anna genoese

Submission

A look at submission guidelines -- what they mean, how to read them, how to find them, and much encouraging to follow them.

Stupid things that have pissed me off about recent submissions:

- hello, I too watch Stargate SG-1, and therefore I know what kel no'reem is, even if I can't spell it. Plagiarizing television is still plagiarizing, and it's boring. And illegal.

- [things] that; [person] who. i.e.:

incorrect: Daniel Jackson was the one that translated the symbols on the Stargate.
correct: Daniel Jackson was the one who translated the symbols on the Stargate.

Generally I don't care about "proper" (Latinate!) grammar, especially within a first person narrative -- but some things are jarring.

- no SASE. I know that I am going to get a phone call from every single person who didn't include an SASE, asking the status of their submission. Man, I hate phone calls. That's just cruel and unusual.

- Heroines who gaze at themselves in a mirror, who are then described to the reader. And, just in case we don't get the point -- the character is then compared to an actress.

Summer Roberts gazed at herself in her gilt-framed mirror. She looked just like her mother -- long black hair, big brown eyes, perfectly smooth tanned skin. She sighed, and watched her breasts move up and down with the rhythm of her breath, then blinked back up at her reflection. Her eyelashes were sooooo long. Everyone at school wanted to be just like her, and have the best boyfriend in the world, just like she had. So why was she so unhappy? People who looked just like Rachel Bilson weren't supposed to be unhappy. Of course, Summer was way skinner than Rachel Bilson. And her teeth were whiter.

Hello, puke!

- Characters who are supposed to be brilliant in their fields who cannot actually hold a conversation about it.

"What? Uh, wormhole physics? Well, yes, I am the expert in wormholes, but -- well, not so good at the physics part, frankly. I just watched a lot of Star Trek," said Sam.

"Oh." Rodney paused and frowned at her. "And the government just... hired you to work on their wormhole physics project because you could talk the talk?"

Sam nodded. "Oh yes. I gave them a long speech about the difference between alternate dimensions and alternate realities, and their eyes all glazed over."

"Glazed. Like doughnuts?" asked Rodney hopefully.

- Oh, and hey! A lack of adverbs. There is nothing wrong with the adverb, people! It exists to be used! Just learn how to use it first, because the other problem is too many adverbs. Don't skimp, but don't go overboard. They are seasoning. Like salt. Or, um, thyme.

- When it is very clear the writer has just watched too many episodes of House, or is a frustrated George/Izzy shipper, working out her issues in a novel. Hey, that can work sometimes! But most of the time, it just makes me cringe. (The phrase "subdural hematoma" is overused just as much in wannabe-novels about magical doctors as it is on television.)

- The infodump. Okay, this is always a problem -- and it's hard to get around. But...

Sam looked at his brother Dean. Dean was his older brother. Dean had always been his older brother. They didn't really get along, but Sam loved him anyway. What they needed was to have another rollicking demon-killing adventure. That would bring the brotherly love back into their relationship, which had recently become as dry and dusty as an abandoned graveyard in the Sahara desert.

There are better ways to give the reader information than having one character look at another and think about their relationship in the simplest terms possible. I swear!

- Haha, bad similes. There's a difference between someone saying in dialogue, "Baby, you look like someone just killed your puppy and pissed in your cornflakes" and a close third POV in which every other description is a similie.

Brad Pitt strolled into George Clooney's house like he was on the red carpet. George glared at him like Brad had done something wrong, and Brad asked, as innocently as a virgin, "What?" and batted his eyelashes.

George sneered like a mobster and replied, "What are you doing with your eyes? It's not like you're a cheap whore." George picked up his snifter of scotch and stood with his back to Brad, like the hero of a romance novel betrayed by his one true love.

Like the adverb, similies are seasoning and should be used sparingly and to the best effect possible -- not as a lazy way of describing characters and scenes.

- Totally transparent plots. Yes, yes, I know, aliens made them do it stories are all the rage, and everyone who gets hit on the head during a lightning storm ends up in the past/future/on a pirate ship/in a space ship, whatever! It makes me crazy to read books that are otherwise totally straight, and then BAM! The heroine meets the ghost of her mother, who gives her psychic powers so the heroine can hear all of the hero's deliberations about why she doesn't love him and how sad she is. Then they confess their love and are together forever, and after they make sweet, world-saving love for the first time, the psychic powers mysteriously disappear and the heroine's dead mother never comes back as a ghost again. Uh, what? No, thanks.

- Genre-straddling. If your book is a fantastical romantic science fiction mystery-adventure western, chances are I am going to reject it, and tell you to pick a genre to focus on. Sometimes cliches work, you know -- jack of all trades, master of none. Plus... do you really believe anyone can do justice to all six of those genres in 90,000 words? I've yet to see it. Of course there are romantic suspense novels with paranormal elements, and science fiction novels with western elements and a love story too! -- but those are sold as one thing or the other. (This is actually a more complicated rant for another time, so I'll put it off for the moment.)

Okay, okay, no real submissions were quoted here -- but ask anyone who reads slush, and they will tell you that my made up excerpts are just as bad (or, you know, in some cases mine are better) than the real thing.

This week has taken forever to end -- but I also kind of feel like it went by really fast. I got a ton of work done, which is kind of surprising, because I don't feel like I did anything.

Today I went into Melissa's office and she made me feel better about my disdain for the reluctant hero.

I really really really get annoyed by the reluctant hero. Part of this stems out of the fact that I think people shouldn't do things they don't want to do, and the other part of this stems out of my irritation with martyrs.

The best example I have of this is Alias:

You've got this person (Sydney) who chooses her life. Then when she finds out that she was given special training as a child to make her the Best Sooper Sekrit Spy Evah!!!!, she starts bitching about how she was never given a choice, how she doesn't want to be a spy, but she has to, because no one else can do what she does.

I hate this for several reasons. Reason #1: It's manipulative. Reason #2: It's stupid. Reason #3: Being a Super Secret Spy is fucking awesome. Who does she think she's kidding? Reason #4: If she didn't want to be a spy, she could have said no at the very beginning! Reason #5: This is a plot device, and a very thinly disguised one. Hello, there is actual real conflict that could be utilized to create plots. What's the point of this obviously contrived crap?

There are better ways to create conflict. The hero can be lacking the skill set necessary to be able to save the princess. The hero can have to solve puzzles to save the princess. Ad nauseam.

Surely there are better reasons for a hero to be reluctant anyway.

Like, if someone came to me and said, "You're a hero. You have to save the world by killing all the vampires and demons and idiots," probably what I would say first is, "AWESOME! What's my super power?"

But the second thing I would say is, "Actually, no -- I can't. Sorry. I have to pay off my student loans and my car insurance. Also, would I get benefits? Only if I was a hero in Canada? Okay, sorry, no can do!"

There, now I am a reluctant hero, without all this martyr crap that always seems to go along with the reluctant hero crap.

And, frankly, if someone came to me and said, "We'll pay you a lot of money and give you great benefits and make sure that your mother's mortage is covered while we're at it, if you'll just beat King Koopa and save the princess -- it's kind of dangerous, but you've got the skill set!"

Well, I would say, "Excellent! Point me at the direction of the sewers! I will storm off on this journey! Quick, give me a plucky sidekick no one can kill and a lot of sex appeal! I want to be the hero!"

Melissa enabled me terribly, and then we planned out what we're going to talk about at Writers Weekend (probably some variation on my above rant), and then I drank a lot of coffee.