Brief Guidelines for Submitting Work

 I was putting together some notes for my Tuesday writing workshop and thought it was worthwhile sharing my views and experience with a larger audience.

Editing

Make sure your work is as good as you can possibly make it. Editing is a slow process, which should be undertaken in several stages. Don't just rely on your computer spell-check; the computer will happily accept the wrong word as long as it is a word. If you've got a friend who is good at spelling and grammar, do use them, but beware that they don't 'grammarise' the vitality out of your work, especially your dialogue. The whole point of editing is to make your submission as professional as possible. If the first thing that the editor sees is a typo or punctuation error, they will assume that you don't know your trade. It is hard: you know what you've written and can read it a hundred times without realising that's not what's actually on the page.

If you have time, it is a good plan to put your work aside for at least two weeks, to 'go cold', then you can edit it more dispassionately.

It is also useful to edit in as many different ways as possible: on the screen, on paper and even looking at it again using different fonts and colours.

Presentation

The most important thing is to send for (or download) the guidelines, read them carefully and obey them implicitly.

When submitting a manuscript on paper, the standard way to do so is double spaced, with reasonable sized margins and an indent at the start of each new paragraph. Pages should be numbered and, if submitting to a magazine, your name and the title should be included in the footer as well. (The same rules apply when submitting manuscripts to agents or editors.) Many competitions will not want your name on the work, although some will want a pseudonym; they all have their own ways of maintaining entrants' anonymity. Use an envelope that doesn't require you to fold your manuscript and put on correct postage.

When submitting on-line it is probable that they will not want an indent at the start of each new paragraph. All you can do is ask for guidelines and follow them.

Only submit one story at a time. Don't bombard the editor with mass submissions, it simply doesn't work. Your submission letter should be brief, business like and pleasant; bear in mind that they get hundreds of submissions and will be irritated by unnecessary 'waffle.' Never include drawings of how you'd like your story to be illustrated or photographs of you with your grandchildren or pet dog. (You may laugh but it has happened and probably will again.)

Always make sure your submission is clean and professional looking. Although it's tempting to 'recycle' returned submissions, be absolutely certain it doesn't look in any way second-hand.

Over the years, many students have asked me anxiously, 'What if the editor steals my story and publishes it without acknowledging me or paying for it?'

I can only say, 'Why should they?' The money they pay is nothing to them. What they want is a successful, prolific writer that's going to keep on sending in stories to revitalise their fiction with new, exciting work. But please bear in mind that I'm talking about reputable publishers who are in it for the long haul. If it looks dodgy then it's better to steer clear.

Bear in mind that you should not pay an agent or editor to read or publish your work. If you wish to employ a copy editor to read your work and give feedback or edit it, then you must expect to pay a professional rate. You have to pay an entry fee for many competitions. This is standard practice and no problem as long as you know what you are paying and what you're agreeing to.

Dealing with Acceptance

If you send a short story to a magazine, with any luck you'll receive a phone call, email or a letter saying they like your work and offering you a sum of money for First British Serial Rights. If you accept they will have the right to publish your work in Britain but, in most cases, after a couple of years, the rights will revert to you and you can sell it again. The magazines may even facilitate translation offers. Woman's Weekly once passed my contact details to a lady who wished to translate my Christmas story, Silent Night, into Norwegian for a Norwegian Magazine. She paid me £100 for a story I'd already been paid for in Britain. My only regret is that I was so stunned I forgot to ask her to send me a foreign copy for my archives.

Once you have agreed to sell your story, the publisher will have the right to make small alterations if they wish to. Quite often these are just to fit into narrow magazine columns. (Warning, never give your magazine characters long, double-barrelled names.) Occasionally these alterations are slightly irritating, (especially when they remove all your jokes) but my stories are products and, as I want to sell them, I have to accept the alterations.

In the world of novels, both agents and editors will have a say in editing and, from all I've heard, will often bombard you with conflicting information.

Occasionally a magazine editor may tell you they love your story but need some changes made. However I suspect that this happens more frequently with writers they have already published than newcomers. In my personal experience, whenever I've made the changes they requested, they have accepted the story.

With agents and editors for novels, it is a far more varied experience. The only general advice I can give is, as soon as you receive a contract, join the Society of Authors; their advice can prove invaluable.

Dealing with rejection

The important thing is, don't take it personally. Your story is not your child, even if it's a novel you've worked on for many years, it's a piece of craftsmanship that you have offered for sale.

Isaac Asimov said, “Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil.” I'm afraid my response to that would be, “Get over it.”

The reasons for rejection can be many, down to the unfortunate fact that they have just published another story with a similar theme. This happened to me with my short story The Last Tree house Conspiracy. I was sceptical that I was being fobbed off but put it to one side and, two years later, got it out, revised and polished it and sent it off again. It was accepted on the second try.

Far more annoying was the editor who had agreed to consider my Victorian Murder Mystery and kept it for six months. When I chased her for a decision she wrote that she 'loved it' but unfortunately they had a long-running Victorian detective series already on their books and didn't want to divide their readers. And she didn't know that when she'd taken my book and hung onto it for so long?

There are several reasons for rejection of a short story by women's magazine editors: the characters or situation may be too clichéd; the story may be too dark or challenging, (not necessarily for the editors but for their perception of their readership); or the story may be too complicated for its short story framework. However the main reason for rejection is that it simply wasn't what they were looking for at that point.

If you get feedback try to benefit from it. Analyse what the editor is saying and, more importantly, the subtext. You may decide not to alter your work, but it's worth considering. If you don't get feedback, don't take it personally; all it means is that the editors are drowning under piles of paperwork.

Just remember one thing. However disappointed you are by rejection, never throw anything away. At least two of my 'competition' short stories that I'd have never thought of as suitable for women's magazines, with some revision, were accepted and published by Woman's Weekly.

The Three Ps of Writing Fiction. Number 3: Place

Vivid settings add a sense of reality to your work and some settings can almost be a character in your story. In a novel you can introduce several places, but in a short story it's better to stick to one or two.

You may wish to use real places as your setting, in which case a some people will read your book to remember a place they have known or to enjoy a new exotic setting. When using a real life setting, especially when your story is set in the recent past, there is a danger that the reader will remember things differently to you. If so, be prepared for cross letters or indignant reviews.

When writing about a real setting in the more distant past, if it is out of living memory you have to treat it as you would a fictional setting and introduce the place at that time to your reader, putting in clothes, smells, garbage in the streets and horse-drawn vehicles etc. You need to do your research and include buildings and trades that were present at that time.

Strangers and Angels is my Victorian Murder Mystery, which will be published later this year. It is set in Gosport in 1850. I had great fun imagining a winter journey on the Floating Bridge, the great chain-propelled ferry that conveyed passengers between Gosport and Portsmouth. Its modern successor was still around when my husband was a child. Unfortunately, by the time I moved to Hampshire it had been abandoned.

The ferry was not crowded. The Victualling Yard had not yet turned out and, since Portsmouth had gained their own railway, there were fewer consignments of goods travelling by train to Gosport and across on the Floating Bridge to stock Portsmouth's shops.

Few people chose to travel across the harbour for pleasure in December at dusk, so Molly's wish that they would not meet any of Lady Adelaide's acquaintances seemed likely to come true.

She found a secluded, sheltered corner and sat down. She felt cold and tired. The Floating Bridge would never seem quite so much fun again.

Or maybe it would if she could see it through Kemal's eyes. She loved the lively interest with which he prowled the deck, clearly considering how the mechanics of the ferry worked, as, with a creak and clanking of the giant chains and the throb of the two great steam engines, they chugged away from the shore.

The need for historical plausibility doesn't mean you cannot insert places or features that were not in the original town, as long as they could have been there. In Strangers and Angels I invented a cooper's yard that had never existed and the well-to-do tradesman's house that adjoined it. I placed it in an appropriate location, the Weevil district of Gosport, not far from the Royal Clarence Yard.

In the narrow hallway Mrs Dorrington set down her valise and turned to take the basket from Adelaide. "If you'd like to go into the parlour, Molly will kindle the fire. I'll bring refreshments as soon as I've brought the kettle to boil. Molly, is the range still alight?"

"Yes Grandmama, but damped down, the way Pa left it this morning."

"Please, I'd rather go to the kitchen with you." Adelaide could not endure the thought of sitting alone in the chilly formal room.

Mrs Dorrington's finely arched eyebrows lifted. "As you wish, Lady Adelaide."

Adelaide wished Mrs Dorrington would not mention her name and rank whenever she spoke to her. She wondered if it was deliberate; a reminder of her position and the folly of stepping out of it. Then Mrs Dorrington smiled at her. It was a warm smile, with a sparkle of mischief that reminded Adelaide of Molly.

"Please sit down." She ushered Adelaide to a chair beside the scrubbed, pine table.

As she spoke she looked appraisingly around her small domain. Adelaide thought she should be pleased, everything looked spotlessly clean; on the softwood dresser, pale from years of scrubbing, copper jelly moulds gleamed and the white dinner plates were neatly stacked.

"I was here yesterday, Grandmama. I tidied up and made sure Sally had scrubbed the kitchen floor," said Molly, her tone still uncharacteristically meek.

Of course, whatever genre you are writing in, there is no reason why you cannot invent your own places, but remember to give your setting some memorable features and names that tie in with the time and location you are writing about. Sometimes it is easier to use some features of a real place in a suitable location that you are familiar with and then give it your own twist. For my two contemporary police procedurals, The Terminal Velocity of Cats and About the Children, I created two fictional towns, Ledleigh and Saltern, but situated them on the south-coast of England. I was so successful with Ledleigh that Charlie Cochrane (author of the Cambridge Fellows Mysteries) made a very good guess at the area I had in my mind. Strangely, the features I created, such as the deserted, derelict houses in Bridge Road (The Terminal Velocity of Cats) and Stone Park, an everyday public park that could not escape its sinister history (About the Children) became so real that I could give anybody an in-depth guided tour.

These descriptions of Stone Park appear in the first chapter of About the Children, along with a quote from the First World War poet, Isaac Rosenberg. (I can have a literate cop if I want one.)

They stripped off their scene of crimes’ protective suits. They'd need to put on fresh suits before they entered the other crime scene to avoid cross-contamination.

He paused a moment to consider the position of the Children's Assault Course in relation to other features in the park. On three sides the playground was bordered by undergrowth and sheltering trees. Within easy reach there were two exits, one leading through allotments, the other onto a quiet, residential road. Three hundred yards away, over to the west, he could see the grey shimmer of the lake.

Five years ago, this park had been the scene of the first serious assault he'd investigated, when he'd returned to Saltern as SIO of a new hand-picked Serious Crimes Team. Stone Park had always had a strange reputation... and a strange feeling. Like there was something under the surface; something cruel. Sunlight pierced the grey clouds, briefly bathing the park in pale light. 'The darkness crumbles away – it is the same old druid Time as ever.'....

….Then he strode across to the second crime scene, a formal garden bordered by a wide circle of seats. The paving slabs were creamy white, except where they were strewn with autumn leaves. A patch of brighter colour caught his gaze. Someone had lost a scarf. It was delicate, rainbow-beaded and woven in silver thread.

The vivid strands had filled with blood and, as Tyler looked, the outline of the scarf lost definition. Before his tired eyes the sparkling shapes transformed into a grotesque mosaic, the symbol of some primitive sacrifice.

Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy create their own worlds all the time, but they still have to maintain consistency within their worlds and make them come alive. Often they do this by inventing Future World parallels with things we are familiar with, so that their worlds are more accessible. Writers of distant history often use the same skills as SF and Fantasy writers.

When bringing your settings alive for the reader, whether in the past, present or future, it's important to use the senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch and that other less tangible sense, the'feel' of a place. You must build upon what most readers know about everyday places then add the twists of individuality that make your settings unique and memorable.

The Three Ps of Writing Fiction. Number 2: Plot

The plot is basically the structure of your book. The skeleton which maintains your story.

The basic requirement is that there is a problem or conflict. Without conflict you are merely telling an anecdote.

The the other plot requirements are:

A beginning with a 'hook' to grab the reader, which introduces characters and setting and gives some hint of the conflict or problem.

A middle in which the conflict is developed and there is some attempt to resolve it, probably not successfully at this point. The pace should vary, with fast tense bits and other slower paced situations. The 'rule of three' is often a good way of structuring, with two unsuccessful attempts to sort the problem followed by a final successful resolution. This is a classic structure, obvious in many traditional children's tales. For example, in the Three Little Pigs, the pigs make houses of straw and wood before they take refuge in the brick built house.

The end should have the final resolution of the problem. This does not have to be a 'happily ever after, clichéd ending, but it does have to be satisfactory to the readers. Yes, I know you cannot please all the people all the time, but you have to make sure you've played fair and done your best. Disappointed readers won't come back for more.

How do you plot your novel?

That is up to you, the writer. Some people start with an opening scenario and starting characters and play with the action. This can be great fun but sometimes it paralyses the writer when they end up thinking, 'what do I do now?' or 'Help, this novel is totally out of control. Just letting it flow can make the novel incredibly fresh and exciting, but it does involve the willingness to not just do a quick edit but to rewrite meticulously and occasionally go back to near the beginning and take a completely different path. If you write crime, as I do, it's a great way of fooling the reader about whodunnit or what's going to happen next. The important thing is that when you've completed and are ready to publish the work, you have it all in control.

Many people plan their novel, meticulously; often taking nearly as long to sort out the plot as they take to write the novel. That can be great, as long as you don't turn the novel into a 'write by numbers' trudge. Never be afraid to explore the wonderful diversions that the writing process reveals and that your characters suggest.

One vital rule: as with characters that serve no purpose, if a scene in a story serves no useful purpose to further the story, it has to go, otherwise it will bog down the story, whether it's a 100,000 word novel or a 1,000 word short story.

Of course, if writing a novel, you can have sub-plots to enrich the action but in a short story the important thing is to keep it simple and stick with a single plot-line.

I love the word clue, which in its Old English form is clew, and means a thread. Whatever you are writing you need that thread of plot, place and people, which, like Theseus in the labyrinth, will lead you safely through.

In a workshop last week, the students grew very excited when fitting books they had read and their own work into the scholarly guidelines of the seven basic plots:

Overcoming the Monster; Rags to Riches; The Quest; Voyage and Return; Comedy; Tragedy; Rebirth.

Give it a try. It's interesting to work out the plot that fits your book and may help to clarify your structure.

The theme is part of plotting, but it can be argued that it's also part of characterisation and setting. It's the essence of your story; it is the deeper meaning within it. The theme can be defined in a few words, which will have some relevance to the problem your central character has been dealing with; for example: survival; loss; regret, self-discovery.

The Three Ps of Writing Fiction (People, Place and Plot.) Part I. People.

I'm putting together workshops for my new course and it occurred to me that when writing fiction you need three basic things: the people (your characters); the place (your chosen setting or settings); the plot (the structure and theme.) I've put some of my thoughts together as three blogs and I trust my students will forgive their workshops being slightly second-hand.

Part I: People.

Your characters are the thing that makes your story live. There are only a few plot lines in the world and it is your characters that make people want to read your story. Nobody wants to spend their leisure time with somebody they find boring and it's the same with readers and characters in stories. If your central characters are warm and lively (and personally I like a good dollop of humour too) then the reader will want to spend time with them, even if at that point in the characters' lives they are having a tough time.

Your characters will be different depending on the viewpoint you are using. 1st Person is more immediate and, especially when teamed with Present Tense, it is amazingly effective, but it's not an easy combination to use. 3^Rd Person, Past Tense is usually easier to handle (at least most people seem to find it so). 3rd Person can be very close, following the character's internal thoughts, or it can be more distant, recording what they do and say. The risk with the latter is that the character can seem very distant and the reader won't get involved. The only way to find out what suits you is to play with Person and Tense, and even then, what works for one story may not work for another.

One of the trickiest things when creating characters set in the past, is to convince your reader to accept attitudes and behaviour that we cannot relate to or even find objectionable today, and still make the reader care enough about the people we've created to keep on reading.

In a novel you can have a wide cast of characters, but in a short story it is wise to limit the number. If a character is not useful, no matter how much you like them, they have no place in the story. But don't delete them, cut and paste them into a file to use in another story at a later date.

There is an on-going debate amongst writers about whether characters 'come to life' and take over the novel. When put like that it sounds really pretentious, but characters do take on a personality of their own, and if they don't the writer has failed in a fundamental part of their job. I love it when a reader feels they know my characters. When discussing The Terminal Velocity of Cats a reader commented to me, 'It's typical of Mia, to make a joke even when she's really scared.' I thanked the reader and thought with glee, 'My work here is done. I got it right.'

When I was an inexperienced writer, I spent an entire book trying to force a middle-aged woman, who had taken refuge from an abusive marriage, into bed with another (perfectly pleasant) guy. Whatever I did it wouldn't work until I faced the fact that of course she wouldn't do that. It would take years before she'd trust another man in that way. Apologies to Gina (my character in the book), it won't happen again.

When writing, respect your characters and don't be afraid to let them lead you, at least some of the time. Consider it as getting to know a friend a bit better every day. It doesn't mean you're losing control of your book, just sharing it. After all, your characters have a stake in what happens as well.

The history and power of a name

In the poem Choosing a Name, Anne Ridler wrote:
'I love, not knowing what I love,
I give though ignorant for whom
The history and power of a name.'
She continued to describe herself as one 'summoning unknown spirits,' and that the child will take the name and tame it, changing and defining the name just as the name influences and defines the child.
The same is true of the characters we create. We choose their names, crafted to our requirements for the story we are creating and those names are fundamental to our characters' lives and actions. In that way we are a parent and sometimes fool ourselves into believing we are in command of our creations. Then there is the point in which our characters escape from our control and rebel, like adolescent children, or crossly remind us that they are grown up now. Of course some writers say that they will not let their characters take control but for those of us who are happy to run with it, the results are great fun and incredibly satisfying. And, perhaps, for some readers the characters and the names 'exchange a power' and our fictional characters gain a resonance of their own. I know several people called Andrew or Andy but if somebody threw the name Andy at me, out of context, my first thought would be of Reginald Hill's magnificent creation Andy Dalziel.
Of course, when choosing names, there are rules you have to accept. It doesn't do much for your credibility if you pick a name for your Regency heroine that hadn't been invented until the 20th Century. And it's not fair to the reader if you use a lot of names that look and sound alike, unless you're using it for a deliberate purpose. Life is too short for the reader to spend time distinguishing between Dan and Don and Tim and Tom and many people will simply stop reading. It's an incredibly easy error to fall into and I'm as guilty of this as anybody. To pick up on such problems before it's too late is what you need a good copy editor for. My colleague who is copy-editing my soon-to-be-published book, About the Children, pointed out that I'd got three characters whose names were all the same length and all began with L. For various reasons two of the names were non-negotiable, so sorry Liam, you're about to be re-named. That brings me to the good thing about choosing names for characters; they aren't real children and, in the preliminary stages, you can change their names without any expensive legal formalities, just press Find and Replace. I was several chapters into writing The Terminal Velocity of Cats and conscious of a vague dissatisfaction with the viewpoint character's name when I realised that I wanted to call her Mia. Amazingly, when I re-named her, changing from a more traditional and solid name, not only was the character easier and more fun to write but, in that moment, she lost at least seven pounds in weight.
I do use the Internet to find names, especially when hunting for foreign names, but I still believe that every writer should have at least one book of names on their bookshelf, and, without getting up from my computer, I can see that I've got at least seven names books very near to hand. I guess this is the point at which I stop distracting myself and take one from the shelf to start on the search for names that don't begin with 'L'.

What do you do when you can't go over, under, or round?

There's a lot of wisdom to be found in children's literature. In We're Going On a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen offers us the valuable insight:

'We can't go over it, we can't go under it.
Ohhh NO!
We gotta go through it.'

That's true of life and writing. In both there are things you can side-step but there are lots of things that you know you've got to go through because they matter to you. In my life I will prioritise the needs of my children and grandchildren above all things (thus the blogging silence over Christmas); especially the education and care of my autistic grandson. Autism would make a good obstacle in a Bear Hunt. It's a deep, thick swamp, with unexpected pot holes where you go down over your head and wonder if this time you're going to come up again. That said, he is the adored heart of our family; the funniest, sweetest and most loving little boy, and every achievement he makes lightens and warms our lives.

In writing there are also things you have to go through in order to reach your goal. Who hasn't muttered about the need to write or edit when there are so many other things to do, or when the task seems endless and it would be so pleasant to curl up in the armchair and watch TV. However, at the end of the day, there's nothing to compare to the feeling of triumph and fulfilment when you've got your chunk of writing, even if it's in desperate need of editing and polishing. Of course, there's the other writing quagmire to go through, submission and rejection. However with all the new independent publishing options, it is now possible to go round that particular alligator filled swamp.

For me there's the added writing deadline of monthly articles for Mystery People on the topic of authors of the Golden Age of Crime. It's on my list to put my past articles on my website (www.carolwestron.com) but, for the moment, check them out on www.mysterypeople.co.uk/. Before I get started, the prospect of researching and writing the articles seems like an immense mountain to climb, but as soon as I'm into it I'm totally hooked. It has benefited my own reading and writing, and I've discovered some incredible authors that I hadn't encountered when I read the standard Golden Age novels as a teenager. If I'd gone over or under instead of through the article writing I might never have read the incomparable Edmund Crispin... scary thought!

Of course, there are the things that don't give you an option of going over and under, like the stroke I suffered on New Year's Eve 2011. When I woke to find my right side paralysed and my speech a muffled mess, I only had one choice, go through it and keep on hoping. I was fortunate in recovering pretty well, but nobody knew just how terrifying each step back into the world was, especially, less than six months later, when I made my first public appearance as the moderator of the Deadly Dames. Even worse was the fear that my brain, with a proportion of my 'little grey cells' eliminated, wouldn't be up to the creative task any more. Fortunately it is, although probably creakier and less confident than before. Ironically I have probably done more in the past two years because of the stroke than I'd have done without that kick into action, including moderating several panels and giving presentations; returning to teaching Creative Writing; editing and, last but by no means least, setting up, in collaboration with two good friends and colleagues, an independent, co-operative publishing company, Pentangle Press. My first contemporary crime novel, The Terminal Velocity of Cats, was published in July 2013. It's selling steadily and has got some great reviews. My second police procedural, About the Children, is due to be published later this month, so I'd better stop writing about it and get on with that final edit.

With life and writing, there are lots of things to get in your way, but it's all down to hard work, staying focused and going through all the things that get in your way.

Nobody's Perfect... and that includes most books.

Nowadays, it seems there is increasing pressure on self-published authors to ensure that their books are not just good but perfect in every way. In a large part this is because of the undeniable fact that some self-published books are not of a professional standard and that reflects on the rest of us, however good we are. This has led to an expectation amongst many readers that all independently published books will have errors, which are pounced on, sometimes gleefully, as proof that the self-publisher cannot be 'professional.' The unfortunate author ends up feeling insecure and full of self-doubt when the truth is that there are no more errors in their books than appear in traditionally published books, and quite often a lot less.

As well as writing, I work as a line editor, copy editor, teacher and reviewer, all of which require an eagle eye for typos, grammatical errors and plot and characterisation discrepancies. Almost every traditionally published books that I have read in the past year had at least one typo, usually a lot more. The truth is that the odd typo doesn't matter. Allowing a brief moment of disorientation to spoil my pleasure in an otherwise good book would be ridiculous. Unless I'm being asked to edit the book, I briefly register the error and move on. Of course too many typos become annoying and impinge on enjoyment of the book, but, unless the typos are very frequent or serious enough to impact on understanding the story, the best thing is to forgive and forget.

Of course, editors do more than just check for typos, and I am more likely to object to the sort of things that destroy my belief in the story. This includes characters that act in an unbelievable way without good explanation, and plot coincidences that are totally absurd. I'm also irritated by books set in historical settings in Britain where the characters come out with American terms. Recently, the word 'gotten' on the lips of a Victorian, middle-class, English lady jerked me right out of the story. That said, it was a well written, amusing book and I enjoyed it.

So, back to the beginning. Nobody's perfect and nor are most of the books that are published. That doesn't mean that we writers shouldn't strive for perfection, good editing is essential, but it's equally important not to beat ourselves up when, after publication, a helpful voice says, 'By the way, I thought you'd like to know, on page 200 you should have had a comma...'