It may not eliminate the stress of submission entirely, but it does at least remove one of the most common stressors from the mix. The better an aspiring writer understands the rules, the less guesswork is involved. In my experience, most rookie submitter mistakes arise not merely from simple ignorance of the strictures of standard format, but from the low-level panic that comes from having to guess whether one is performing the secret handshake correctly. Yes, it’s been a lengthy slog, but hands up, those of you who have never had the opportunity to see a manuscript that actually got picked up by an agent and published by a traditional house up close and personal. In order to give you a Millicent’s-eye view of your manuscript, for the past few posts in this series, we’ve been comparing manuscripts in standard format with improperly-formatted ones. Hard to miss that sea anemone lying on the sand, isn’t it? And think about it: if Millicent and her ilk must pay such close attention to the text, how likely are they to catch any formatting glitches?
#Faux pas example sentences professional#
So if this series’ focus upon the little visual details has occasionally seemed a trifle, well, obsessive, congratulations - you’re gaining real insight into what professional readers are trained to do. Oh, you thought it was easy to read closely enough to catch that the narrative has used the same image on page 12 and page 315? Or that the writer fell so in love with the word verdant that it appears every time that anything vaguely green flashes by the reader’s consciousness? In a book about lawn care? Why? Well, let me put it this way: if Millicent’s eye may legitimately be called nit-picky, a good acquiring editor’s peepers should be regarded as microscopic. Don’t you want your future agent and acquiring editor to fall so in love with your writing that they examine it from every angle, down to the last grain of sand?īefore I take that resounding, “Heavens, no!” for an unqualified yes, let me hasten to remind you that in the long run, it truly is better for your book if the agent of your dreams (and Millicent, the stalwart soul s/he has entrusted to narrowing the thousands of queries and hundreds of submissions a good agent receives to the handful that s/he would actually have time to read without sacrificing the book-selling side of the job entirely) pays attention to the little stuff. Or even read through since the last revision, because how else could the writer not have noticed that several words seem to have dropped out of that sentence on page 33? Or so Millicent the agency screener must surmise from how many of those submissions apparently have not been spell-checked.
And possibly, to a lesser extent, by the inherent interest of the story. And don’t even get me started on how many literary contest entrants seem to operate on the assumption that contest judges are specifically selected for their propensity to read with a charitable eye.ĭoes that giant gasp I just heard indicate that some of you fine people have been laboring under one or both of those impressions, or is somebody about to go for a nice, leisurely swim? If it’s the former, you’re definitely not alone: all too often, talented writers new to the game rush their manuscripts out the door the instant after they’ve typed the last page, presumably in the fond hope that all agents, editors, and contest judges are such lovers of literature that they will judge the book by nothing but how well it’s written. It also probably won’t stop the presses to point out that the notoriously close reading any given manuscript has to survive in order to be seriously considered for publication tends to come as a great, big, or even nasty surprise to a lot of first-time submitters. Now get back to work!Īctually, I have an ulterior motive for opening with that photo: as I’m certainly not going to be the first to point out, those of us who read manuscripts for a living are noted for looking not just at the big picture - is this an interesting story? Does it grab the reader from the get-go? And the question dear to writers everywhere, is it well-written? - but also at the granular level. Happy Memorial Day weekend, U.S.-based readers! Since one of the many, many sacrifices those of us devoted to the difficult task of self-expression routinely make is to trade what other folks might do with their long weekends for gloriously uninterrupted hours of writing - or, better yet, revising! - I thought you might appreciate a glimpse of the world outside your writing studios.
0 kommentar(er)
