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Some Suggestions for Avoiding Rejection...of your story

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Rumple_deWriter
Story Moderator
If you want to see your story published on its first submission, here are some tips:

Read the site guidelines to make sure your story is compliant.

Do not depend on spell check to edit your story. Read it carefully to check your spelling because spell check will allow misspellings that are words, often with hilarious results, e.g. I put my arms around her waste.

Format your story into paragraphs of about four sentences or where the narrative should logically break. All dialogue should be formatted into separate paragraphs each time someone speaks. A mass of prose with few or no paragraph breaks will be returned to you.

Read your story paying attention to where you pause. There should be a comma there if it is a phrase or a full stop if it is a complete thought.

Read the Writer's Resources about the use of apostrophes if you are not sure. They are not used to form plurals unless to signify possession for a plural. They are used either for contractions or to signify possession. Read the resources for other punctuation marks to know that you are using them correctly.

Do not overuse exclamation marks. They lose their power if used in every other sentence.

Check your verb tense throughout your story to be sure it is consistent. Many submissions have tense shifts from past to present and back again.

Take a look at the proper form for punctuation, formatting, and capital/lower case letters for dialogue in published stories and follow that example in your story.

Do not use text speak/emoticons in your story or short forms like &, or ok, or lbs. Use the entire words.

Express all numbers in your story as words unless they refer to measurements or the time of day. Remember the hyphens for age, e.g. 18-year-old. Numbers may never start a sentence or paragraph, whatever they describe. In these cases they should always be expressed as words.

Your title should not be formatted in all caps and should not include text speak or emoticons. Do not repeat the title in the body of your story. Notes to the reader should be at the end of your story.

Please do not expect that you can spend an hour putting your thoughts in writing and that it will be published.
That could happen, but probably won't

Walk away from your story for a few hours, or as long as a day. When you keep rereading your story, you see what should be there because you know what you have written. Time and distance will give you the perspective to see your mistakes.

Take the time to read the resources available on all aspects of writing in the writers' forum. They will help you polish your work and allow it to be published more quickly.

Read some of the Editors' Picks (EP) and Recommended Reads (RR) stories to get an idea of the standard 'Stories Space' is looking for.

note: copied and edited from a longer post on the LUSH, 'Resources Forum' by, principessa
Unknown User
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. – Mark Twain

As an editor of Trust my paper I would like to add that the grammar issue is also widely spread. Most people tend to think that hey, it's an editor's job to fix mistakes, when in reality an editor helps with the best composition and sentence structure to best explain the point. You should aim to correct 99% of all grammar and spelling errors. I won’t say 100%, because that would mean the book never gets released while you go over it again and again looking for that one typo or misused word. Catching almost all of the mistakes is enough so long as you are diligent about spelling on the pages that matter the most. Those pages being the cover, the blurb, and the front matter. Any piece of the book a customer will see while looking online at your work.
elizabethblack
Active Ink Slinger
What an excellent thread.........glad this gentleman revived it by commenting.
Rumple_deWriter
Story Moderator
Ms Elizabeth, your are correct, as usual, about that post by, Youbeient.

The lady who left the original post on my FB page, Celina Summers, an oft-published fantasy writer, and editor, left another one today I'm gonna share.

"For some reason, it's far easier for me to self-edit right AFTER I edit someone else's work. That seems to be the only way I spot unnecessary adverbs, for example. Sure--in first draft form, "eased slowly" or "sipped carefully" makes sense. But in final form, the adverb is implied in the stronger verb choice, which renders the adverb unnecessary.

Evidently, I need more clients."
Unknown User
Just a thought.

I use Word for all my writing. I use the spell check on Word first to find simple mistakes, and then I started using Grammarly to help with watching the tense issues as well as watching for passive voice since I was horrible at that.

I also then use the Word read aloud option to hear it in a different voice. I put my headphones in and close my eyes to listen to the story.

It seems to have worked ok for me. It is making my writing better, I think anyway.
AnnaMayZing
Chasing Dragons
Good advice, Jim.



"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Unknown User
My pennyworth of advice would be to avoid the temptation to publish work as soon as you finish the final edit. Sit on it overnight and read it again the next day before posting. It's amazing how many mistakes jump out at you when you read with fresh eyes.
Survivor
Primus Omnium
I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure you do not misspell a word in the title of your story or poem. Please, please. This is so important. I just sent a message to a poet on another site whose poem had the word "something" in it, but it was spelled "somthing." Helen's great advice above would have probably helped to avoid this kind of error along with tons of others.
elizabethblack
Active Ink Slinger
This will help me immensely if I can ever get myself together to attempt writing. I have ideas and then I get too busy to try and form the story. But this is a great resource.
.
AnnaMayZing
Chasing Dragons
Start Writing, Elizabeth. Your story will never happen until you type/write those first words. You will be surprised what flows as soon as you begin and once you do, you won't be able to stop until it's finished.
An Idea will become nothing without those first tentative words.



"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
AnnaMayZing
Chasing Dragons
Quote by Jimwillhavefun
Just a thought.

I use Word for all my writing. I use the spell check on Word first to find simple mistakes, and then I started using Grammarly to help with watching the tense issues as well as watching for passive voice since I was horrible at that.

I also then use the Word read aloud option to hear it in a different voice. I put my headphones in and close my eyes to listen to the story.

It seems to have worked ok for me. It is making my writing better, I think anyway.


I have taken Jim's advice and now use a text to speech app. It is amazing how typo's jump out at you when you are hearing what you have written. Better still, it is easier to spot when something you have written would sound better if put differently.

There are several free apps in the store. Try one, I highly recommend it.

Thanks Jim!



"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Guest
Lurker
“Format your story into paragraphs of about four sentences or where the narrative should logically break.”

Let's not forget that Ulysses contains a single sentence of 3,687 words. If it's good enough for James Joyce....
Mendalla
Crazy old ape
Quote by BillySoho
“Format your story into paragraphs of about four sentences or where the narrative should logically break.”

Let's not forget that Ulysses contains a single sentence of 3,687 words. If it's good enough for James Joyce....


Most writers, in fact very few writers, are James Joyce. And, frankly, Ulysses is not exactly the most readable of works even before you get to that part. It is one of those books that it is of more interest to academics than readers. I got about halfway and then switched back to The Dubliners, which is a far more readable work.

And that is likely why very few writers, even ones capable of it, have emulated Joyce's feat. It is revered as a linguistic exercise moreso than as great storytelling. Story is about character and plot, not verbal gymnastics.

And Joyce worked very hard to make that work. He didn't just blast a bunch of words on to a page and fart that out as a novel. It took something like 8 years to write and the idea goes back even further.

All of which is to say that beginning writers are fooling themselves if they think they can start with Ulysses. Start with a collection of great short stories and see how those people write. Read a great modern writer like Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood to see how they write. Those people know how to tell a story. Then, once you have mastered the basics of storytelling, you can start with the verbal gymnastics.

Can she find the silence again?

Scream Away The Silence - The Sound of Silence comp entry