How do you know when you are ready to submit?

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DanielSTJ

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I've been finding out many things by being on here, but one big questions eludes me: how do I know when I am ready to submit?

Are there tell-tale signs or any general guidelines that I can adhere to? Part of me is afraid of being billeted as a "bad" writer or worse if I submit pieces too early.

To date, I've only submitted one poem, unsuccessfully, way back in the day.

I plan to submit my novella once I'm done editing it, but that is a long-term project. I do not know when it will be done.

Any advice on this? I really want to start getting some writing credits to my name, but I'm not sure whether to give myself the green light or not...

P.S. I wanted to start with publications that are easier to get into, i.e. non-paid, and then work my way up.
 
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lizmonster

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Any advice on this? I really want to start getting some writing credits to my name, but I'm not sure whether to give myself the green light or not...

IME, when you're at the point where you're just shoving individual words around, it's time to send it out.

P.S. I wanted to start with publications that are easier to get into, i.e. non-paid, and then work my way up.

As a general rule, I think the usual advice is just the opposite: start with the most difficult market, and keep subbing your piece down the list until you get a hit. But as I've never submitted shorts, I can't attest to the success of that strategy. :)

Good luck, whatever you do!
 

Ari Meermans

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The process is, I think, different for each writer and, even, each book. And I agree there is no sure way of knowing. There are things you can do, though, to get yourself and your novella ready:

  • Revise until you feel reasonably confident you told the story you wanted and meant to tell.
  • Revise until you feel reasonably confident you told your story to the best of your ability at that time.
  • Send it out to as many good and trustworthy beta readers as you can find to make sure you did tell the story you wanted to tell. Use their eyes and their feedback to verify this.
  • Incorporate any valid feedback that helps you polish your book.
  • Revise again, if necessary.
  • Submit. (I agree with Liz—start at the top and work your way down.)


Also, being anxious to begin accumulating writing credits is a poor reason to pursue publication. If that concern becomes overriding, you won't produce your best work. Publishing will wait for you.
 

Enlightened

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Brandon Sanderson said something that sticks with me. It may be germane for you. You are only as good as you are right now. You will be better in 5 years, but you cannot hold yourself to that standard now. He noted there will be rejections.

He had a former student come to class and talk of her success. He never heard of anyone landing a deal and getting the book published as fast as her, first time out. She noted she went over the MS till she thought she could not perfect it anymore. She submitted it and found an agent who took care of business.

Between the two of them, make something as good as it can be and learn how your work holds up to industry scrutiny.

Sanderson invited a short story guy in. He noted to start with the biggest publications and work your way down. Once you land a publication in a lesser magazine, you have a credential and that holds weight.

I'd be more interested in seeing how my work holds up to industry scrutiny rather than earning publication credits, but sometimes that first publication is key to bigger and better things.

Good luck.
 

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When you can objectively and honestly assess your writing and see that it is on a par with, or better than, published writing, you are ready to submit.

However, I certainly didn't wait that long :)
 

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Put a sample up in Share Your Work and see what sort of responses you get. If they're mostly positive, you'll know you're close.
 

Harlequin

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So I want to unpack your question a little more, if that's okay, because I was at this point too last year and having similar questions. I think there are different components to getting acceptance. The first is craft,in a sentence by sentence narrative; the second is the shape of the narrative; the third is subjectivity of those reading it.

What an agent or editor prefers is out of your control, mostly. From subbing a lot of shorts this year--the same piece that had one editor repulsed had another excited. Similarly, my CP (who has just got an agent) found that the same MS which excited one agent, sparked rejections or doubt from others. This is pretty universal and not a lot you can do about this--you sometimes need the right person at the right time.

Craft and narrative shape are things you *can* control, though, and I'm going to take a leap and assume this is part of what you're asking about, ie asking "when is the writing good enough."

Sentence-level craft is not insurmountably difficult to learn. A few months with critique groups and betas can have you polishing that fairly quickly, imo. Actually, I don't think a high level is necessarily the most important thing, but I do think writers tend to focus on it. Well, we would, wouldn't we.

But shape of a narrative is a different beast. You can have a story which is beautifully written sentence by sentence, perfect grammar, the works, and still have it be insufficient as a story. I think that is much more difficult to nail. The MS I'd finished last year was fine for sentence-by-sentence craft, but the shape of the narrative wasn't working (still isn't, I've put it aside). I don't mean structure, before all the plotters jump on me :rolleyes:; in this case it's very structured, although structure can also be a problem.

In general it's more nebulous than that. Like a sketch that's missing some shading (terrible metaphor, but you know.) Sometimes you read a piece in SYW or elsewhere and although it technically ticks every box it maybe misses a little something in every component (characterisation, emotion, tension, any and all); the overall story therefore falls a little flat. Anyway, I felt like this was a stage I was getting stuck at, with other writers not able to advise me much beyond "it reads fine" or "it doesn't" and therefore, it's good enough to sell was/is this nebulous standard I'm not sure how to measure against.



The point of all that long ramble--I still don't know. I'm not sure you can ever know, except to put it out there and see what response you get. Sometimes, stories I think will be a flop sell fast. Sometimes, stories I like get panned. Same with longer mss. I write a chapter--is it working? Hell if I know. The sentences are fine and maybe some of the writing is pretty, but that's not always enough. I don't know if it's enough until I put it through its paces with other readers and even then, I still can't really tell. You have a kind of blindness to your own work I think.

Or maybe that's just me and other writers can gauge their own work with ease. But I think that's more rare than not, because if we could tell working from not so easily, we'd never need feedback. Every community will be full of good writers who are convinced they suck, and terrible writers who believe they're amazing; the rest of us exist in a semi-permanent state of optimistic paranoia, where we hope we're good and don't know it whilst being simultaneously terrified that we're awful without knowing it.
 
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BethS

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P.S. I wanted to start with publications that are easier to get into, i.e. non-paid, and then work my way up.

This is exactly backwards. Using that strategy, you'll never know if your work was good enough to get into a professional publication. It might have been but, hey, you're letting someone publish it for free instead. So always aim high. You have absolutely nothing to lose by starting at the top and, if necessary, working your way down.
 

DanielSTJ

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Hey everyone!

I took a big sleep until nearly now from yesterday-- restless mind, and am OVERJOYED with the advice and answers I have received.

I think it may be best to post up some prose work in the SYW section and get feedback. However, I also am going to take the advice and start with the tenser markets and work downwards when I do submit. Additionally, I will not rush the process. There is still time and I should aim to create the best work(s) possible. I am taking close heed of the: do your best, publishing will wait-- motto.

I am paying close attention and will come back to this.

Thanks so much, you lovely people! :)
 
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