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SFReader Forums > Book, Magazine, and eZine Publishers > Editor's Roundtable > You know there's a problem when... OR What tips you off you're reading a reject?  Forum Quick Jump
 
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crystalwizard
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  		   Posted 12/22/2007 9:05 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
You know there's a problem when...

...your first reader emails you and says 'why are you making me read this? What did I do to piss you off?'
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darkbow
Rabbit lord



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  		   Posted 12/22/2007 9:31 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Hah! I've thought it a few times, but I try to be more diplomatic than that. :-)

I always read submitted stories from beginning to end, but honestly, if I were reading only for myself I would probably stop at about the third paragraph on most subs. I see a lot of early exposition, and situations so complicated or generic that I just don't have the interest to read on. Most subs I read could easily drop the first 500 words and it would be a better story, in my opinion. I wish a lot of writers just wouldn't try to explain so much in the beginning; readers aren't total idiots, and a little exposition inserted here and there where appropriate will work much better than a big info dump at the beginning.

On the flip side, a handful of stories that haven't caught my interest right off have proven most enjoyable later on in the tale. Usually it's because the story proper has kicked in, but sometimes its because I've finally wrapped my mind around the situation.

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com

"Hot Off the Press" available in Ray Gun Revival #25.

"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure."

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Lyn
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  		   Posted 12/22/2007 11:50 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
darkbow, you state my view as well...so many stories don't get off the ground until half way through and I want to tell the author to just start there! lol

Lyn from ResAliens

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H.P. Lovesauce
Necronomicondiment



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  		   Posted 12/26/2007 10:14 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Any physical description of the Mary Sue main character beyond a very short, offhand, and in-context phrase.

The sentence, "I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it" in the cover letter.

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Lyn
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  		   Posted 12/26/2007 11:41 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
You know there's a problem when....
The cover letter outlining the author's previous works is longer than the piece s/he submitted. :-)

Lyn from ResAliens

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crystalwizard
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  		   Posted 12/26/2007 9:34 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Lyn said...
You know there's a problem when....
The cover letter outlining the author's previous works is longer than the piece s/he submitted. :-)


The story is chick-lit romance... and you're publishing horror.
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Firlefanz
Sage



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  		   Posted 1/1/2008 8:43 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
... when the first paragraph contains fifteen typos and three grammar mistakes.

- Call me Firle.

Hannah Steenbock

Mystical Adventures
Sphaira

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Lyn
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  		   Posted 1/1/2008 11:13 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
I hva know iddea what your taking about Firle!

Lyn from ResAliens

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Firlefanz
Sage



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  		   Posted 1/4/2008 1:05 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
rofl

- Call me Firle.

Hannah Steenbock

Mystical Adventures
Sphaira

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RHFay
Sage



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  		   Posted 1/4/2008 1:31 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Lyn said...
You know there's a problem when....
The cover letter outlining the author's previous works is longer than the piece s/he submitted. :-)

Oh no, I do that a lot! shocked

"I'm going to do what the warriors of old did. I'm going to recite poetry!" Andrew of Armar.
 
Richard H. Fay - Azure Lion Productions 
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MysticWino
anarchist fringe monkey boddhisatva



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  		   Posted 1/4/2008 2:23 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

You know there's a problem when . . .

You're judging a sonnet contest and run into a 22-line poem with one end-rhyme, archaic diction and barbaric syntax . . . and it's one of ten by the same author who actually thought enough of his work to pay the reading fee . . . which is somewhere in a landfill with the rest of the reading fee checks . . .

Literarily speaking: More prolific than sin!
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Greybeard
Stablehand

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  		   Posted 1/6/2008 10:18 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The submission is typed on toilet paper.

Go on, top that one.

Edwin

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darkbow
Rabbit lord



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  		   Posted 1/6/2008 11:34 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The submission is typed on used toilet paper.

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com

"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007.

"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure."

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erazmus
Master



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  		   Posted 1/7/2008 12:13 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Or seems to be, once you've read it.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:

www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm

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erazmus
Master



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  		   Posted 1/7/2008 12:14 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The author claims the story is at the maximum word count, but its twenty-two pages longer than the other submissions.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Dutchman Rescue"in Continuum SF #6
www.continuumsciencefiction.com/orders.htm

"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises:

www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/BASH.php
"Stains" in Tales of the Talisman 3-1 www.zianet.com/hadrosaur/index.html
"Slushpiles" in Between the Kisses
www.samsdotpublishing.com/betweenkisses/TurnerSlushPileS.htm

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Lyn
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  		   Posted 1/8/2008 10:45 AM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
darkbow you are sick! lol

Lyn from ResAliens

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darkbow
Rabbit lord



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  		   Posted 1/8/2008 12:36 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
You have no idea.

Though you might soon. I've something about ready to send for the silly stories anthology.

www.tyjohnston.blogspot.com

"Hot Off the Press" Ray Gun Revival #25, 2007.

"Deep in the Land of the Ice and Snow" upcoming in the Flashing Swords anthology, "The Return of the Sword: A New Age of Heroic Adventure."

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Lyn
Adopt



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  		   Posted 1/8/2008 12:53 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Ty, Looking forward to it - but first I have to catch up on all the previous subs before Crystalwizard disowns me and finds someone else to help her with the antho! lol

Lyn from ResAliens

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crystalwizard
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  		   Posted 1/8/2008 3:45 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Quick, Ty! Flood the SA subs before Lyn has a chance to catch up! ;)

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!



Managing Editor of Flashing Swords

Visit my art gallery on art wanted
All my books in print

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MysticWino
anarchist fringe monkey boddhisatva



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  		   Posted 1/8/2008 4:45 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.

Your assistant editors injure themselves to avoid slushing through contest entries. And the reading fee, though small, isn't worth the time it took you to read the first ten words - so you seriously consider returning all the reading fees as they are inconsequential.

 . . . your contest entries are all 'promising' to the point that you're ready to invent (yet another) alter-ego to announce as the contest winner and spend the prize money on booze enough to keep the judges buzzed enough to keep reading - and the money for the next issue on sponges and a steam-vacuum to clean up all the vomit.

Read me soon in The Return of the Sword!
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Hazimel
Jack of Shadows



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  		   Posted 1/9/2008 3:39 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
H.P. Lovesauce said...
The sentence, "I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it" in the cover letter.


Ouch! I'll remember not to use that phrase in the future, though I have used it in the past.

"To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice." --Confucius

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crystalwizard
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  		   Posted 1/10/2008 1:53 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The author lists their membership in prestigious organizations and brags about all the other places they've been published. I've found with the subs coming in to FS that the more of that, there is and the more prestigious the organizations are, the worse the story is.

Never meddle in the affairs of a wizard unless you are soggy and hard to light!



Managing Editor of Flashing Swords

Visit my art gallery on art wanted
All my books in print

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Jordan Lapp
ppaL nadroJ



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  		   Posted 1/10/2008 2:12 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
What kind of prestigious organizations? Like SFWA or something?

Jordan Lapp
Managing Editor
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MichaelEhart
Sage



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  		   Posted 1/10/2008 2:44 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
The Office of the Holy See, the KGB, the Knights of Malta, and the Bavarian Illuminati.

Buy my book!
The Servant of the Manthycore available Nov. 17th from DEP
Illustrated by Rachel Marks, with an introduction by Michael Moorcock
Read me in 2007!
"The View From the Shotglass Floor" Ray Gun Revival, Feb 2007
"Voice of the Spoiler" The Sword Review, June 2007
"Servant of the Manthycore" The Sword Review, July 2007
"Darkling I Listen; and for Many a Time" Fear and Trembling, coming soon!
"Weaving Spiders Come Not Here" The Sword Review, August 2007
"Six Zombies Doing That Mick Jagger Strut" Damned in Dixie, Summer 2007
"Nothing But Our Tears" The Sword Review, September 2007
"Night of Shadows, Night of Knives" Magic and Mechanica, Fall 2007
"The Scarlet Colored Beast" The Sword Review, October 2007
"The Stars by Law, Forbidden" Unparalleled Journeys II, November 2007
"Who Comes for the Mother's Fruit" Every Day Fiction, November 2007
"Stand, Stand, Shall They Cry" Flashing Swords, November 2007
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von Darkmoor
Small Press Publisher (and Dancer still)



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  		   Posted 1/10/2008 2:46 PM (GMT -4)    Quote This PostAlert An Admin About This Post.
Boone and I were finding this to be true at Staffs & Starships, too. I'd say 'prestigious' means things like those authors who list psychology, medical, legal or other 'important' degrees and business memberships or experiences. Those things mean very very little to what I'm accepting, even looking for.

~~~~~~~~~~
Jason M. Waltz
Assistant Managing & Anthology Editor Flashing Swords Press
~~~~~~~~~~
Ever waltz with the Devil? Visit von Darkmoor's thoughts to find out (and read a review or two).
~~~~~~~~~~
Critical Eye of the Dragon Avatar courtesy of crystalwizard

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