Manifest West

The anthology that I helped edit is now available on Amazon. If you enjoy western regional literature, check it out here. 

Manifest West: Different Roads

"Different roads sometimes lead to the same castle."—George R.R. Martin 

The works in this anthology reflect both the myth and the truth about the part of the United States we call the "West." Is there one "true" West? Or have the changes that are overwhelming most of the rest of the country so modified the West that there is little commonality? The editors of Different Roads believe, with Stephen R. Covey, that our "strength lies in differences, not in similarities" and are constantly amazed by what Stanley Baldwin calls "the many-sidedness of truth." Many sides of the truth of the West are represented in the anthology. Is everything here absolutely the truth? The reader must decide. 

Topics included in this collection of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction range from the West's diversity of landscape, people, languages, attitudes and history to discussions of water issues, wildfires, antiquities and a broad range of environmental concerns. 

Different Roads is the third volume in Western Press Books' literary anthology series Manifest West. The press, affiliated with Western State Colorado University, annually produces one anthology focused on Western regional writing. The 2014 theme is Western diversity and the title Different Roads comes from George R.R. Martin's quote above.

Why Your Writing Is Being Rejected

You’re probably sick of hearing me talk about it, but I’ve spent the past year reading submissions for an anthology. So, I’m going to write about rejection today.

There were several editors who worked on this anthology. Every week we all read the same batch of submissions. We met to discuss the batch at the end of the week. In order to remember what I read, I kept spreadsheets with the title and author of the submission as well as my reaction to the submission. I was looking for something on my computer yesterday, and I found the spreadsheets. For some reason (boredom), I decided to look over the spreadsheets. I started noticing trends in my reasons for rejecting submissions. I noticed that there are some very common mistakes that writers make that lead to rejection. (Or, at least, rejection from me.)

I decided to take a sample of about 250 rejected submissions and make a pie chart of my most common reasons for rejection. The submissions were a mixture of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Most of the submissions were rejected for multiple reasons, but I always put my biggest reason for rejection first in my notes. I only put my biggest reason on the chart.

Here is my (admittedly crappy and hard to read) pie chart of rejection.

Not Quite Ready – 1.07% - These are the submissions that were very good, but they weren’t quite as good as the accepted submissions. We couldn’t accept everything. Some good stories had to be rejected because they just weren’t quite right for us.

Lacking Emotion – .56% - The submission felt flat. I didn’t feel anything for the characters or their situation. Or, I didn’t feel anything while reading a poetry submission.

Boring – 6.54% - I read past the first 3-5 pages of a story, but then I got bored. The story felt long, meandering, or slow. It didn’t hold my attention.

Not Unique – 7.01% - I’ve read too many pieces (published or unpublished) that are similar to this one. There is nothing in this submission that is unusual or unexpected.

Poorly Written – 4.91% - I can tell that the author is a beginning writer or a non-English speaker. The piece is extremely unpolished and difficult to read.

Doesn’t Fit Submission Guidelines – 35.75% - You know how a lot of rejection letters say, “Your piece is not what we are looking for right now”? That’s this category. These submissions didn’t fit the theme of the anthology well enough for me. They just weren’t what we were looking for right now.

Too Simplistic – 1.87% - The author took complex human emotions; a complex situation; or a complex political, social, or environmental problem and oversimplified it.

Why Did I Read This? – 1.4% - When I read a submission, I want to feel like I got something out of reading it. I want to be entertained or enlightened. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to get out of reading these submissions.

Other – 4.91% - These rejections didn’t fit in any of the other categories. Many of the submissions in this category just didn’t match my personal taste. For example, I didn’t like an author’s choppy writing style, or a nonfiction piece was too informational and didn’t have enough of a narrative.

Predictable – .47% - Within the first few paragraphs, I knew exactly how the story was going to end. I always skipped ahead to see if I was correct. With these submissions, I was correct.

Nothing Happens – 18.22% - Nothing important happens within the first 3-5 pages of a story, or nothing happens at all in a poem.

Confusing – 14.72% - Something in the submission was confusing, unclear, or needed more explanation for me to fully understand or appreciate it.

Lacking Character Development – 2.57% - The characters were underdeveloped.

A Lesson In Being Realistic From “The Simpsons’”

First, we’ve just had our 1000^th hit on this blog. I know that some of those are referrer spam, but I’m excited anyway. Thank you for reading.

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One of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons’ is “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife.” In that episode, Homer buys an ambulance, and Marge meets an author named Esmé Delacroix during an author reading at a bookstore. While listening to the reading, Marge decides that she could write a romance novel, even though she’s never attempted to write one before. During the Q&A after the reading, Marge asks Esmé, “If I write a book, will they tell me when it comes out?” Esmé’s response is, “Well, they should.”

Marge missed one of the most difficult steps in the writing process: actually finding someone to publish your work.

For the last few years, I’ve been working as an editor for a literary journal and an anthology. One of the best things that learning to be an editor has taught me is how to be realistic about publishing. It can be insanely difficult to get your work published. I know that new writers hear this all the time, but I don’t think they fully grasp the meaning of “insanely difficult.”

Here’s an example. We finished editing our anthology a few months ago. The anthology received nearly 400 submissions from authors all over the world. Do you know how many of those submissions we’re publishing? Twenty-seven. That’s it. Twenty-seven out of nearly 400. It’s not because we only got twenty-seven good submissions. We received hundreds of good submissions, and we spent a lot of time discussing them before we decided which ones to accept and which ones to reject. We’re publishing those twenty-seven submissions because they’re well-written and represent the theme of the anthology. We had to reject a lot of great submissions because they just didn’t fit with the theme of the anthology.

Over the last few years, I’ve learned that getting your writing published is about talent and luck. Yes, you have to be a good writer, but you also have to find an editor/publisher/company/journal/anthology that’s publishing the kind of stuff that you write. The twenty-seven writers who will be published in our anthology are all extremely talented, but they were also lucky enough to stumble across the submission guidelines for an anthology that was looking for the kind of stuff that they write.

Many rejection letters contain some version of the phrase, “Thank you for submitting, but this piece isn’t what we’re looking for right now.” That’s not a lie or a platitude. Your piece really isn’t what they’re looking for right now. That’s where the “insanely difficult” comes in. It can be hard to know what they’re looking for, even if you’re familiar with the type of work that they publish. All you can really do is submit and hope that you get lucky.

In “Diatribe of a Mad Housewife,” Marge did get lucky. Her novel was published and sold a lot of copies, despite getting horrible reviews. Publishing in real life isn’t quite that simple.     

Editorial Philosophy

This was originally a school assignment, but I found it interesting because I’ve never thought about my personal editorial philosophy before.  It helped me understand my reactions to certain pieces of literature.  I thought that it might also be interesting to authors, so I’m posting it here.  I know that I’m not the only person who has these opinions.

 

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There are many elements that I look for when determining whether or not a story should be published.  The first is imagery, which seems simple because most stories should have it, but I’m the type of person who thinks in pictures and whose senses are closely tied to memory.  When I look at the hundreds of books on my shelves, in my drawers, and spilling out of my closet, I often don’t remember the names and backstories of the characters.  Sometimes, I don’t even remember the book’s plot.  What I do remember is the imagery, and when I think about the story months or years after reading it, the imagery is always the first thing that comes back to me.  I can take a book off my shelf and say, “This novel has a scene of a mother and daughter walking in a river,” or “This literary magazine has a story where a man puts wood carvings of people on his fireplace mantel.”  I want stories that have strong imagery because those are the ones that I remember and want to read over and over.

 
Since I enjoy reading a piece many times, I look for writing that will hold up to multiple readings without becoming uninteresting.  I like stories with layers.  I love to read a story a second or third time and see things that I missed the first time. 

 
I want to read about characters with intricate pasts, complex motives, believable desires, and psychological depth.  I prefer main characters who are active, not just reactive, and definitely not just victims.  I like characters who take control of their lives and make the events in the plot happen.  I don’t want to see them only reacting to events that were created by circumstance or by less-important characters.  Some reaction is fine, of course, but I also want to see the character doing/creating/causing something.  I get annoyed by characters who are victims and nothing else.  If a character is being bullied or targeted by bad guys, there has to be a good reason.  I want to see the character do something to change the situation and not just mope around feeling sorry for himself/herself.

 
I enjoy reading many different types of stories, but I most often find myself being drawn to stories that are quirky and unpredictable.  I have heard people say, “There’s no such thing as an original idea,” and maybe that’s true, but I definitely think that there are original combinations of ideas.  I love it when I read a story and see some combination that I’ve never seen before or think about something familiar in an entirely new way.  I want stories that entertain me as well as make me think and keep me guessing.  I have very little tolerance for predictability.  It’s disappointing to guess the end of a story, flip to the last page, and discover that I’m correct.

 
I look for stories that make me feel something.  I’m always happy when some element in the first few pages of a story makes me sit up and pay attention.  I want plots that make me so curious that I can’t put the story down until I find out what happens next.  I want to feel the tension that comes from reading faster and faster until I find out what happens.  I also want characters that I can care about.  The characters don’t have to be likeable or be good people, but they have to be intriguing enough that I care about what happens to them.  The best stories are the ones where I care about the characters so much that I’m anxious when they’re in trouble, and I’m happy when they achieve their goals.  I have read so many stories that involve breakups and makeups, death and destruction, plans thwarted and battles won that I sometimes feel as if I’ve become emotionally numb to those types of stories.  I always appreciate it when an author gets me invested enough in the plot and characters that the story’s events have an emotional impact on me.  

 
I don’t have as much experience with poetry as I do with novels and short stories, but I’m most drawn to poems that play with language and sound beautiful when read out loud.  I also like poems that are able to say a lot with very few words and have strong imagery.

 
I prefer nonfiction that has a narrative and is both entertaining and educational.  I want to learn something without feeling as if I’m learning something.  I’ve never enjoyed reading a textbook.

 
I have a love/hate relationship with memoirs because there are so many poorly-written ones out there.  It seems as if anyone who is slightly famous or had something slightly interesting happen to them publishes a memoir, even if they’ve never written anything before in their life.  I dislike memoirs that are self-indulgent.  I’m reading the book because I want to hear a good story, not because I want to hear about the awesomeness of the author.  I enjoy memoirs that skip some of the “I,” “I,” “I,” “Me,” “Me,” “Me,” and focus on being entertaining and educational.

 
That’s my editorial philosophy as of right now.  It will probably change in the future.  Thanks for reading it.  

 

Crappy Editing Solves/Ruins/Creates Mysteries

If your bookshelves are anything like mine, almost all of your books come from one of five large publishing companies.  However, there are thousands of publishing companies out there.  I wanted to know what kinds of books the smaller companies are publishing.  I bought a book published by a small company.  It was horrible.  It was possibly the most disappointing book I’ve ever read.  I know that small publishers are capable of producing quality books, but this book was just bad.  It made me feel sad for the author because it’s the publishing company’s job to not publish something until it’s ready.  This book was not ready.

 

Here’s what happens in the book:

A wealthy business owner’s son goes missing and is assumed to have been kidnapped.  Two detectives are hired by two different people to find the son.  The detectives don’t know that they’ve been hired to work on the same case until they meet in a bar and start talking about their cases.  One of the detectives says something like, “I know what happened right before the business owner’s son died.”  The other detective doesn’t react to the news that they guy who they’re both looking for is dead.  They just end their conversation, go their separate ways, and continue looking for the missing son.  Nothing else is said about the son being dead.

I spent about two-thirds of the book being massively confused and rereading to figure out why I was massively confused.  Why were the detectives still treating this case like a missing person case if they knew that the son was dead?

Then, at the end of the book, the detectives find the son’s body and don’t seem surprised that he’s dead, but the way that the dead-body-discovery scene is written feels as if the death is meant to surprise the reader.  It wasn’t a surprise to me because the detective said that the son was dead two-hundred pages ago.

I’m still confused.  I have a feeling that the author changed some scenes, and the dialogue about the son’s death wasn’t supposed to be in the published version of the book.  I can’t come up with another reason why the detectives would continue looking for someone who they knew was dead.  It would also explain why one detective didn’t react when the other detective said that the son was dead.  The mistake led to me being confused for the majority of the book.  If I didn’t have a compulsive need to finish every book that I start reading, I would have put this one down and not picked it up again.

This is why good editing is so important.  One misplaced line ruined an entire book.  (Well, one misplaced line and about eighty distracting typos ruined an entire book).  So, edit carefully.