FROM THE MAIL #2

On Spec cover by Chuck Bazaar

A SHORT TIME AGO, A WRITER LEFT A NOTE ON SUZENYMS asking, among other things, to consider walking readers through the On Spec submissions process. I asked Diane Walton, our Managing Editor, if she would tackle those questions, as she's the best person to field them. This is what she wrote: HI, ALL. DIANE, HERE. Susan has asked me to respond to this reader’s questions, and I am glad to do it. 

Are there more submissions now? The short answer is, yes. There are more submissions now—many more. In the olden days, when we’d go to the post office and empty our box every week, there would be anywhere from five to twenty large brown envelopes (or horribly stuffed business-sized white envelopes) shoved in the box, or (when we were using an arbitrary quarterly deadline) piled in the overflow bin on the floor behind it. 

When we finally joined the 21^st century and announced we’d be accepting e-mailed submissions, our gmail account was flooded overnight. It’s as if writers around the world were waiting with their index fingers poised over their keyboards, ready to hit SEND as soon as those doors opened. In that first rush, there were so many manuscripts that we were forced to close the floodgates for a few months until we could sort through them all. Lesson learned. 

Since then, we have controlled the submissions process even more, by announcing from time to time, that we’d be accepting submissions during a six to eight week period. And only during that period—with the exception of poetry, which we accept on an ongoing basis. In our recent window for submissions, we received over five hundred stories, many of which were in the 5,000 to 6,000 word category.  

How are the stories divided up for review? This process is purely arbitrary. The slush is divided as evenly as possible among the editors who are available to read at any given time. The editor becomes the First Reader for that batch of stories and is also responsible to write the rejection notes for those stories not deemed publishable. For a mild-mannered control freak like me who used to read EVERY STORY in the On Spec slush, this was a leap of faith. On Spec has excellent editors. I trust their judgement. 

We currently use a process for submissions that allows us to select and use an automated form rejection letter, a real time saver. There is a space for comments, where the editor can write a brief critique or some helpful constructive hints for improving the story if they so choose. It’s not a guarantee, although we try our best to find something useful to tell writers who don’t make the cut. 

How many make it through the first pass, the second, then to Fight Night and so-on? There are no hard and fast rules, here. A batch could hold a dozen pretty decent stories, or it could have less than a handful. Each story is evaluated on its own merit. Some stories get to the second pass, simply because they aren’t to a particular editor’s taste but—to be fair to the writer—he or she wants the others to have a look. Getting to Fight Night isn’t a guarantee of a good story—sometimes we do it because the story is so obscure that there must be some deep literary significance that one editor simply isn’t “getting”. 

Once each editor finishes a batch and sends on their short-listed stories, all the editors dive in and give those stories a fresh look. Fight Night will occur on a designated date, once we have made our choices about the stories we will champion, and the ones we’ll argue against.  

Of the stories On Spec receives, how many are finally published? In general, no more than four or five stories from every one hundred received will ultimately reach the stage where we are prepared to offer a contract. This hasn’t changed radically over time.  

How have the submissions fared over time in terms of quality? This can go both ways, actually. The good stories that we end up buying have been improving in quality, and it isn’t even related to the publication history of the writer. We do, of course, enjoy buying new stories from writers we have published before, but we are also thrilled when we make a new discovery. 

The not-so-good stories, on the other hand, have not improved. People used to actually proofread their own work, and it was a real commitment to use the paper, envelopes, and postage to send out a mailed manuscript. If a writer had been to at least one lecture or workshop on the techniques of writing, more care was usually taken to check spelling, punctuation, and so forth. Now, it is just too easy to hit Spell Check and expect it will actually catch every error (it won’t). 

Another error made by inexperienced writers is trying to write to suit a trope and ignoring the characters in the story. They’ll send “a vampire story”, or a “space battle story”, or “a ghost story” and it shows in the telling. After we read it, we may be able to tell you where the vampire came from, but we won’t remember what the protagonist’s main character trait (or flaw) was, or why he/she was caught up in the situation in the first place. 

All in all, the discussion of what we don’t want in an On Spec story is a never ending one. The fact remains we know what we like and that translates to what our readers like. What we do want are engaging stories about vibrant people. Even green, multi-tentacled creatures can be vibrant characters if you do it right.  And remember: if you open your story in a bar or a tavern, you probably do so at your peril. The editor reading it will mentally leap ahead to the scene where the vampire appears to seduce the hapless protagonist, or where the thief is offered gold to steal something magical, and so forth. 

Then it’s time to go to the kitchen and make a cheese sandwich. 

- Diane. 

(Thank you, Diane. - S.)