Reality check, please? Regarding submissions

Isanthe said:

How do you know when you're ready to submit?

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When you feel you want to?
No idea. I mean, I really don't know.
I would say, when you think that story is good enough to stand on its own two feel and toddle out there into the world.

Isanthe said:

Is it irrational to worry about being dismissed based on your previous work? Is it better to let your skills mature and get out the proverbial 1 million words of dreck, or to jump into the submissions game right away?

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Yes, no and yes. In that order.
Editors get offered so much stuff, I really dont think they'll remember one particular name, unless you're called Manic Pink Zebra jr. or something similar.

You could use a pseudonym if you're really really worried.

Go ahead and submit. So long as you don't innundate any one publication with dozens of submissions, you won't get a bad reputation. Besides, the people who see your submission first are often interns and lowly assistant editors. The turn over in these jobs is high and they see zillions of submissions. If you don't make a pest of yourself, you have nothing to worry about.

Rather than wasting the time, effort and money submitting you might want to post a piece of your work on the critique board. The reason your time might be wasted submitting is, good story or bad, I've found that editors SELDOM comment on a rejection. Which means anything short of publication won't give you the answers you need.
I had the same problem as you do. I too was worried that my craft was too amatuerish and that there was something I was missing that other writers, "real writers" had.
To solve the problem I went to a local writer's workshop. About 5 minutes in I realized 2 things. 1. The other writer's there were completely talentless idiots and 2. That I was more than ready to submit.
3 Years later I finally got my first piece published and then more. Yet it seems to have nothing to do with 3 yrs experience. Stories I wrote long before ever going to that writer's workshop have been published now without me even changing a word.
I say post a small piece, if the I's are dotted and the T's crossed in all the right places, I say submit.

Grom

Submitting

The best way possible to turn amateurish writing into professional writing is by submitting everything you write. You'll know you're getting better when editors start commenting. And you have to understand this: I don't care how bad your writing is, editors see mountains of worse writing each and every day.

My problem is this: I have a fear that my writing is so bad that I'll develop a reputation, and the editors/slush readers will just roll their eyes and say "Oh gawd, not her again," as they dump my manuscript in the trash without a second thought. I'm not worried so much about the pain of rejection, but of ruining my chances later on when I'm more experienced and a better writer.

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You build a bad reputation by being annoying, not submitting stories. If you call or email every other day, then you might make a bad reputation. Being in the slush won't do that. Most places receive so many submissions that a name doesn't register on the radar.

You seem reasonably coherent, so you've already beat out 90% of the slush. Don't worry too much about it.

How do you know when you're ready to submit? I don't mean any particular story. I realize they're never "done", and I feel like the stories I have in mind are the best I can manage at this point in my life. However, I've been writing consistently and seriously for less than a year now. I know I have room to improve, and I wonder if I should just focus all my energy on writing for another year.

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If you feel you have a good story and you're proud of it (and you spent some time loving, caring, hatching, and editing it) then submit. You may want to put away your first one or two endeavors, but for the most part you don't learn to write for the market by standing back and watching it. Take a dive, get a few rejections under your belt, or even an acceptance or two, to learn a little about the process.

Any thoughts? Is it irrational to worry about being dismissed based on your previous work? Is it better to let your skills mature and get out the proverbial 1 million words of dreck, or to jump into the submissions game right away?

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Writers are good at writing and worrying. If your previous work isn't any good, no one will remember it anyway. I've read quite a few bad stories, but I don't remember any of them.

Make sure you have edited your story, maybe get some feedback, then take a stab.

Hmm, it seems Mr. Ritchie said in a mere three sentences what I spent eight minutes typing.

There's a lesson in brevity in there somewhere...

I think it would take more work to actually get editors to blacklist you like that than it would to get them to publish your story.

Honest. Don't worry about it. Collect your rejection slips, be happy that someone out there has now read your story, send it to someone else, and then get on with writing the next story.

I'm sure editors go through a ton of submissions on a regular basis. I seriously doubt they make some black-list of crappy writers.

Just submit, and then write more.

edited to add: Not that I'm implying that your writing would be crappy. You know what I meant.

Most of the bigger 'zines can get 800 - 1000 submissions per month. If your story really isn't good enough, odds are good they'll only read a page or three anyway, then stuff a rejection in the envelope and move on to the next.

And if it is good enough, you won't know until you send it in

I believe it was Joseph Campbell who, when told a writer hadn't submitted something because he didn't think it was good enough, said, "How dare you edit my magazine for me?"

jchines said:

I believe it was Joseph Campbell who, when told a writer hadn't submitted something because he didn't think it was good enough, said, "How dare you edit my magazine for me?"

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That sounds like Joseph Cambell. What a wonderful man.

Ah! Now I know that one!

It's the excuse given to me by many of my writing students who are perfectionists.

It's all to do with FEAR!

Live with it.

Start studying those market lists we posted on the top of this Short Fiction board. Spend time every day looking at one market.

Meanwhile get writers' group feed back, post on the AW crit board, do a final edit.

Send out the stories you feel are best written. Submit a group of them to different magazines and don't wait for the results. Keep writing and studying markets.

As a story returns get it off to market the next day!!! Of course they will return. But it's not you the editors don't like it's that story.

Keep details of every market you find on file in your computer in some organised way. You'll end up with a great resource of markets.

One helpful hint: if you don't like what a magazine publishes it isn't the place for your work.

Keep writing

I don't know really, but if you're not satisfied with your own work, thinking it's bad, then you need to improve it. If you don't even think it's worth getting published, then no one will. You are the person who needs to sell it. And yourself as an author.

So, as pdr said, Keep writing!
Good luck.

Mark Lazer said:

. If you don't even think it's worth getting published, then no one will.
So, as pdr said, Keep writing!
Good luck.

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Well, I will disagree with this. Every pro writer I know has sokd stories they thorugh were horrible, and failed to sell stories they tought were great.

It's happened to me more than once. One of the stories I've sold repeatedly, and that has now earned thousands of dollars is also the one I believe is the worst thing I ever wrote. Anotehr story that I think is one of the best things I've yet written simply will not sell anywhere, to anyone, for any amount.

I remember a top editor saying it was not the writer's job to judge a short story, it's an editor's job. That was atleast a couple of decades ago. I've heard three or four other editors say this since.

They were right. What the writer thinks about a story has zero bearing on whether or not it will sell, and keep selling.

Just write the best you can, submit everything, and odds are good you'll succeed. Start picking and choosing which stories to submit based on whether or not you think they're worth publishing and you'll still send out bad stories, but you'll also shelve some good ones.

Send out everything, and let editor's do their jobs.

Well, maybe it's personal, but I couldn't send something out that I don't like myself.

Mark Lazer said:

If you don't even think it's worth getting published, then no one will.

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Oh, that's not true. There's always Publish America.

Seriously, I think there's truth on both sides. It is the editor's job to choose stories for their magazines, and their judgment will be different from the author's. Ergo it makes sense to submit and let them decide. (Obviously you don't send dragon erotica to a Christian 'zine, but if the story fits the market, give it a shot.)

Your job, as Jamesaritchie said, is to write the best story you can. That means, if you know you can write it better, go ahead and do that. If you see actual flaws you can fix, then absolutely you should fix 'em. But if it's a general sense of not being good enough, or fear, or being worried because the story on paper doesn't match what was in your head, or all of the other vague neuroses that plague us all, then it's time to stuff those neuroses back into a box and send the story in. It's too easy to revise a story to death, going through it again and again and making little, relatively pointless changes which don't do anything but let you avoid submitting.

Huh. Sorry - didn't mean to babble on like that.

Jamesaritchie said:

It's happened to me more than once. One of the stories I've sold repeatedly, and that has now earned thousands of dollars is also the one I believe is the worst thing I ever wrote. Anotehr story that I think is one of the best things I've yet written simply will not sell anywhere, to anyone, for any amount.

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This has happened to me, too.

Ditto.

Isanthe said:

How do you know when you're ready to submit? I don't mean any particular story. I realize they're never "done", and I feel like the stories I have in mind are the best I can manage at this point in my life. However, I've been writing consistently and seriously for less than a year now. I know I have room to improve, and I wonder if I should just focus all my energy on writing for another year.

Any thoughts? Is it irrational to worry about being dismissed based on your previous work? Is it better to let your skills mature and get out the proverbial 1 million words of dreck, or to jump into the submissions game right away?

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It sounds like you haven't received any significant feedback on your work and that's part of the reason you're nervous about the submission process. If you've only been writing a year, then your work might be rough in spots that you're not even aware of. And if you feel that's an issue then... it's probably an issue.

Get critted. Find a face-to-face writer's group in your town/city. Try the local library, the local bookstores, the local community college and get some cold readers on your work. Will some of their advice be off the mark? Sure. But some of it might ring true and make you re-think some elements that might have been bothering you about the stories but you weren't able to articulate to yourself. Even if your writer's group is nothing more than readers (as opposed to skilled writers who can exactly verbalize a story problem), you'll still have had some cold eyes on the stories.

If a local writer's group is impossible to find, then go online. There are lots of crit groups that can be helpful. If you're writing genre material, try to use a crit group that relates to it. (No point in bringing a scifi piece to an RWA group, ya know?)

Certainly, keep moving forward with your million words goal but if something is niggling you that your work isn't strong enough, then there's no point in subbing right now. Get some feedback, work on improving and sub with cleaner, sharper stories.

Hope this is helpful. Good luck with your writing and keep going!

Isanthe, with some stories, you will know when they are done. So make sure to submit them!

Don't be afraid - the thrills outweigh the disappointments.

Mark Lazer said:

Well, maybe it's personal, but I couldn't send something out that I don't like myself.

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Oh, but you can when you make your living writing.

crits

I'm usually not big on critique groups, either. I know the internet has made everyone believe that getting critiques is almost a must, but I think it's nonsense. Unless you need help with basic grammar and the like, I'd say avoid critique groups.

I've watched and been involved with a lot of critique groups over the decades, and I've seen ten new writers ruined for each one I've seen helped. And the ones hurt the most are usually the ones who will swear they've been helped the most. About 99% of critique groups and individual critiquers are the ignorant leading the foolish.

Be extremely careful who you let critique a story, and do not believe the nonsense that if five people all say the same thing is wrong with your story, then it must be wrong. From my expoerience, teh opposite is true. Four out of five critiquers don't know enough to have a clue what's wrong, and when five say something is wrong, and one says it isn't, the lone critiquer is right more often than not.

"Idiot reads" are another story. It does no harm to find two or three trusted idiot readers to make sure you have overlooked one of those stupid mistakes we all make at times, but idiot readers do not critique a story, do not try to tell you how to write. (The idiot in question is the writer, not the reader.)

If you really want to succeed, finish a story and put it on the market, then keep it on the market until it sells, or until there are no more markets left. Holding stories off the market does you no good at all, and can delay your progress for years.

Follow Heinlein's Rules of Writing religiously.

HEINLEIN'S RULES FOR WRITING


1. You must write.
2. You must finish what you write.
3. You must refrain from rewriting, except to editorial order.
4. You must put the work on the market.
5. You must keep the work on the market until it is sold.



And read this to understand why these rules are so important:
http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm



Sawyer, one of the best, and most successful SF writers and editors out there, has this to say about the rules: In my experience, that's true: if you start off with a hundred people who say they want to be writers, you lose half of the remaining total after each rule — fully half the people who hear each rule will fail to follow it.


Write your stories, and do not make the serious mistake of holding any of them off the market. Whether or not you personally like something you've written has no bearing at all on quality, or on how early and how often it will sell.



And there is no better way to learn how to write publishable fiction than by putting your work on the market and keeping it there.



It boggles my mind that so many new writers are gung ho about letting unqualified critiquers who usually can't write anything worthwhile themselves see a story, but hesitate in letting professional agents and editors, who can and will help in every way possible if the writer is coming anywhere close to doing his part, look at it.

The only caveat I'd make with Heinlein's rules is with 3. Number 3 does not mean you submit your first drafts. However, once you're satisfied with the story, send it out and don't worry about it again unless the editor specifically asks you to rewrite. Don't obsess and try to "fix it" after every single rejection. Heck, I've had stories get 10 or 20 rejections before they sold (to pro markets, in many cases.)

I've broken #3 myself at times. I review stories I wrote years ago, and I can see the flaws very clearly. So I rewrite them pretty extensively, then send 'em out again.

But what tends to happen a lot for folks in the beginning is they spend so much time trying to get their story perfect, rewriting and revising based on any and every comment and bit of feedback, that the story is never done, so it never gets submitted, and they never move on to the next project.

In general though, who am I to argue with Heinlein?

Jamesaritchie said:

And you have to understand this: I don't care how bad your writing is, editors see mountains of worse writing each and every day.

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This is true. Be encouraged; something of mine might be in the same stack.

caw.