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If you are submitting stories to overseas magazines, ask for current guidelines (always enclose return postage, usually one International Reply Coupon available from the post office). These will tell you exactly what the publisher is seeking at that time, especially theme magazines, that might only want material that fits into their current theme, i.e. science and technology, history, etc. An example of this is the Victorian School Magazines and the NSW School magazines. Each edition has a different theme throughout the year. On the subject of themes, some of my best sales have been to magazines that do not publish fiction. Sometimes you can just be lucky. However, you shouldn’t send a science fiction story to a gardening magazine, unless of course the theme of the story is future gardening! Always remember to keep a record of where you’re sending your stories. My advice to younger writers is that it doesn’t pay to tell the publisher your age (unless the magazine specifically wants work from younger readers). If your work looks professional, then your age won’t matter. Catherine McMullen was ten years old when she sold a story to the UK science fiction magazine Interzone, and has since sold stories to anthologies such as Spinouts. If you have sold stories already, you should mention this in your covering letter. Remember that a rejection letter does not necessarily reflect on the quality of your work. It might just be that your article/story does not fit in with the publisher’s current requirements. A golden rule is to never let an unsold piece of work sit in your home for more than twenty-four hours. Keep sending it out until you have exhausted all avenues. Never throw a manuscript out. I have had novels accepted that had been rejected by the same publisher a decade before. Editors change, as do times. Indeed, as you become a more experienced writer, you can always go back to those ‘bottom drawer’ stories and re-work them. Your publishing agreement will state whether the publisher buys all rights, which often includes world territory and of course electronic rights. If an American publisher only buys North American Rights, then you can sell the story elsewhere, for example, British Commonwealth Rights, will include the UK and Australia. When you get to the stage where you are selling prolifically, it might pay you to get a literary agent who will advise you on the contracts. A list of agents can be found in most writers’ handbooks in your local library. Once a publisher agrees to publish your work, they might want it on disk. Most publishers only require the disk once the work has been accepted, so always send only the hard copy first. Most publishers prefer a covering letter. The following is a good example. Under no circumstances do you tell the magazine editor how good your story is, or discuss its many merits. The editor will have his/her own opinion and will not welcome yours!
(Note that I’ve kept it reasonably friendly, but professional.) The following is how you lay out your manuscript. Most publishers do not require you to put in indents at the beginning of paragraphs, because when they format your disk, they will have to take them out. Make sure that you have no fancy fonts or illustrations. Keep it simple!
(You will note the double spacing between sentences. This is so that editors have space to mark in corrections etc. Also, take notice of the border around the manuscript. Do not print both sides of the paper, and make sure you number each page and have a title on each page. This is in case the pages get loose or rearranged. Do not clip or staple your manuscript.) What makes a good story?
Basically, most stories have a beginning, a middle and
an end. If you are writing a fiction story for a magazine that
publishes 2000+ word stories, your manuscript will have about nine pages. You start out introducing your character. Here you will set the scene for what is about to follow. In the above story, The Thing that went ‘Blerckh!’, the conflict is between two best friends, Barnesy and Fletchard. Barnesy also has a problem (obstacle), which Fletchard thinks is funny. So there’s humour in the first couple of pages, too. The middle comes around pages six and seven. Barnesy can’t dislodge the gum from his feet. They discover a man is picking up all the globs of chewing gum. Here’s the mystery – why would someone go around picking up chewing gum? The obvious way to find out is to following the man (we’re heading toward a logical conclusion). Towards the end, Fletchard and Barnesy discover the ‘man’ is from another planet. They follow him. It turns out that his special gum has been snaring Earth objects, which are valuable on his planet. The boys also discover that he has caught lots of cats and dogs. To release them, they might jeopardise their own safety (a moral dilemma). This is where the characters need a resolution. In this case, they put the animals before their own safety, but of course it’s a wise decision because all the animals get free and so do the boys (climax). It makes good sense to be creative when considering how your character resolves their problem. In the case of Barnesy and Fletchard, they discover a giant plug. Do they pull it, or will it put them in more danger? Only when the old man screams at them not to touch it, do the boys decides it’s a good idea to ‘pull the plug’. The ending is where all the loose ends are tied. In the case of The Thing that went ‘Blerckh!’, the boys vow to look for the old man again, because they want to get back to his planet. Know Your Characters There are basically two types of fiction writers – those who concentrate on characterisation and those who lean toward writing good plots. Writers rarely succeed in being excellent in both. Authors who write plot-driven stories filled with twists and turns and brilliant foreshadowing often receive letters of rejection claiming that the characters are two-dimensional or lack depth. It’s easy enough to draw up a checklist of necessities for your characters: what they look like, colour of hair, shape of nose and nationality etc, but these mundane items should be a given. Your characters need filling out – especially the main protagonists. Giving your character a quirky nature is one way to add a bit of depth: their eye might twitch when agitated or they might stutter. James Bond liked his martinis shaken not stirred, and when introducing himself, he would say, ‘Bond. James Bond.’ Your characters might have a ‘rising inflexion’, which means almost every second sentence seemingly has a question mark, even when they’re not asking a question. The more you fill in along the way, the easier it will be for the reader to identify with them. Never make statements to the reader. Commonly known as ‘show don’t tell’, the following is an example: ‘Keiren didn’t play sport because he was no good at it’. Far better to give a reason: ‘Dom’s older sister was the captain of both the seniors’ cricket and rugby teams. No way could he compete with that; instead he spent most of his time in the library’. In the first version we know that he doesn’t play sport because he’s no good at it. In the second version, we learn why Keiren is no good at sport (he’s daunted by his sister’s superiority), and we learn that he’s a reader because of it. The rule of thumb is that if you know your character inside out, and convey your knowledge in your story by showing and not telling, your finished work will be much richer for it. Apart from all the above, my greatest tip to anyone, is to persist! Remember that most of the best selling books of all time were rejected by several publishers before seeing print! Good luck with your writing. I hope these minor tips prove helpful.
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