Patt O’Neil: The Submission Process For a Short Story or What I Wish Someone Had Taught Me (Part Four)

Part Four:

Okay, am I ready to send this story to the publisher?

Almost. Trust me, it will be worth it. Go back over the submission guidelines to see if the publisher has mentioned how they want the actual story to be presented. If it does not give any direction, then your story should be submitted using the Shuun format. The Shuun format is a directive about margins, fonts, font sizes, spacing, headers, and title page layout. If you have written your story using this method, you have no problems. If you haven’t, check online for some direction (either Google or YouTube) and re-format you story. If they do give directions, follow them as closely as possible. Sometimes publishers request that your document not have paragraph indents, or be presented in single spacing. Some may even ask that all reference to the author be removed from the story. This is usually done when the story goes before a panel for blind judging. The anonymity allows for the work to stand for itself, which is why it is important to put so much other information in the submission letter–it may be your only way to influence the editor/publisher.

This really seems like work; the story didn’t take this long to write.

You’re right, it is a lot of work, but you must remember the publisher has the advantage over the writer. Unless they are looking for the work of a specific contributor, they really do not care who you are when your story comes in. It sounds heartless, but this is a business and time is money, so you had better give them something worth their time.

You have a story (universally formatted), a head shot, an author’s bio, and a submission letter, so let’s do this. WAIT, it is worth one more look, almost like a checklist. Go back to the submission guidelines, and yes, yes, yes… you’re ready. But this publisher wants you to submit on their website, now what do you do? You fill out their information boxes, cut and paste your letter into the appropriate space and either do the same for your story, or attach the file. Remember, when you cut and paste any document, go back over it to make sure your paragraph breaks are there. If not, re-install them to make the best presentation, showing emphasis to detail.

Okay, that’s it, there’s nothing more you can add, so you take a deep breath and hit the Send button. Be proud, you are one step closer than before to becoming a published author.

 

Now what?

You wait, but not for long. If the publisher is of note, you will probably get an automated email stating receipt of your story and giving direction to contact them if you do not hear their decision about your story. If this email doesn’t come within 48 hours, send them an email and ask if they received your story or if you should send it again.

You should have four objects in your possession when this process is over: your story, your picture, your biography, and your original copy of your submission letter. Good, you want to keep all of them available for the next time you submit a story for consideration. If it’s the same story, use can use the same letter MAKING SURE to change the date, name of publication, etc., to save yourself unnecessary embarrassment. If you are submitting a different story, you already have the components, just retool the letter for the new story. If you get poor results after several submissions, try retooling your letter. If you still have nothing, try retooling your story.

If you get a rejection letter, don’t feel bad. There are only a certain number of spots in any roster, just try another team. I like to think of these as not being rejected, but this publisher has declined to use my story now, which is a roundabout way of saying “thanks, but no thanks.” In fact, I have never received a letter with the word reject in it. If you do, that is not a publisher of worth. Sometimes, they will take the time to make positive comments or suggestions about how to improve your story. When you receive this type of letter, my advice is to send a polite response acknowledging their decision. Remember this is a business and you are a professional–leave them with a good opinion of you as someone positive to work with. It may help the next time you send them a story.

If you get a letter of acceptance, congratulations! Look forward to them sending you a contract and working with their editor to make your story fit their mold… but that is another topic for another day. Have fun, and welcome to this wonderful world as a professional writer. I hope this hasn’t been too confusing, nor disheartening. It really does get easier as you go.

(November 2017 All rights reserved)

Patt O’Neil: The Submission Process For a Short Story or What I Wish Someone Had Taught Me (Part Three)

 

Part Three:

How do you get your story to the publisher and impress them to read it?

Yes, the question said, impress them. Shouldn’t your story alone be the deciding factor? Well, yes, that is the deciding factor for whether it should be included in their publication, but, they are receiving so many submissions, you must impress them to take their time to read yours over someone else’s. That can be done several ways with the submission letter, an author bio (biography), or just by properly jumping through all the submission hoops established by the publisher. This last could possibly include a restriction of who may submit: first-time, female authors from Canada with red hair. Yeah, that last part is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

Submission letters are probably the most important part of the process; remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Publishing, on any level, is first and foremost a business, and the personnel involved in content selection should be respected as professional business men/women. Your letter (email) should be business like, date at the top, name, business, address, and who it is being sent to above the Dear XXX. Yes, I know we are doing this electronically, so this information will already be on the email heading, BUT making the extra effort will catch the eye of the reader and give you a better chance of moving on in the process. If you don’t know who will be reading this in order to put their name or exactly where this internet site originates, no problem. Using our example you want:

Date

 

Editor

A1 Publication

Dear Madam/Sir:

 

Notice it says “Madam/Sir”; this is politically correct as well as professional and when in doubt, alphabetize.

The first sentence of your first paragraph should NOT be a question; no What if or Did you ever… Your first sentence must be a strong statement about your story that will entice the reader to continue reading to see if you validate your point. Example:

The relationships we have when we are children are meaningful and help to shape the adults we will become. None of these is more meaningful than the relationship we have with our beloved pets.

The reader cannot argue with this statement and in fact, if he/she wants to find out why you feel this way, he/she needs to keep reading your letter. This is a good place to practice your elevator pitch. The elevator pitch is a synopsis of your story that you have prepared to present just in case you ever find yourself on an elevator with the person who can make the decision about your story. You can either ride up in silence or you can make conversation with a captive audience. Your pitch must be short and to the point, while remaining interesting, because you only have the time between the doors closing and opening to speak.

Continue your letter by telling how your original story, (insert name), goes on to explain/explore/entertain (whatever) your first statement. Be sure to include the word count, rounded up to the next fiftieth; this is usually a requirement of the publisher that it be mentioned in the body of the letter, and/or maybe in the subject line of the email itself. If your work has been published before, be sure to mention it here and cite the publication. Notice in the example below that I have also included a comment about a pen name. This is not necessary if you submit it under your regular name, but should be mentioned if you don’t.

Attached is Conversations with Bingo, an original short story written under my pen name, Somebody Else. It is about 2,100 words long. The story tells of the ten-year relationship between a boy and his beloved dog. Throughout good times and bad, his faithful companion was always there as his sounding wall to hear comments about his hopes and dreams, fears and delights, and disappointments and joys.

If the publisher has requested any special requirements for submission, like the ones mentioned above, now would be a good time to list them.

I am currently an unpublished author, but I believe my story would fit well with your publication. I have resided in Toronto for six years, and am a member of the Women of Fire Hair Club (yeah, cheesy, but you get the idea).

If you have received writing awards of note, or have had work published elsewhere, make note of that, being sure to cite where your work can be found so they can look you up for comparison if need be. If in their submission guidelines they ask for a head shot, it should be mentioned here that it has been attached to the email. If they ask for an author’s bio, you can mention that it is either attached as well or may be found below the signature line on this email.

Author head shots are used by the publisher for identification and promotion purposes. You do not have to run to a professional photographer for just one photograph—yet. This picture should be clear, sharp, and a good representation of your personality. It should be submitted in JPEG format for ease of duplication. Eventually you may want to get that studio shot for the back cover of your novel, but that is way down the road. If the publisher does not require a head shot in their submission guide, you can always just mention that one is available upon request in the body of the letter.

Your author’s bio should be written in third-person narrative. It can be difficult to speak of yourself as someone else, but think of what you would want a trusted friend to write. It should be no more than 100 words as a courtesy to the publisher. It can speak about your background, your family, your interest in writing, and maybe address something about your personality. If you are an established author, here is where you mention that and any awards you might have received. This blurb, like the head shots, will be used by the publisher as well, and should constantly be refined as your career advances and you evolve as a writer. Your first version may seem awkward when compared to your tenth, but eventually you will find the words to best represent your professional persona.

Finally, your letter should thank them for this opportunity and close with a comment about how you look forward to hearing from them and a positive comment about how they will enjoy your story. Sign it “Sincerely” (or something similar), with the name you want to be on your contract, along with all your contact information (address, phone, email, website, etc.). Let me state that again–the name you want to be on your contract! If you have a pen-name, then that should be mentioned in the body of the letter, the author’s bio, the title of the head shot JPEG file, and under your real name as:

Sincerely,

 

My Real Name

(writing as Somebody Else)

If you want the contract to be issued to you under your pen-name, then that is how you should sign the letter and skip mentioning it in the body.

Tomorrow:

Part Four:  Okay, am I ready to send this story to the publisher?

(November 2017 All rights reserved)

Patt O’Neil: The Submission Process For a Short Story or What I Wish Someone Had Taught Me (Part Two)

 

Part Two: 

What are you looking for when you look at the publisher’s page?

Let’s stick with the children’s story theme, the publisher has a menu heading that says About which will tell you what type of magazine/journal they are and what type of story they are looking for. Unless you are already familiar with this publisher, you should read this over, as story submission takes time, so you want it to be a worthwhile investment of yours. The one you are looking at says their audience genre is YA or Young Adult, which usually means a high-school-aged audience. Don’t be discouraged, I’m sure your story, Conversations with Bingo, would be considered cute if the teen were babysitting a younger child, but I wouldn’t expect them to go out and purchase a copy for themselves.

Keep searching until you collect a list of publishers of stories for the appropriate audience. For example, you are given a list of twenty publishers, but only three meet your market type or criteria (let’s call them A1, B2, and C3). Let’s investigate those three: age appropriate, check; accepting submissions, check; genre appropriate, check; length, check. Okay, you have three possibilities, now what? This is where you dig deeper into their submission requirements/guidelines. Do they pay for stories they accept? What, you hadn’t thought about being paid for writing your story!? Don’t feel bad if that hadn’t crossed your mind OR if your intention is to make writing your sole career. Let’s work on the premise that you want to get paid for your work. Publisher A1 has a pay scale of $.06 per word (six cents) and B2’s pay scale is royalties only. Publisher C3 is a non-paying market type. Publisher A1 will pay you six cents a word for your 2,100-word story. Nice, that is a one-time upfront payment for the right to publish your story in their magazine/journal. Publisher B2 will pay you after their product has sold a few copies. This is usually an annual payment of an unspecified amount, paid equally to all the authors featured, typical of anthologies. Publishing with C3 will give you exposure but no monetary reward. This is not a bad thing–everybody has to start somewhere, and the chance to advertise that your work can be read in C3’s magazine/journal is a good thing, just not an immediately profitable one. For this example, you decide you want to be paid for your work, so good-bye C3.

Side note: Another thing to consider is the rights or ownership of the story. Some publishers will state their intention for the rights, others might wait until you are presented with a contract. I must admit I was uncomfortable at first, but this is a personal and important decision each writer must make. My advice is keep the rights, or make sure they return to you in the end.

Now what else does the publisher want? Electronic submissions, both A1 and B2 specify this mode only, but what does that mean? It means they do not want to receive a hard copy of your story. You send them anything through the postal service and they will just pitch it without even giving it a glance. There are several ways to submit a story electronically: cutting/pasting it into a box on their publisher’s website, attaching it to an electronic entry form through a submission service, or sending it as an attachment to a specified email address used just for that purpose. Some things to note about these methods: the first is the submission service. It is a good thing to register with this service, but use a passcode you can easily remember because it banks your information and saves time down the road with future submissions. Second, the cut/paste method. Be prepared to lose any formatting you might have had; spend the time to fix the paragraph spacing. Lastly, when it says an attachment to the email, be sure you present it as they specify: no PDF, .doc, .docx, or PDF. These can be deal breakers.

Already you are probably thinking this is just nit-picky stuff and you are right it is, but remember there are thousands, if not millions of writers out there competing for a spot in a publication that is only going to be accepting applications for a small amount of time, for a small amount of print space. So yes, they can afford to be picky–it weeds out many prospects, and the point of this exercise is to make you one of the select few who has a chance for consideration.

Other things the publishers will mention are Reprints, Multiple Submissions, and Simultaneous Submissions. Your eyes might be glossing over now, but don’t worry, here’s an explanation. Reprints means your work has been published elsewhere. A publisher can choose whether to accept a piece that has been featured elsewhere. You look at your work and think, “nope never been published.” But wait a minute, did you share it on a public Facebook writing page, or on a blog, or on a site like Wattpad? In the industry, these are considered previously published and therefore rejected. If you shared your story on your Facebook page under a private setting or in a closed group for review, it’s considered fresh and yet unpublished work. Multiple Submissions means you might/might not submit more than one story to this publisher during this submission period. Example would be if they are taking stories for the month of November but not again until January, then you may submit one in November but not another until January. Some say multiple submissions are accepted, but usually they will put a limit on how many. Simultaneous Submissions means you might not be able to submit your work elsewhere for consideration until it has been formally refused by this publisher. Most publishers will list how long to expect them to consider your story, and in fact, advise that you contact them if you think it has taken too long. The cons with not accepting simultaneous submissions is your story can be held captive by one publisher so long that you are missing other opportunities with others, and some have been known to take up to six months. That is your choice if you want to go that route. If a publisher does accept simultaneous submissions, it is not only polite, but standard practice to let a publisher know if it gets accepted elsewhere while under their consideration.

Side note: I set up a poll in a Facebook writing group asking if the members always adhered to this guideline; never adhered to this guideline; or did, but felt bad about it. They had only one choice to make. It was about 2:1 for adhering to the guideline and being true to one publisher at a time. Of those who responded, one-eighth admitted to having done it at least once.

So how does all this affect your decision to submit to A1 and B2 publishers? Well, this is your first, and only, work and other than your editor and friends, no one has read it. That takes care of reprints and multiple submissions, but what about simultaneous? Let’s go with A1 says yes, but B2 says no. What do you do? That will be up to you, but for this exercise, we will go with A1 from here on.

Tomorrow:

Part Three:  How do you get story to the publisher and impress them to read it?

(November 2017 All rights reserved)

Break Our Hearts (Why “Happily Ever After” Is Not a Requirement)

Powerful stories are remembered for ages to come. They resonate deep within us, invoking an intense emotion long after we’ve read them. Sometimes, the sadder or more shocking the ending, the more we remember that story above all others. That is why I say it is perfectly okay to break our hearts, even when it’s a romance story.

If every story ended with “and they all lived happily ever after,” there would be no push to make it all the way to the end. I don’t know about you, but sometimes serious complications preventing the protagonists (or almost doing so) can be more of a surprise to me than the normal Disney/fairytale ending I grew up loving. However, “happily ever after” is and always will be a much loved and sought-after ending. But it’s not a requirement in my book.

What we want is for you to make us feel the love. We want to feel the connection to the protagonists. We want to root for them. We want to cry with them, triumph with them, love alongside them. We want to remember them.

So don’t be afraid to follow your story wherever it leads you. Not every story has to have a happy ending. Some simply need closure. So there’s a dead body in your romance story? Great. That could fall under the mystery/romance category if you set it up right. Luckily, we don’t discriminate against genre blending. That aspect of your story could be what makes it stand out to your readers—and to us—and the feeling it invokes could be remembered for years to come.

The key word here is powerful. Show us what love means to your characters. Show us how they act when they’re in love, how it changes them—for better or for worse. Use words and description that convey that deep connection between your characters. Then throw obstacles in their way and watch them fight to be together. Be it physical or abstract, obstacles add tension and keep the readers interested in the story.

Whatever your story entails, don’t be afraid to break our hearts. Sometimes, the most powerful thing a reader can take away from your story is a lesson learned, inspiration from how the protagonists keep going in the midst of their own heartaches, or how they keep their hearts open to love even after experience tells them they shouldn’t.

And of course, we always love a “happily ever after” ending, and so do readers everywhere, especially if it’s full of hope after a long struggle. Again, don’t make it easy for your characters and your readers will appreciate the triumph that much more.

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Jessica Victoria Fisette is the author of The Soul Reaper series, The Aldurian Chronicles, and various short stories including the short story series Elves of the Blood Moon. You can also read more of her works in the first Writers Unite! Anthology: Realm of Magic. Her hobbies include discovering the benefits of natural medicine, wine tasting, and trying new recipes in the kitchen. She likes to unwind by typing out a scene or two in her latest obsession or indulging in a good book. Having been passionate about writing since she was a little girl, she is constantly coming up with new ideas for future stories and creating unique, strong-willed—albeit flawed—characters to overcome the difficult obstacles she places before them. Having spent all her life in rural Southeast Texas, she appreciates the tranquility of country living and hopes to implement such a love for nature into her beautiful, ever-so-curious little girl.

You can follow her by clicking the links below. 

Facebook

Twitter

Website

 

Make Every Word Count (Short Stories 101)

Our first anthology, Realm of Magic, will be published soon and that means our second anthology (genre romance) isn’t far behind. Submissions close in just a couple of weeks, and I know some of you are sweating over your word count right now, trying to get it down below that 5,000 mark. If you’ve submitted one major story already, you may even be trying to get it down below that 3,000 mark to qualify. It’s not easy to cut things out of your story, and most people don’t want to delete entire scenes that may be crucial to the plot. You may not be able to remove chunks to make it follow our guidelines, but there’s another thing you can try instead.

One thing I’ve noticed through selecting and editing the submissions: some writers manage to jam-pack a whole lot into a small word count, while others spend a lengthy amount of time on only a couple scenes. If those scenes are where your story takes place, so be it. But if you find yourself having to cut your story down to just a couple scenes for it to qualify, you may want to look at removing filler words and condensing sentences before you throw an entire setting away.

Simple is best. You need to make every word count in a short story. If one sentence kind of explains what’s happening but the second sentence clarifies it, delete the first sentence. Edit the second to make sure its meaning is clear and can stand alone. Here’s an example from the novel I’m working on right now (Reigning Fire—The Aldurian Chronicles Book 3). I’m always going through and removing redundant sentences like this:

“Shut up!” I released the leukos I’d been absorbing. It exploded from my core, hitting him in full force.

It’s a fantasy novel, so ignore the weird words.

These two sentences are repetitive. I can merge them together to keep the intended meaning.

“Shut up!” Leukos exploded from my core, hitting him in full force. 

I could rework that to make it even tighter—and I will later—but I wanted to give you a simple example of how to clear out redundant sentences and shorten your word count.

Another way to shorten word count is to cut out unnecessary adverbs and adjectives. When you’re setting a scene or describing a character, get to the point and then move on to the action. Less is more. Use one or two informative helper words versus three or four that don’t really offer anything to the story. Don’t neglect description altogether, but make sure you use words to your advantage here. Many times a bigger word can replace a few small words. That saves your word count for harder to describe situations or scenes that are a bit more complex.

I’m not saying grab your thesaurus and replace every small phrase you can find with a word your reader would have to look up to understand, but be mindful as you’re writing to consider concise ways of expressing yourself.

Prepositions also tend to fill the pages in a story. Training yourself to look for and remove the ones that aren’t needed can give you more room to develop your characters or plot down the road.

Always skip the dull parts. A short story should be well-paced. There is little room for messing around, so if you can develop your characters without having to slow the plot, you’re going to have a much more powerful story in the end.

As you’re editing your story and trying to cut down that word count, go into it with the mindset of making every word count and it will be much easier to let go of parts that might offer poetic prose but offer nothing in way of character or plot progression.

However, something more important to keep in mind: clarity trumps brevity. Your sentences need to be clear before they are concise. You can’t cut out vital information for the sake of staying under that word limit. Get creative. Find a way to clarify your story without spending a long time explaining it.

And remember, for the Writers Unite! Anthologies Series, you have a 5,000 word allowance for your first story with no minimum requirement! We have received stories that range from 200-5,000 words so far, with some poems being a bit under that range. We’ve had some great stories come in through the submissions portal, and eagerly await YOUR submission.

But you have to be a Writers Unite! member to contribute.

Join the Facebook group Writers Unite! here to get the details on submitting to our current anthology: Writers Unite! Facebook Group

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Jessica Victoria Fisette is the author of The Soul Reaper series, Fragments, and The Aldurian Chronicles. Her hobbies include discovering the benefits of natural medicine, wine tasting, and trying new recipes in the kitchen. She likes to unwind by typing out a scene or two in her latest obsession or indulging in a good book. Having been passionate about writing since she was a little girl, she is constantly coming up with new ideas for future stories and creating unique, strong-willed—albeit flawed—characters to overcome the difficult obstacles she places before them. Having spent all her life in rural Southeast Texas, she appreciates the tranquility of country living and hopes to implement such a love for nature into her beautiful, ever-so-curious little girl.

You can follow her by clicking the links below. 

Facebook

Twitter

Website

 

Make Us Cry (How to Write a Love Story We’ll Never Forget)

With our second anthology in the making, I decided it would be a good idea to take a moment to discuss what constitutes a powerful story in our eyes. There have been so many great submissions already. I can say with certainty that our Romance anthology will be a strong and worthy sequel to our Fantasy Anthology, Realm of Magic, releasing August 1st.

But if you’re not familiar with romance stories, or you’re not sure how to write your story to be a memorable favorite of the judges, let me explain the things that are gripping us so far.

We want passion. It’s romance, after all, and we are expecting to feel . . . a lot. Many have made us cry so far, some through happiness, some through sadness. Some have made us sit on the edges of our seats while we worried if the characters would find their way back to each other. These stories are powerful, and we won’t forget them any time soon.

I can’t help but consider a quote from one of the most passionate love stories I know. 

When it comes to romance, this about covers it. Take us on an adventure. Up the intensity. Add danger. Make us care about the characters. Make us feel the love between them. Let that love consume us. Make us cry.

It could be the rich history between two lovers, the intense connection they share after only moments together, or the numerous obstacles between them, but something has to pull us in and make us want to find out what happens next.

It could be the final moments between a couple as one says goodbye to his terminally ill lover.

Make those last words epic.

Or the shock and relief that floods over the protagonist as her husband walks through the doors of their home, proving he wasn’t in the fatal accident, after all.

Make their reunion put all other reunions to shame. Nothing past this moment matters to your characters. And the same should go for us.

Pick a heart-wrenching scenario, and play it to the hilt. Upping the stakes in this genre can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a useful tool in pulling your readers in and making them feel the intensity of the moment. If you don’t feel it, chances are neither will we, and neither will your future readers.

Is your story a happier one between two characters just starting to fall in love? That’s great. Intensify those feelings between them until we’re convinced they’re soul mates. If the love is real, your story will also be real.

Awesome job to the authors who have made us laugh, cry, panic, or smile. We can’t wait to read more, and we are excited to see this second anthology come to fruition.

Questions about our WU! Anthology and how to submit? Comment below.

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Jessica Victoria Fisette is the author of The Soul Reaper series, Fragments, and The Aldurian Chronicles. Her hobbies include discovering the benefits of natural medicine, wine tasting, and trying new recipes in the kitchen. She likes to unwind by typing out a scene or two in her latest obsession or indulging in a good book. Having been passionate about writing since she was a little girl, she is constantly coming up with new ideas for future stories and creating unique, strong-willed—albeit flawed—characters to overcome the difficult obstacles she places before them. Having spent all her life in rural Southeast Texas, she appreciates the tranquility of country living and hopes to implement such a love for nature into her beautiful, ever-so-curious little girl.

You can follow her by clicking the links below. 

Facebook

Twitter

Website

 

 

Writers Unite! Short Story Contest Winners!

Our FaceBook sister page Writers Unite! Short Stories hosted a contest in January 2017! We would like to present our winners.

The contest criteria:

Theme:  Love Conquer All

Genre: Open

Word Count: 3,000 words or less.

 

First Place:

The Girl With the Razzle-Dazzle Eyes by Milton Trachtenburg

https://docs.google.com/…/1NlKgkyQrq4_tBteGNQFx6xEKbT…/edit…

Second Place:

Paradise Beach by David Weeks

https://docs.google.com/…/1SHSTxf4bCz74_q1TlGPVdUzsmz…/edit…

Third Place:

Even From Behind These Walls by A.M. Ameenah M Hassan.

https://docs.google.com/…/14EKxFsSirU0k4TNDCE-n-4xrHM…/edit…

Honorable Mention:

A Mother’s Reflection by Leonie Hearn

https://docs.google.com/…/1_C5HyHW0rxl3M6btLBY-y4iDex…/edit…

Please join me in thanking our judges, Mandy Melanson, Dennis Takesako, and Dusty Grein. All excellent writers and all devoted to sharing their expertise with aspiring writers. I encourage you to visit their FB pages and author pages.

Also, special thanks to all who submitted entries. The judges were faced with a very difficult decision.