Twenty-Seven Reasons « ReadingWritingLiving

… not to publish a short story. I found this link over at Jade Park’s blog (I seem to find a lot of great stuff over there!). I had not heard of the Willesden Herald Short Story contest, but apparently it sparked quite a controversy when they refused to award a prize because they didn’t find any of the stories up to the standard they were seeking.

Apparently a lot of people are angry at the folks at the Willesden Herald, but as I read the list, I found myself (as an editor and teacher) nodding, nodding, nodding. In fact, I think I could print this out and use it as shorthand to correspond with my co-editors over at Literary Mama. “This is definitely a #11.”

I can see how this list might totally paralyze or overwhelm a writer. But we are all prone to some or many of these things. It happens to me in my own writing.

As an editor, though, I’d say that these are my pet peeves.

1. Failure to observe the rules. Let’s get this most boring reason for rejection of entries out of the way. In this year’s Willesden competition, the rule most breached was the one that specifies no author’s name on the manuscript. Not double-spaced or single-sided also featured, as well as missing or incomplete entry forms. Last, in both senses, were entries received after the closing date. Something approaching one in ten was eliminated for not complying with the rules. It is likely that some people took incomplete information from third party sites, so I recommend that you get the official rules and entry form from the competition website. Then follow the rules exactly, not approximately. Any entry that is not in compliance with the rules will be binned, unread.

It astounds me how much stuff we receive that is not in compliance with our submission guidelines.

16. Full of errors. Slapdash spelling and grammatical errors are like bum notes in a musical audition. Even if you are a shining genius (as you all think you are) it is unlikely you will get away even with one. More than one and you’re stone dead. A lot of people who do not speak English seem to think they can find success in a short story competition with texts that contain errors in every sentence. Very rarely, there may be a story that is otherwise compelling but frustratingly riddled with errors.

I’ve had several of these. They drive me insane. People seem to think, “The copyeditor (or spellcheck) can take care of this!” I fear that this is where the god-awful practice of Estimated Spelling for kindergarteners has taken us. Well, okay, they can Estimate until they are in first grade, but then let’s show them how it’s really done, please? And let’s not even go into punctuation. Aghhh.

20. Summation. “All in the past” syndrome. This is a problem sometimes characterised as “undepicted action” or “telling instead of showing.” Most writers seem to have a grasp of the need to get attention at the beginning, but an astonishing number by the middle of page two have started to tell us all about some ancient family history. All sense of immediacy and story is lost and instead we’re having summaries of complex events that happened, one sentence each, like a dry and tedious history book.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

I have to agree with the conclusion though:

we are looking for something technically perfect, original, vivid and compelling in serious or humorous non-generic stories. How or why these come into existence may always remain a mystery but – like life itself – they do.

AND:

P.S. I should add that every single entry was a valiant effort. It’s a labour of love to read them as it must have been to write them, when most of us have full working days and only the tired few hours remaining to devote to our art. I only wrote the list of points above to be helpful and to open my own thoughts and prejudices to constructive criticism. Speaking only for myself, I think and always think every year, that all of the writers who entered showed talent and potential, and that among the stories there were many “near misses”.

I agree. I so totally agree. Writing IS valiant. It IS a labor of love. It is difficult and painful to write rejection letters. I have received as many as I have written, probably. But I thought, overall, that this list was helpful. I think writers often feel that they can “get away” with certain small things, but the truth is that this just isn’t possible. Don’t think about this list WHILE you are writing, but when you are revising, it’s a helpful checklist. And in the end, it’s really subjective, but I do think that these points are useful guidelines.

P.S. I hope this didn’t sound mean.

Kitt Says:

March 23, 2008 at 7:23 am

I think it’s spot on.

Ericka Says:

March 23, 2008 at 7:44 am

Mean? Hardly. Gentle, in fact. Let me add one of MY pet peeves which shows up on the Willesden Harold list at #4:

4. Solipsism. One miserable person being miserable. This was the most common and depressing failing. Unrelenting monotony of one single, invariably miserable and oppressive viewpoint. No sign of concern or even mention of any other character, nothing other than one person’s dreary moaning. If you are not interested in other characters, at least make it funny.

As an editor and a teacher, MAN have I seen a lot of mirror-staring and brooding-into-a-beer-bottle. Tell it to your journal, folks, don’t put it in your fiction!
(Now THAT was mean)

Ajo Says:

March 23, 2008 at 7:45 am

Not mean at all; it’s a great wake-up call and a terrific guide to doing it right. Everyone’s “valiant effort” is surely worth the extra care required to make it work in context and for its intended destination. Thanks for a great post.

Joe L. Says:

March 23, 2008 at 8:31 am

The follow up on the WH site, including Zadie’s first letter, is the interesting part of this story. Zadie says, “…we didn’t receive enough,” after the editors have already described an overdose reading experience. Imagine a wine contest where the judges must drink entire casks of everything from rotgut Ripple to 100 year old Pinot – their taste buds are rendered useless. I’m surprised they got only 850 entries. But at least they did not charge an entry fee, and it does appear they read most everything sumitted. I can’t believe most of these publications are capable of reading anywhere close to what’s submitted (Poetry, for example, or the Atlantic Monthly – where 90,000 submissions a year might be coming in! And when a fee is charged, someone’s robbing with a fountain pen). But one final thought: their total rejection sounded like a response informed by a pre-determined argument rather than a reader confronting any actual story. From Zadie’s letter: “Just like everybody, we at The Willesden Herald are concerned about the state of contemporary literature. We are depressed by the cookie-cutter process of contemporary publishing, the lack of truly challenging and original writing, and the small selection of pseudo-literary fictio-tainment that dominates our chain bookstores.” Does that describe the stories they received? That, we don’t know. Into the valley of rejection rode the 850. Perhaps they should have billed it as an amateur writing contest, and they could have awarded the best of the worst some sort of promising writer prize, and in that way the 99% of all amateur writers who will never be published anywhere for a number of reasons not even covered by the WH critical list would have a better idea of what’s up.

Susan Says:

March 23, 2008 at 8:35 am

“Imagine a wine contest where the judges must drink entire casks of everything from rotgut Ripple to 100 year old Pinot – their taste buds are rendered useless.”

I think that may well be true with wine, Joe, but it is not the same with reading stories. I judged a writing contest earlier this year, and no matter how bleary I was after reading hundreds of entries, I could absolutely tell the difference between the literary equivalent of rotgut Ripple and 100 yr Pinot. In fact, I was dying to find those gems, and believe me, they stood out.

March 23, 2008 at 8:52 am

Concede that, but what about the rest of it: “by the start of November, all three short-listing judges started having to give up between 12 and 20 hours every week of their time to reading. Eventually, the volunteer that opened the envelopes and did the initial data entry was swamped and at one point, while keeping the entrants’ names secret to all the judges, SM had to help out with tedious data entry by staring at a spreadsheet through the night.” What a waste of everyone’s time and energy, including the writers. How can it be that the publication these writers are ostensibly reading received not a single entry that matched the quality of what they publish? They must have had some prior experience with this. Why do they put out these general calls, knowing it might lead to this kind of disaster? Are they (and many others like them) not doing their readers a disservice by suggesting if one can read a story, one can write one? It’s hopelessly sad; did you tell most of the hundreds in your stack not to quit their day job?