, deem, suspect. There are many others as well.          

How about ‘he began to walk to the store’? It’s stronger as ‘he walked to the store’. Or ‘it began to pour buckets’ is better as ‘it poured buckets’.

Another search-and-replace task should include ‘was’ ‘that’ and ‘had’. Most incidences of ‘that’ can go away completely, as long as the sentence still makes sense. The words ‘was’ and ‘had’ may be part of a Passive Voice sentence, which we discussed a few weeks ago, and leads to weaker sentences and descriptions.

Sigh.

Yes, preparing a manuscript for submission is a TON of hard work. Almost as hard as writing it. However, if you want your readers captured by your story and eager for your next one, you have to take care of the structure that supports it. And the hard work will be so worthwhile. 

Monica Britt, editor
http://www.facebook.com/authormjbritt

Twitter @mons1954