My rejection letter sent me to their blog, Shroud Publishing, with an explanation on why I received a form rejection.
A critique friend, A.R. Braun, then took the time to review the rejected story and was able to point out many red flags I had overlooked.
Aware of being guilty of this in the past, this story had been reread numerous times. It was not enough.
I recently wrote a post, Writing Is Rewriting. I end my suggestion of the editing process with a read through after correcting errors pointed out by critique partners. I'd like to extend that process here.
Once you've corrected those errors, reread numerous times, correct these errors, reread a few more times, repeat this until there are no more errors.
For an added caution, have a critique partner on hand for this final stage. Let them know this is the version you plan to submit and would like to know if they see any errors you've missed.
If they find any, correct and reread a few more times. At this point, you should be safe to submit. Be aware that with each correction, the text around it should be reviewed with a sharp eye. Repetition can creep in at this point.
I know this is easier said than done, but if you want to be published you have to put the work into the story to get the results.
Good luck in your writing adventures. (For you writers who have blogs, do yourself a favor and also proofread your posts. You never know who may visit.)
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8 comments:
Great points, Cher.
That is really neat that the editor did that. Even though it was rejected, the input will serve you well next time!
An outside view is so helpful. The human brain has a tendency to "auto-correct" something, so that we literally do not see it, no matter how many times we read something.
Best of luck in the future.
Yes, it is hard work, but it has to be done. It is so hard to find every error. My husband is my first proof-reader. He finds a lot of the mistakes, but not all. More than one set of eyes is needed for sure!
Revision is part of writing, an important step that cannot be overlooked.
It's so much harder to find mistakes in our own writings, that's for sure. Seems so easy with someone else's. Maybe if we pretended really hard... ;)
Tara, Lynn, Angie, Nicole, and Terry,
Thanks for stopping by. I think editing is where we lose most of the potential writers. This is where the real work begins.
That's true! Read everything aloud before submitting it to be sure.
Kathere, thanks for stopping by. It is one of the best methods to finding errors.
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