But be aware that it isn’t only your webpage (the one with your name as the URL, you know, the *professional* one) that is visible to editors and publishers. The whiny, sometimes nasty, blog posts, forum posts on writers’ sites, and social networking sites (anyone tweet or faceplant on the internet…hmmm?) all come up when someone googles you.

I only google writers whose work I’m interested in. (Read *am really considering elevating from the slush to the board room for a hearty debate on contracting*) And sometimes, I change my mind about those manuscripts (from a thumbs up to a thumbs down) based on what I read on the internet posted by the very same aspiring writers.

So, a simple list for how to present yourself on the internet if you *truly* feel compelled to have a presence (it is far better, in my opinion, to have zero internet presence than a disturbing one):

1. Be professional (no swearing, complaining, bitching, or overpowering angst about writing, editors, agents, or frankly, the world). You make yourself sound hard to deal with, especially if you paint the publishing world as populated by idiotic dragons who don’t have the brains to enjoy your work.

2. Stay away from bragging about your unpublished manuscript, or those few short stories or non-fiction articles you have published. Let your work speak for itself. List them, for certain. Resist the temptation to show off. It looks bad on you. And never post your work on the internet and then attempt to have it contracted. Never. Period.

3. Don’t give other writers advice unless you are very well published in your genre. Most of the *advice* I read from newly published writers is very narrow in perspective.

4. Don’t tie your potential publisher’s hands by branding yourself or your work with too big of a Circle M or Zombies Forever scar. Frankly, this one is the one that bugs me the most. You’re stealing the publisher’s right to position your work where they think it will sell best. In fact, you might position yourself right out of a book deal.

5. Lastly, don’t make yourself up. The internet is like playing make-believe, you can be anybody you want, right? Editors and publishers want to deal with real people. Honest people who will interact with them on a valid basis. If you like to have fun on the internet, don’t use your real name. Make up a persona and be outrageous with it. But leave your real name for when it counts. Like when an editor googles you.

ED

For writers? Copyeditors love writers. They angst over every word and comma. They don’t want to write your stuff for you, they want to make it perfect in the world of punctuation, grammar, clarity, and consistency. Don’t fight your copyeditor. Buy them a drink, flowers, that adorable kitten. They make you look good, folks.

For acquistions editors? Absolutely. They might hate acquistion editors at times, because of the messy, revised manuscripts we drop on their desks or in their inboxes with a tight deadline. But, they rock for me as an acquistions and substantive or manuscript or content editor. (I’m not really sure now what I am. The nomenclature is in flux.) Whatever. But I can concentrate on the fiction and know that the copyeditor is going to make the manuscript legible, correct, and understandable. And if the author uses language in a very stylistic, unorthodox manner, the copyeditor is going to respect that.

So, if you’re a copyeditor, I sincerely appreciate what you do. Your dedication, expertise, and relentless late nights chewing over the “real” meaning of the sentence are essential.

You are the final polish. We trust you.

ED

1. Risk taking. The kind of risks where the reader knows the writer is honest and really cares about the manuscript. Hard to articulate, but what I guess I mean is that when I’m reading this work, I don’t feel like the writer “made it up.” It feels real and exposed. Kind of like what I imagine holding a pumping heart in your hand must feel like. Uh…I’m not weird, honest, but really good fiction is alive.

2. A love of the language (I’m talking English here, but I’m sure it applies to all languages). Doesn’t much matter what the style is, really, it’s the precise use of language, the small and apparently innocent phrase that stops me with a small rush of pleasure at having read it. I love those. Bring ‘em on.

3. Characters who are human. Now that probably sounds odd, but a “real” human is very complex. A real human has many facets, not just one. They don’t “change” suddenly because the plot demands it. They aren’t totally evil or totally good or totally anything. They burp, they fart, they scratch their bums, worry about things, and they love or want to love and be loved. Real people.

4. A storyline that is subtle and multidimensional. Hmm…what does that mean? Well, to me, the best fiction isn’t “obvious.” It’s rich with undercurrent, swollen with possibilities, bursting with a page turning desire to find out “why” rather than “what.”

5. A voice. The writer’s voice, that is. They can show it through the character voicing, or in the narrative, but when it’s there, it’s there. I read a lot of stuff that is clean and articulate and ordinary. Anybody could have written it. I love to pick up a piece and succumb to the voice of a writer. I love to sit enthralled with the fictional “sound” of a writer’s unique way of expressing life in fiction.

6. Real scenes where people talk and interact and do things. Writing “about” a story is not the same as writing a story. This one requires some craft and a strident awareness of when the reader must experience something and when they can just be filled in on what happened. It’s a careful balance and the best writers nail it.

7.  Humor. Now, not all fiction can carry humor, some things just aren’t funny. But most of can find something to laugh about in the worst circumstances, and I think fiction that acknowledges that and uses it is the best kind of fiction. A lot of writers take themselves and their subject matter just a tad too seriously.

8. Factual correctness. Bleh, that sounds awful, but there is nothing worse than reading about a cell phone in 1965 or a character calling his friend “dude” in 1941. If you don’t know a lot about what you’re writing about, be careful. It’s okay to wing it some, but don’t make silly mistakes that hurt your credibility as a writer. A good writer writes it, then checks it. And lets face it folks, none of us have a clue what the vernacular was in ancient Egypt, but some of us sure as hell do know what it was in the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties…you get my drift. Nailing the time period is a sign of a classy and careful writer.

9. Writers who are in control of their manuscripts. Writers who aren’t in control wobble around in tenses and POV. They parachute characters in to serve the story line, meander into lengthy narrative passages that have no real significance in the novel or short story, introduce scenes that go nowhere. When I’m reading a manuscript where the writer is in control, I can relax. I trust them. If I reading it, there’s a reason it’s in the manuscript. That’s good enough for me.

10. This one is hard to describe, but a manuscript the writer “enjoyed” writing. It isn’t frigid with correctness. It isn’t pristine with the exact right proportion of explanatory dialogue tags versus “said.” It probably breaks (OMG) rules. There are a few spots of dried blood on the page, maybe some tears, a coffee ring, perhaps a spill of Beaujolais (all figurative). It’s a manuscript that might have been hard work, but it is loved.  The writer isn’t in love with himself or herself on this one. The writer is in love with the fiction, the craft, and the characters. Makes me love it too.

ED

1. Typos unless there are ten in every sentence. Life is hard, you know, and writers and editors make typos. Heck, the keyboard does it all on its own. Get over the typo phobia. Relax. Write something I can’t put down and I’ll forgive you “waste” instead of “waist.” I know what you meant to type.

2. Innocent grammatical errors. By innocent, I mean the kind of esoteric stuff that only copyeditors *bows head here and not in a sarcastic way* and grammarians and some really tight-assed, know-it-all writers argue about. I do love copyeditors, btw. There will an ode to them on this blog. They rock.  Anyway, go ahead and let your participles dangle and your modifiers be misplaced. It doesn’t matter at this point. All that stuff is easily fixed.

3. Incorrect punctuation. What is correct, anyway? Depends on where you live, where you’re planning to get published, and what style guide or sheet your publisher follows. Never use a semi-colon? Always use semi-colons? Serial comma? Not? Nevermind. Stick the commas in where you think they fit and they’ll all get changed anyway. Unless you are one of the writers who punctuates as an expression of style. Then they’ll be negotiable. Just write it.

4. Slow beginnings. Let me rephrase that. Beginnings that “aren’t” stunning hooks. Beginnings that slip the reader gently into the story, right into the writer’s ambush. Or not. No ambush, just gentle and fine and smooth. I don’t care if your opening paragraph is worthy of front page news. If the rest of it rocks, we can juice up the opening if it needs it.

5. Backstory, unless it is all just narrative and one big “tell.” Otherwise, backstory is fine. It’s cool. It’s often necessary. And if it’s in the wrong place, that’s fixable too.

6. First person POV. Love it. Second person POV. Okay, you haven’t lost me,  but it better be good. Third person POV. Love it too.

7. Present tense, past tense, future tense, any tense. None of them are significant as a reason to “dislike” a manuscript. None of them. Write it how it feels right.

8. Dream sequences (but like second person POV, they’d better be good and they’d better fit like a wet suit on the body of that fiction).

9. Opening with dialogue. I like it. What’s more gripping? “Please, don’t,” or “The mist drifted into the valley, blanketing the village with a gauzy veil.”  See number 4 above. I can forgive any kind of opening if the rest of it rocks. Don’t let worrying about your opening keep you from writing. At least, not if you’re submitting to me.

10. Breaking the rules. Any of the pseudo writing rules. Go ahead and break them all. I’ll read it. If it works, you’re a genius, innovative, brave. If it doesn’t, you get rejected. But if it feels right when you write it and you stifle it because you’re afraid of breaking the rules, you’ll never be able to thumb your nose at the ones who advised you (strongly) to play it safe. You’re a new writer. You can’t be different. Yes you can. Please do. I can’t wait to read it.

ED

1. Email submissions with manuscripts that won’t open in Microsoft Word. Bugs the crap out of me and how do you expect me to read it if I can’t open it and “see” it? Hmmm?

2. Email submissions with manuscripts that are in some kind of protected mode, meaning I can’t single space if I want (and I want to) or change the font from Ye Olde Glorious Scripte to something that looks like a manuscript to me, like Times New Roman, 12 pt.

3. Wandering tenses. *I rise from the bed and went to the bathroom* (All quotes from manuscripts on this blog are entirely made up by me unless I cite the author with permission. No worries, folks, I don’t use your stuff for public ridicule.) On the subject of tenses, I really don’t care which one of the millions you use, just don’t jumble them up within sentences. It makes me feel queasy.

4. No page numbers on the manuscript. What if I drop this puppy on the floor and the pages scatter all over the laminate? How am I to know that Aunt Matilda doesn’t run away with her dentist until page 10? Very confusing.

5. Manuscripts with no names on them, just the title. Gee whiz. I LOVE this manuscript. Who wrote it? Wait, is this the cover letter? Dear Editor, please find enclosed my manuscript. Hope you like it. Best, Aspiring Writer.

6. Manuscripts that simply *tell* a story. A big, long, wordy story *about* a riveting plot that never comes to life because the writer is simply saying…this happened, and then this happened, and that caused this to happen, and then they died. Or whatever. Make me *believe* in that story. Make me walk with your characters, ache with them, celebrate with them, and want to boot their sorry asses right off the page, if that’s what they need. But don’t just tell me they walked, talked, ached, celebrated, or needed a bo0t in the bum. Let me flex my imagination here. Take me with you, please.

7. Cover letters (which I don’t read until AFTER I read the manscript…more about that late in another post) that say “Enjoy” when the writer is talking about their own work. I have no idea why this bugs me so much, and it’s one of the reasons I don’t read cover letters until after I’ve read the sub, but it just reeks of arrogance to me. Sorry ’bout that. I’m sure you don’t mean it that way, but I guess I’d like to be the one to choose if your story/chapter/novel is enjoyable. Don’t tell me it is up front. It makes you sound conceited.

8. Manuscripts that rely on the *circumstance* of the story line to carry the work. Cancer, disabled war vet, abused woman, drug addict…whatever. These are all valid and powerful things to use in a manuscript. But be careful if you expect that this type of *victim* literature will evoke exactly what you want in the reader. You might be surprised how many readers get tired of having to do your work for you from their stockpile of empathy. Make it count. Make it real. YOU do the work. The reader isn’t on your payroll.

9. Angry stories. Angry POV characters who have nothing to be pissed off about but just can’t seem to appreciate that roses smell good and being alive is a gift. I love anger when it’s justified (gets out all that pent up pissed off stuff I rarely express myself), but I can’t relate to generalized anger as a theme. Personal taste, oh yeah. Give it some meaning, some purpose, some kind of context, and I’m right there with you.

10. Manuscripts where the writer steps in, clears his or her throat and lets loose. The writer/pontificator. I see a whole lot of this. Good story, just buzzing along, I’m with ya, yeah… and then…bam the world’s most boring, probably sincere, but ill-advised lecture on the horrors of alcohol or drugs or philandering husbands or God Forbid! parents who are human and don’t understand their kids. Spare me. I can figure all this stuff out for myself. You write it right, and I’ll get it. Honest.

ED

PS. gratuitous violence bugs me as well. Just for the record.

Okay, sure, the agented subs are all clean and crispy and good. But the agented subs are from writers who’ve already crossed that big, ugly line that new writers (young or old) find almost insurmountable.

New writers are the future. They are the great,  shiny, vibrant hope of writing. And I dread the thought that some opinionated intern, some wannabe writer with a huge chip on their shoulder who volunteered to “read” for their fav publisher and who hates any writing that isn’t exactly like theirs, or some dried up pontificate is going to deny me and my children and their children and their children the opportunity to read something stunning because it wasn’t exactly like the “what’s selling right now” type of book…uh…ahem.

I read the slush pile because every time I pick up those manuscripts I’m filled with a feeling of anticipation…real, compelling anticipation.

Most times, I’m disappointed. But man oh man, when I’m not. I’m not.

More to come on the slush pile. A series of posts.

One note. Every single opinion I express in this blog is my own. I do not intend to represent the publishing industry, editors, agents, God, or writers. I’m only going to write here what I know in my own experience or what is such an industry standard that it doesn’t need any justification.

So, read on with that in mind. Your experience may be different. I’m sure it is. You’re not me…I think.

ED

This blog is about slush piles, writing, reading, editing, and pretty much anything to do with the world of literature (either in print or electronic) that I feel like writing about.

Lucky you. *Insert smile here. The WordPress one is ridiculous.*

I hope to provide some cool links to good reading or credible sources of information about writing or editing.

I hope to dispel some myths, or maybe create some of my own.

Welcome. Sit back. Have a read and by all means, leave a comment.

ED