Ask an Editor: What will get your manuscript rejected?

by Roseanna M. White, acquisitions editor for WhiteFire Publishing

Let's play a game--it's called Fix It or Nix It. The object of the game? To write a manuscript strong enough to get you to "I want to make you an offer!" avoiding, at all costs, those potholes that will get you rejected.

But it's a tricky game, I warn you now. After all, who among us hasn't looked at a problem in a manuscript and wondered if it's enough to get us rejected, or if an editor would deem it fixable? How in the world do you know the difference?

Writing is art, not science, so there are no firm answers here. But I thought it would be fun to examine what I've noticed from the editor's side of the table when it comes to a topic that always baffled me when my writing hat was on.

1. Typos

You've sent in a proposal to your dream editor. Then you get a late critique back or open it up again yourself. And what do you find? ACK! Typos! You used, gasp, "there" instead of "their." And were missing a "the" on page 6. Panicked, you're ready to email the editor begging for the chance to resubmit.

Well, what do you think the editor's going to say? For the amount of mistakes mentioned above, I say:

Typos slip by everyone. Typos are not problems. They're just . . . facts. In everything. Even the cleanest of manuscripts is going to arrive with a slew of typos, and that's fine. Don't worry about it. That really is what editors are for!

2. Grammatical Flaws

If typos are a thunderstorm, by grammatical flaws, I mean a tornado. These are the kinds of things you don't even know you're doing wrong. Not just putting comma-llamas in the wrong places, but writing in run-ons. Not knowing how to divide your paragraphs. Never getting quotation marks right. All things that an editor can change, right? Well, what say you?

This isn't just a typo, is it? It's a lot more serious. Which means a lot more work. For this, I vote:

Why? Because while I can go in and fix all this for you, I shouldn't have to. That will take weeks of my time, which means neglecting everything else. Um, no thanks. No handle on grammar means a painful read, and why would I want to put myself through that? I did it as a freelancer, when people were paying me per page. I'm not going to do it now when I have the leisure of only working with what I like.

3. Plot Issues

Your story begins in the wrong place. Or maybe it has a sagging middle. Could be you have a theme that's only mentioned once, at the end, but is the title of the book. Or perhaps your ending lacks umph. So . . . ?

This often comes down to opinion and preference, and I'll give some explanation below. But overall, I have chosen to:

Not always--and probably not if a manuscript has all the problems I list, LOL. But I pretty much always ask for a few changes. A moved scene so that it starts with action. A beefed-up ending. A girdle on that middle. ;-) These are things I can ask the author to do and trust them to deliver--which means I have to trust the author to make the fix, and if I can't, then I would give it a thumbs-down instead. This relies on the author otherwise knowing what they're doing, just being a bit blind to a certain problem. And it requires me loving the story enough to want to work with them on it.

4. Unoriginal or Overdone

You love a certain type of book. Maybe it's a quest. Maybe it's a returning-to-your-first-love. Maybe it's--well, you can fill in the blanks. And since there are only a handful of plots in the world, you obviously have to use those. So why in the world did a judge in that contest tell you it was unoriginal?

What do you guys think? Me, I'm going to:

While it's true that there's nothing new under the sun, there are always new ways to combine and use those age-old plots and devices. Most of all, there are new ways to present them with your writing. There are plenty of times when I read a familiar-sounding plot but am intrigued to read more, because they have an original hook. But there are times when a book has an unoriginal title paired with an overused plot and cliched characters, and nothing "new" to make me want to read what it feels like I've already read before. When one of these comes across my desk, I usually just share that I've read XYZ by Big Name Author that sounds almost identical and we don't want to try to compete with it. Which is true. What you can do as a writer is be very familiar with your genre so you can be sure not to echo any existing titles too closely. And then find a new twist or a quirky character to breathe fresh life into it.

5. Voice Schmoice

What's voice, anyway? And what does it have to do with anything? Obviously your work sounds like you--you wrote it! And obviously it's original, because there's never been another like you, right? Yet when your book comes across an editor's desk, they say it "lacks voice."

Voice is elusive, after all. So what do we do here? Well, sorry to say we:

Voice is elusive, but it's also that certain-something that sets a book apart. To me, if story is king, then voice is emperor. Plot issues I can fix--voice I cannot. Voice is you, how you write, how you take that story and make it your own. But if you sound like two thousand other writers I've read... [insert me shrugging.] There's no easy fix to this problem, hence while I'll pass. BUT--as your learn your craft and practice your skills, your voice is going to evolve. What sounds cliched right now could develop so much in the next year that then I'll be chomping at the bit to read more. So if you hear this, don't give up! Just write more. It's like singing--if you take a good, raw voice and teach the singer how to train and bridle it, they'll end up with something. The same goes for writers. You have raw talent--now turn it into skill.

And finally...

6. Shallow characterization

Your character doesn't quite go deep enough in a few places. His reactions are a bit stiff in this one place, but you're not sure how to fix it. Maybe your heroine is unlikeable. No sympathy is evoked on the part of the reader.

This is a big deal, right? Characters often drive a book after all. So what do you think? I tend to:

While it's a big problem to have shallow characterization, it's also a very fixable one if the story and writing are otherwise sound. In one of our books, we asked the author to start the story years after she originally did, and add in a yearning to help her village people improve their lot--which they resisted, but the good motive made the character seem likable. In another of our titles, it was a matter of looking a little deeper into her motives. And in yet another, just tweaking the hero's way of talking. Once you can pinpoint why a character isn't working, it's a very doable edit, and authors are usually really excited to dig into it once an editor has pointed out how.

So how did you do in the game? Or are you still not quite sure?

Here's the thing--it's hard for us to identify our own problems sometimes, and often not until someone points them out to us that we even realize we have them. Then we're not sure what to do about it. Do we try to fix them or give up? Do we submit anyway?

I've submitted stories with problems--everyone has. Some of them have gotten me rejected, and some of them were fixable. But like with any program for improvement, the first step is understanding where your problems with a manuscript lie and listening carefully to feedback from critique partners, contest judges, agents, and editors.

As an editor, if there are problems with a manuscript that are too big for me to tackle but I see promise shining through, I'll let you know what those problems are and invite you to resubmit at a later date once you've gotten a handle on them.

That's how we improve--by learning to identify our weaknesses and then fix them. And though it's still hard for me to always know what needs fixing in my own manuscript, editors are usually pretty quick at identifying what needs changed in other people's books. It's all just a matter of whether those problems scream