Tallander's Apprentice is my first published novel. More?

Brian Phillips Online

Ever wonder what it’s like on the other side of the publisher’s desk? This is an article I wrote that tries to tell you exactly that, drawing on my experience as a copy editor and competition judge. It’s not an instant writing fix, but hopefully it’ll answer some of those questions you’ve been dying to know.

SUBMITTING SHORT STORIES TO COMPETITIONS AND MAGAZINES

How does a person break into publication? How do they win competitions? What do they have to write? Is there some trick that they know? Or is it simply Who You Know?

These are the questions I wanted answered when I was starting to write. They’re also the questions others seem to want answered. Now, I can answer some of them without any problem. Firstly, no, it’s not who you know. If the story is good enough, it will win the competition, and it will get published. Secondly, there’s no trick. It’s all about writing as well as you can, and telling the best possible story. And thirdly, there’s no set rule about what you have to write. Other than that, there aren’t any easy answers. The judge or editor will simply choose what he or she likes, and discard the rest.

Having said that, the process of getting published is a long way from being a lottery. There are certain rules that those who win, get published, edit and judge all know – rules that those who fail to make the grade haven’t quite figured out. I’ve tried to give an idea of these rules in the pages that follow. I’ve tried to make them as complete as possible, but like everyone else, I’m still learning. No doubt I’ve missed a few things. In time, as I figure more out, maybe I’ll make these notes more complete. But for now, they’re the best I can do.

In essence, the sorting process goes something like this: when reading your story, editors and judges have only one thought in mind. They’re trying to sift through a mountain of dirt for a hint of gold, so, simply expressed, their thought is, “What’s wrong with this story? How can I justify biffing it and moving on to the next?” Therefore, your job is to make your story as difficult as you possibly can to biff.

Easy stuff

Firstly, it may sound a bit simplistic, but if you’re going to enter a competition or submit a story to a magazine, read the rules. It’s no use submitting a 4000 word short story to a competition with a maximum of 1500 words allowed. It’s also a waste of time (and entry fee money) sending poetry or a play to a short story competition. Also, check the genre; if the magazine specializes in literary fiction, there’s not much point sending them a sci-fi short story, a children’s story, a light romance or any of a dozen or so other genres. If you’re unsure, check. Most magazines publish their submission guidelines, as do the competitions. If your story doesn’t fit, don’t send it and hope. Just find a more suitable market.

Presentation

Stick to the basics. Most books on writing have a chapter on presentation. Some of them give information that’s out of date or simply not correct, but most are pretty good. If you’re unsure, here are the rules that the professionals follow: 

• Use ordinary white A4 paper. 
• Use Times New Roman font, twelve point, double spaced, on one side of the page only. 
• Do not use italics unless absolutely necessary, and even then keep them to a minimum. 
• Do not use any fancy font (the ones that look like handwriting) under any circumstances. 
• There is no need to put ‘more follows’, ‘mf’, ‘cont.’, or even ‘ends’ at the bottom of the page – the people who will read your story don’t like to be treated like idiots. (The rules for submitting poetry may differ on this point.) 
• Do not leave a space between paragraphs, because it interferes with the flow of your story. Simply indent. 
• Leave the right hand margin unjustified. 
• If you want to leave a gap between scenes, it’s a good idea to put a single hash (#) in the middle of the gap, because if the gap occurs at the bottom of a page, it’s sometimes difficult to spot. 
• The best place for page numbers is in the upper right corner. 
• There is no need for a cover-page – simply centre the title at the top of your story and, preferably, include it at the top right (beside the page number) of every subsequent page. Use Times New Roman, 12 point, just like the rest of your story. 
• When submitting entries to competitions, your name generally must not appear anywhere on your manuscript. When submitting stories to magazines, include your name beneath the title. 
• Do not staple – use a paper-clip instead. 
• Do not include a copyright statement (e.g. Jo Bloggs 2003) – your rights are already protected by law. 
• An acceptable alternative when submitting to magazines (especially overseas) is to include your contact details at the top left of the first page. You can include a word count beneath the title when submitting to competitions.

Break these rules at your own peril. Those who judge competitions or select for magazines will inevitably have hundreds of stories they have to read. If they find one which doesn’t follow these rules, that story will immediately be labelled ‘unprofessional’ (even before the first word has been read) and will find itself on the bottom of the pile. It might even be returned without being read.

(And for those who haven’t noticed, yes, I am assuming that everyone has access to a computer and a printer. This is because professional writers all use computers. If you don’t have a computer, get one. Consider it an industry standard.)

First cut: what separates the really bad

Most people who submit stories appear to have at least some idea about what they’re doing. However, there will always be those that are so bad that only the first couple of paragraphs will be read. What makes them so bad? Well, a general rule with writing is to Keep It Simple. Never use a big word where a smaller one will work just as well. Start a sentence with a single point in mind, and end it when that point has been clearly expressed. And paragraphs comprise groups of sentences that share a common goal – and, like sentences, when that goal has been achieved (e.g. to completely describe some characteristic, place, idea or whatever), the paragraph ends.

Unfortunately, there are people who don’t seem to be able to think of writing in these terms. They can only think of Writing (with the capital letter), and as such feel the need to liberally sprinkle their work with polysyllabic (and inappropriate) words as well as tangling their sentences up so badly that they lose all meaning. They appear to want to impress with their command of the language rather than to tell a story, and all they end up doing is showing how much of a mess they can make. And if they tangle sentences up that badly, guess what they do to the paragraphs?

To put it another way: infinitely complex ideas can be clearly expressed using the simplest of sentences, but infinitely complex sentences can make understanding the simplest of ideas impossible. And if it’s that hard to understand, do you really expect editors or judges to have the time or patience to make the effort?

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got nothing against sentences with more than one clause. I’ve also got nothing against metaphors or similes, when they add to the clarity. All I’m saying is that if you’re in doubt, write it as simply as you can and move on.

One final word on this topic: I’ve yet to see the word processing program that doesn’t have a spelling and grammar checker. Use it. It won’t catch everything (and in some cases will actually give incorrect advice), but it’ll solve more problems than you think and is a good place to start.

Second cut

So, we’ve sorted out all those who don’t have a clue. The stories that are left are at least readable. But that doesn’t mean they’re any good. It doesn’t even mean that they qualify as ‘stories’. Many are simply reminiscences or recollections. Now, it’s quite possible to use such recollections as the basis for very good stories, and many experienced writers do exactly that. However, inexperienced writers appear to want to tell it exactly as they remember it.

There are several problems with this approach. I’ve listed those problems below.

1. As indicated above, an incident in a person’s history seldom has the form of a story. A story has a definable beginning, a middle, and builds up to an end. A memory will generally need a fair degree of pruning and tweaking before it even comes close. 
2. Inexperienced writers will inevitably use first person point of view when recounting an actual event. They will do so without any regard to characterisation, perhaps assuming that their individual voice is all the characterisation the story will need. Unfortunately, their individual voice is generally so neutral that the reader can be half-way down the final page before finding out what gender ‘I’ happens to be. (An easy fix for this is to use third person instead, and choose a name different from your own. Perhaps swap genders and invent an odd but salient characteristic. In no time, you’ll have slipped out of memoir right back into fiction.) 
3. Reminiscence-style stories often fall into the trap of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’. The difference between the two isn’t well understood – I’ve known teachers of creative writing who don’t understand it. But it’s uniformly fatal to a story. The rule is to show the reader who the character is, what their motivation is, how they’re feeling etc. through their actions instead of simply telling the reader. To give an example: ‘Mike was a bastard’ (telling) vs. ‘Mike looked at her and curled his lip into a snarl. He spat on the carpet, kicked the cat, farted loudly and said, “Hey, bitch, you look like a pig. Why don’t you just piss off and don’t come back until you lose 50 pounds”’ (showing). In both cases, you get the idea that Mike isn’t a very nice guy. But in the second case, you have to figure it out all by yourself. This makes it a much more powerful impression. It sticks in your head more easily. And, while I’ll admit that it’s a bit over the top, it’s much more interesting to read.

Characterisation is only one of many things that you have to show rather than tell. You have to do exactly the same if you’re creating a mood, changing the time-frame (e.g. 1960s) or even inventing a new kind of technology. Nobody wants to be lectured about where or when your story is set. They want to find it out for themselves.

Finally, setting a scene isn’t classed as telling. For example, ‘There’s a pine-tree near the top of the hills. Its trunk is gnarled through years of standing against the wind, its branches scanty and twisted. Close to the ground, it’s massive enough to suggest a fine age, with bark thick and deeply channelled. Yet it quickly tapers and will never be tall.’ Sounds like telling, but it’s really just describing things that the character sees. Which distinction (description vs. telling) is also important.

(Telling isn’t limited to reminiscence style stories; it rears its ugly head all over the place. It’s just more prevalent here.)

Third cut

The submissions or entries that now remain are not only readable, but they also can be classified as legitimate stories. We’ve finished separating the good from the bad; now we have to separate the good from the not so good. What makes a story not so good? One word: inconsistency. There are other things as well (beginnings or endings which don’t work, bad titles, ‘surprise’ endings, cliched ideas, cardboard characters), and I’ll get to those later. But let’s deal with inconsistency first. What do I mean by inconsistency? I mean, for example, starting a story in first person and swapping (without any reason) into third. But it isn’t just point of view that can be inconsistent. Characters can start out short and fat and by the end of the story they’re tall and lean. Stories can begin in present tense, can swap into past and back again. A sad story might suddenly become happy for half a paragraph, then plunge again into gloom. A house might start off as a single story cottage and morph into a multi-level apartment.

Now, I’m not arguing against the concept of change; change, in my view, is a necessary component of story. What I don’t like to see are mindless changes, changes which the author might well be unaware of, changes which have no value in the context of the story. The simple rule is ‘keep everything consistent’. Decide how you want to present your story before you start, decide who your characters are, decide where it’s set and stick to it. (An aside – you will inevitably find that your characters change and grow as you write. If they do so as a result of whatever is happening in your story, that’s fine. More than fine – it’s great. But if you find half-way through that your character needs to be blind, you have to go back through everything you’ve written up to that point and re-write all the bits in which he/she can see.)

Let’s talk about titles. Not because titles have a huge influence on the judge’s impression of the story as a whole, but because they seem to be symptomatic; if the title smells, the rest of the story likely will as well, and for much the same reason.

It’s obvious that many people who write have got no idea how to come up with a decent title. It’s amazing how many people simply steal a title from something else. They call their stories ‘Great Expectations’ or suchlike, possibly with the idea that, hey, it’s a good title, isn’t it? The answer is that it was a good title. But it’s almost never going to work as the title for something else. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the title is so deeply associated with the original that your story has got to be truly magnificent to usurp that association. The second reason is that these borrowed titles almost never have anything to do with the story they should be trying to describe.

So, how do you come up with a title? Easy. What’s your story about? Answer this question, and you have a serviceable title. It helps if your story has at least a couple of layers, because your choice of title can reflect this as well. Oh, and keep it short. Almost invariably, a short title will work much better than a long one. For example, if your story describes an old man crushing empty cans but is really about the emptiness of his life, then calling your story, ‘An old man and some cans’ would be, well, okay. Not good, perhaps, but better than, ‘Great Expectations’. Better would be, ‘Cans’. Best of all would be, ‘Empties’, because that’s what the story is about on both levels (empty cans, empty life).

Unfortunately, some people can never quite figure out what their story is about, perhaps because their stories aren’t actually about anything. Here’s an idea. If you finish a story and don’t really know what it’s about, then put it aside for a few weeks, come back to it and read it through. It’s possible that your story will be unfocussed. Figure out what it’s mostly trying to say and edit all the extraneous bits out. Then come up with a title based on whatever’s left.

Let’s talk about beginnings. The best stories start in such a way that they lead inevitably to the end. This might not be the easiest idea to understand, but perhaps it will come clear if we look at it from another angle. A lot of people sort of waffle on a bit at the start, working their way into the story. Most of these stories can be improved by simply deleting the first paragraph or two – because nothing that matters is said in these two paragraphs. Consider the beginning, ‘The old man loosens the draw-string at one end of the sack.’ Immediately, we’re introduced to what we must assume (rightly) is the main character, we know he’s an old man and we know what he’s doing. Given that the title of the story is, ‘Empties’, we might even be able to assume that the sack contains a bunch of empty cans – and we’d be right. As you can see, the story starts right there. There aren’t any wasted words. And, in terms of where the story goes, it ends when the old man is just about to finish flattening those very cans.

The middle parts of the story can be troublesome as well. Here’s another simple rule: follow the path you set up at the start without any deviations. Don’t introduce any characters or props that aren’t necessary to the telling of the story (a great quote from Chekov reads, ‘If there is a nail on the wall in the first scene, the central character must hang himself on it at the end.’), and don’t even think about how many words you need to write. Simply follow that path all the way to the end.

And while we’re talking about endings, the end has to be as natural as the rest of the story. Don’t force it. Don’t try to wrap it up with a clever little sentence, because that clever little sentence will doubtless be out of keeping with the rest of it – and, as with wordy openings, will better serve the story if it isn’t there.

A word about trick endings: if you ever want to end your story with a trick, go right ahead. And once you’ve finished it, throw it away. Do not send it to any competition, or any magazine. The judges and editors have seen it all before and they aren’t impressed. This especially applies to stories where the stalker character is actually the girl’s father or boyfriend or husband and to those stories where the character telling the tale is a cat or dog or spider or tree or whatever. It’s been done. It’s been done badly. It’s a cliche. It doesn’t need to be done again.

Cardboard characters and cliches. Another simple rule: if you’ve ever seen it done before, do something else. You can’t re-write someone else’s story. You can’t use their characters. You can’t even use their ideas. Come up with your own. Start with the characters. Instead of trying to write about a ‘type’ of person, write about someone specific. Think about someone you know and change bits of them. By the time you get around to thinking about the story, you’ll have to change it as well because your character simply wouldn’t react the same way.

Final cut: how to make your story sing

By now, all that remain are solid, competent stories. Perhaps two or three dozen of them out of five hundred submissions (no, I’m not joking – this seems to be the ratio). Unfortunately, in competitions there is only one winner, and there is always a limited amount of space in any magazine. Maybe enough for half a dozen stories, but no more than that. This means that the merely competent aren’t good enough. The judge and editors are now looking for something special.

What makes a story special? Another simple answer. As well as doing everything else as good as anybody else, you have to do something that none of them are doing. The best way to do this is with truly original characters. Old men populate many short stories, but what if, instead of having your old man contemplate loneliness or his coming death, your old man scrapes along by crushing aluminium cans? What if his daughter is a glue-addict? These original characters aren’t going to have the same stories to tell as everybody else; their stories, therefore, are likely to say something new. Something no judge or editor has ever seen. And that unique insight is exactly what they’re looking for.

Other stories work because they’re told in an experimental way, or have an odd tone that perfectly complements the story they’re trying to tell. Whatever they have, it’s not accidental. The author knows exactly what he/she is doing – it comes across in the writing. And the judges and editors know this as well.

There’s one final thing to say. Even if you follow all these rules, there aren’t any guarantees. All you can do is make it as hard as possible for a judge or editor to discard your story. But when it comes to that all important final cut, you’re competing with others who’ve done just as well. The difference, therefore, between first place and fourth is often a matter of taste. All you can do is keep writing and keep sending your stories away. If they are as good as they can be, sooner or later chance will tip her hat in your favour (if I can mangle a metaphor that badly), and your story will either win or get published.

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I live and work in New Zealand, which is on the opposite side of the world from just about everywhere else. More?