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Words of Wisdom from Nancy Knight, Editor
Well, here we are again. Staring at the computer. Today’s the day you
promised yourself you’d send that manuscript off. So what have you been doing?
What should you have been doing?
Before you send that ms. off, you should take a look one more time in your word
processing program for potential problems, very
carefully re-read your first few pages, re-read your synopsis and then look
for stupid stuff.
Today’s word-processing programs are very sophisticated. Microsoft Word,
for instance, will underline mis-spelled words in red, underline possible
grammatical errors in green and underline homonyms in case you picked the wrong
one. The programs do these things for a reason . . . to help you. Paying
attention to these marked errors may just be the saving grace for your
manuscript. If I get a ms. with “they’re” in place of there or their, along
with a passel of other mistakes, I’m not likely to trust your writing at all.
If you make a lot of grammatical errors, are you careful about your research?
How can I know? If I get a clean ms. and one with too many grammatical errors,
which one do you think I should take? Let’s see . . . I’ll take the one with
fewer errors. Sounds simple, right? For the most part, it is. Many times I get
a story with really great potential (Read: Nancy loves, loves, loves this ms.)
but the number of spelling and grammatical errors is just daunting. So when
your word processor tells you there’s an error—do something about it.
You should always re-read the first five pages very carefully before you
send your ms. to an editor or agent. Those five pages (maybe less) might be all
the editor reads before rejecting your submission. Why? Time is limited. I
talked to another editor last summer who works for a traditional NY publisher.
They receive between 800 and 1000 unsolicited ms. a month. Once a month, they
closet themselves in a room with all those subs and go through them. Yes,
that’s right. They go through all of them. This editor said they start opening
envelopes (or e-mails) and read a few lines. If the story doesn’t catch their
interest within a few lines, it’s an automatic rejection. Sometimes the editor
might realize that the ms. isn’t her cup of tea and—if it’s good enough—pass it
along to someone who might like that particular sub-genre. Note: the key words
in that last sentence were “if it’s good enough.” That means, no spelling or
grammatical errors, a reasonably interesting opening, proper format, etc. Your
book should start when the primary character’s life changes irrevocably. Don’t
give me ten or fifteen pages of stuff leading up to that moment. Get to the
point. Grab my interest immediately. Oh, my editor friend also said that if the
ms. was her type of book and it caught her interest, she’d put it in a separate
pile to read more of later. Sounds brutal, I know. But the harsh truth is that an
editor’s time for reading unsolicited subs is extremely limited. Don’t limit
your chances by sending less than your best.
The third item to check off your list is the synopsis. Read it slowly,
as if you’ve never seen it before. Make sure you’ve included all the pertinent
information. Is your structure clear and concise? Have you told the
editor/agent what the primary conflict is? Have you given enough
information to make him or her love your protagonist? If you’ve recently revised your
synopsis, try to read for missing information that needs to be there. Look for holes in the plot. Is the
story told in a simple narrative style? Have you told the complete
story—including the ending. I can’t tell you how many subs I get wherein the
synopsis doesn’t reveal the ending. No editor is going to buy a pig in a poke.
You must tell the story and the ending.
Finally, read it again for stupid stuff. You can interpret stupid stuff
in a couple of ways. It could mean that you have tried, in your synopsis, to be
cutesy. That doesn’t always work. It can be annoying. Very annoying. It you
include those kinds of elements, get an outside, unbiased opinion to see if they work. Unbiased doesn’t mean your
mama or your spouse or your best friend. I once received a ms. that had a
diagonal red sash that began in the lower left corner of the ms. and continued
to the top right corner. The sash said, “Copyright by _______.” That’s a really
childish thing to do. What editor in his or her right mind is going to steal a
manuscript? Generally speaking, those people don’t need to worry about having
their ms. stolen. In my experience, it’s the worst writers who are the most
concerned about someone stealing their books. Finally, there are writers who
bury a phrase within the ms. just to see if the editor actually read the ms.
Or, in the case of a hard-copy submission, maybe the writer will turn a page
backwards to see if the editor read that far. Skip that crazy stuff. It just
makes you seem juvenile.
My last piece of advice to you is this: Submit, submit, submit. After
you’ve submitted to three or four publishers and all have rejected the ms.,
re-read their comments (if any) and decide if you need to re-write before
sending your precious out again.
By the way, you can always submit to me. (novelkid@aol.com) I’ll look at any of the romance genres, suspense,
thrillers, YA, inspirational, horror and mystery. I’m not really interested in
non-fiction, so don’t send any non-fiction. But I am totally passionate about
a really great YA . . . well, okay
. . . great fiction. I’m waiting to read yours!
Nancy Knight is a multi-published author. She has been part of Belle Books and is now executive editor for Gilded Dragonfly Books. Nancy edited their first anthology Carousel Déjà vu.
Look for her visit as an author! We will reveal secrets.
www.gildeddragonflybooks.com
