With all the chaos of the past couple of weeks I’ve neglected to blog about the wonderful new issue of Open Wide Magazine. Why am I mentioning it? Because some weeks ago I became their new Fiction Editor. This has been a great pleasure for me – I get to read sixty or so submitted manuscripts and then choose from them around ten or eleven which I then put forward to the editorial team who make their final decision of five or six to appear in the next issue.
Easy!
Sort of….It’s great for me to be able to read a huge variety of writing and not have to mark it. There are some frustrations about being the Fiction Editor though because I want to find great writing and put it forward for publication. So why do I turn down nine out of ten submissions?
1. You haven’t followed the submission guidelines.
We ask that submissions are in a Word document, set in Courier, text size 12 and double-spaced. These aren’t unusual requirements – universities as well as publishers expect manuscripts to be text size 12 and double-spaced. Why? Because it makes your piece easy to read. We like Courier, other magazines and journals like other fonts. All a matter of taste but again done for a good reason – all the submissions look the same and I can concentrate on the writing.
2. You haven’t followed the submission guidelines.
Sorry, but this is such an important one that it needs to be repeated. When I received my first stack of manuscripts I started off really well – I gave each and every one equal attention. Then I realised that if I read the ones where the writer hasn’t cared enough to follow the submission guidelines for our magazine then I’m giving them my time over all those other writers who have cared. And I want to publish writers who care enough about their own writing because I care about theirs.
3. You haven’t looked at our magazine.
Now, we are interested in good writing – we’re the same as any other literary magazine in that respect. We look at any genre – this issue has some Sci-Fi in it alongside more traditional literary fiction. However, if you look at our previous issues you’ll find that we don’t tend to publish work that has content drawing upon themes of explicit violence or sex. Again, this is fairly standard stuff for literary magazines. There are magazines out there who do actively look for these types of writing. I would suggest to any writer that they read the magazines they wish to submit to – is it the sort of place you want your work to appear? Would your work look out of place here?
Okay, so you’ve checked out the magazine and you like what’s written there. You’ve read the submission guidelines and you’ve formatted your piece accordingly. Great, you’re halfway there – I’ll definitely be reading your writing. Now why am I likely to turn it down? This is where it begins to get to the very heart of your writing and what makes a good short story…..And that’s where I’ll leave this post for today.
For now I’d just suggest you go and read issue twenty-two of Open Wide Magazine and do let me know what you think!
Technorati Tags: publishing,magazines,literary fiction,writing,submitting writing,open wide magazine
1 comment:
Yes, you always see people who do things without following laid down guideline. When you see their work, you just wonder what they were thinking. Yeah, it happens :)
Post a Comment