1. Please make your novel at least reasonably intelligent.  A superhero comic book or movie might conceivably become a bestseller despite being pretty idiotic.  (Batman and Robin sold ~$240 million worth of tickets, for example).  Comic books and movies have other things to fall back on besides the quality of the writing.  Novels, not so much.  For one thing, the target audience for novels is people that actually willingly buy novels, who tend to be more literate than the population as a whole.  Consequently, the most successful superhero novels (notably The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and the Wild Cards series) tend to be more complex than just action. For example, Amazing Adventures and the first few* Wild Cards books  were historical chronicles and AA had more action for an artist escaping Nazi-occupied territory than it did for any superheroes.

• Imagination.  Does your story have elements we haven’t seen before?  If we have seen plot elements before, are you executing them differently and/or more interestingly?  For example, Amazing Adventures deftly handled a stranger-in-a-strange-land with a great ear for the artist’s unusual-sounding voice and some interesting use of his cultural background.  In contrast, the Superman series bends over backwards to make Superman’s transition to Earth as seamless and undramatic as possible.  (Superman looks exactly like a stereotypically attractive human, his English is utterly nondescript, his superpowers don’t create enough problems for him, there are few if any cultural differences in play, etc).
• The ability to make connections and offer themes that are not necessarily obvious.    For example, The Incredibles has a few scenes where superheroics get mistaken for adultery/inappropriate love.

*Thanks to John for the correction there.

2. It might help to consider a setting besides “pretty much any modern First World city.”  I think it’s more acceptable for superhero comic books to use a more or less generic city as the setting.  (Besides the names of the villains, is there anything that could happen in Superman’s Metropolis that couldn’t happen in Spider-Man’s New York or Green Lantern’s Coast City or vice versa?).  If you’re doing a novel, I’d recommend looking harder at more flavorful, distinct examples (inside and outside of the superhero niche) like Batman’s Gotham, Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University (and probably Ankh-Morpork generally), Watchmen’s New York, Transmetropolitan’s The City*, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, maybe Dresden Files’ Chicago and Making the Corps’ Parris Island.  Also, whereas most superhero comic books and movies are set mostly on modern Earth, quite a few successful superhero novels have experimented with historical settings (e.g. Amazing Adventures and Bitter Seeds are mostly about WWII and the buildup to WWII and the first few Wild Cards books cover the period from WWII to the present).

*Vastly more interesting than it sounds.

3. Three-dimensional characters are paramount.  Do your most important characters have combinations of traits we haven’t seen before?  Do your characters get opportunities to act differently than most other protagonists in their genre would act in the same circumstances?

4.  Who’s your target audience?  Generally, the core demographic for comic books (~16-30 year old men) is not a very reliable demographic for novel publishers.  If you’re really interested in writing something for that demographic, if at all possible I would recommend trying as hard as possible to appeal to older readers and/or women at the same time.  My crude overgeneralization there is that imagination tends to be more important in appealing to older readers because they’ve had more opportunities to read stories and get used to cliches.  (E.g. Eragon sold a lot of copies among young adults but I think most people that have read 10+ fantasy novels would frown upon a story that derivative).  As for ladies, I’m not really sure (and I’ve read too many of the hundreds of thousands of words that have already been written about “how do we get women to read superhero stories?” to think there are any easy answers there), but my crude overgeneralization is that it would probably help to include a genre besides action*.  For example, detective/mystery, romance, comedy, thriller/suspense, horror, zombie ninja romantic-horror, etc.

*Besides, superhero movies will almost certainly have more exciting action than a superhero novelist could conceivably write.  And a vastly bigger marketing budget.

5. Try a daring premise.  If you described your story in a few sentences, would prospective readers want to open it up?  Please give your query (and eventually your backcover) more to work with than just “Superhero X needs to defeat Supervillain Y.”  If your plot is a bit banal, I’d recommend thinking more about character traits and motivations (as noted above) and it might help to try working in an unusual background.  If I could cite my own unpublished work, even though doing so is pretentious*, I think one of the elements of The Taxman Must Die that several beta-reviewers have mentioned favorably is that the main character is an accountant utterly out of his depth when it comes to superheroics.

*Like that’s ever stopped me.

5.1.  Stories that are not daring are probably on the fast track to rejection.  I’ve been reading a few submissions a month for the past few years and I’m already a bit queasy about “Nondescript high school student(s) gets superpowers and must defeat a routine supervillain whose only apparent motivation is evilness and only life experience is being evil.”  I can only imagine that full-time editors that have been reading submissions for 10+ years would be even more jaded (and almost certainly less receptive to superhero stories than I am).  Indeed, when you submit to a novel publisher or literary agency, it is highly unlikely that any of the people evaluating your submission have actually published a superhero story before.*

• Q: “Erik, what would happen, if say, you received a proposal where the art wasn’t good enough for it to be accepted but the pitch and story was extremely impressive and one of the best ideas you’d ever come across?”  A: “It would be rejected.”
• Q: “Would you consider publishing a story written by a 16-year-old? I’m talking about legal issues.” A: “What legal issues? If the work is exceptional–we’ll publish it. Most 16-year olds aren’t that good, however.”

Damnation Books wants realistic portrayals of metahumans and superpowers for its Corrupts Absolutely Anthology.  ”Modern pop-culture is brimming over with stories of bright, polished men and women with indestructible moral codes, who throw themselves into a life of public service after being graced (or cursed) with cosmic powers… I call BS. How about people with flaws? People with serious psychological issues? People that have been looking for a ticket out of their circumstances and finally lucked into it?… To some, this just screams ‘supervillain,’ or ‘antihero,’ and in many cases, you’d be right. But usually, these are stock characters without much substance. They’re the ‘bad guys.’ Real life isn’t that simple…”

• Length: 3000-5000 words.
• Deadline: December 1, 2011.  
• Hey, ladies!  The editor mentions that he’s looking especially carefully for female authors and/or female leads.

Hyperpulp wants literary stories that “demonstrate a concern with writing, not only with plot or characters.”  It specifically mentions fantasy superhero and sci-fi superheroes on its Duotropes page.  ”The idea is to harbor stories that exceed expectations, surprise the reader – also regarding the form – and are not afraid to subvert clichés and conduct experimentations… We’ll give preference to a prose more poetic and surprising.”

• Length: Up to 10,000 words.
• Hey, Brazilians!  Hyperpulp publishes in both English and Portuguese.
• Hey, procrastinators!  No deadline.

Jersey Devil Press prefers “funny, weird, and, above all, entertaining” short stories.  “Here are a few things we wouldn’t mind seeing more of: strong female voices, a light-hearted view of the world and truly bat-**** insane fiction.  If you’re worried that what you just wrote is too ridiculous to be published, send it… We like dark, we like ridiculous.  We like funny and we like ‘what the **** was that?”  On its Duotropes page, it lists superhero fantasy and superhero sci-fi as subgenres of interest.  For submission details, please see this and this.

• Length: Up to 4200 words.
• Hey, procrastinators!  No deadline.

Title Goes Here wants “dark stories with some sort of an imaginative twist… we’re not as concerned about genre as about tone.”  Its Duotropes page specifically mentions superhero fantasy and superhero sci-fi, among others.  Please read the submission guidelines here.

The designer sips his coffee.  ”And I’ve also achieved enviable fuel economy and a sleek but stylish frame.”

“Your plane just exploded.”

“But what about the paint job?”

******************************

If your writing isn’t getting as many responses as you want (from prospective reviewers, publishers or agents), I’d recommend considering whether you’re sending them an exploding plane.  Please check hard for mechanical errors* before submitting your stories to other people.  Few things convince readers that a story is not worth their time as quickly as proofreading errors.  (Also, even the most altruistic reviewers hate getting used as a punctuation-checker).

*It’s okay to groan here. I did.

1. The author is working on too many projects to finish one. It’s far better to complete one manuscript than to go halfway on two. Most publishers won’t consider an unfinished novel manuscript from an inexperienced author.

2. The author is unwilling and/or unable to set time aside for writing. Alternately, perhaps the author sets aside a regular time, but is not consistent about actually using it. If you put aside one hour per day for writing, you can pretty easily write 1-2 pages. (Actually, I’d like to phrase that more confidently. If you can sit down for an hour and do nothing but write, you WILL write at least 1-2 pages. If you can do 1-2 pages a day, you will have a manuscript drafted within 6 months). If you’re writing at your computer, I’d recommend turning off the Internet because I find it tends to reduce productivity.

3. The author gives up on the manuscript and starts another. Moving on could be a good idea if you’re more likely to finish the next one, but are you?  What will be different about this next one?  (I know too many authors that switch from one to the next to the next without actually finishing any).

I feel that one of the most common reasons an author will give up on a manuscript is if the main character doesn’t seem to be working. If that’s the issue, you could probably salvage a substantial portion of the story by working in a second point-of-view character (either a new character or an interesting, preexisting one). After you’ve finished the first draft, you can opt to remove the original main character altogether or do some rewriting so that the two perspectives mesh together more coherently. (A caveat: I would not recommend lightly deciding to do 3+ points of view. If you already have two POVs and want to add a third, when you come to the end of the first draft, I’d recommend carefully considering whether one can be removed and/or merged into another).

3.1: When is the best time to give up on a manuscript?  If you’re just in the brainstorming phase, I don’t think it costs very much to shelve a premise and try something else.  The more time you’ve put into it, the more I would encourage you to try to salvage it rather than toss it out altogether.  For example, one possibility is to consider a new main character (as above).  You could also consider a different genre.  For example, you could probably switch from superhero action to detective/mystery or vice versa–the story will feel radically different even though most of the plot events could remain.

PERFECTIONISM

4. The writer constantly rewrites chapters before the first draft is complete. Generally, I’d save major rewriting until you’ve finished the first draft (unless, perhaps, you want to overhaul the plot and it would be really confusing to push forward with what you have). Rewriting before the first draft is complete strikes me as a mostly-hopeless venture because you probably won’t have a very good idea of where the story is going before you get there. (Even if you outline—there’s no way to predict which ways you will adapt and change your outline over the course of writing the book until you actually do).

5. The author sends it out for beta-reviews too early and gets discouraged. Unless you’re desperately stuck, I wouldn’t get reviewers involved before the first draft is complete. Reviews are usually written with the mindset of “How can this be perfected?” and a story early in the development process might have hundreds of issues that could be perfected.  Getting a review that points out these issues early in the development process could shake the author by convincing him/her that the story doesn’t have much promise.  Please don’t worry about that—when you’re ready to rewrite, you can execute darn near anything better.  I’ve seen too many really strong stories start out as sort of crappy drafts to believe that a draft’s crappiness is something to get discouraged about.

Until the first draft is complete, I think “How can this be completed?” is a much more pressing question. Don’t worry about perfection until you have a draft completed. (For one thing, I feel it is nigh-impossible to perfect a piece that hasn’t been drafted. Finishing the draft gives you a scaffolding to build on or ingredients to cook with).

DIFFICULTIES WITH PLOTTING

6. The author loses track of where the story is going and allows that to discourage him/her. Don’t worry about it, just keep writing. It’s okay if your first draft has rough and/or nonsensical transitions, plot elements that are introduced but totally neglected, etc. It’s much easier to deal with those when you have the full draft in front of you. (Then you can examine which plot threads didn’t quite pan out and can be removed, which plot threads should be developed more fully, how to create smooth transitions between your scenes, whether to reorder the scenes, etc).

7. The author writes out of sequence and gets horribly discouraged when the story fragments turn into an incoherent wreck. I’d recommend writing chapter one and then chapter two and then chapter three and only skipping around as a last resort. If your manuscript is giving you anxiety, I think it’ll help a lot to focus on what’s coming next chapter rather than worrying about what could happen 10 or 20 chapters down the line.

8. There are too few goals, obstacles, character growth and/or consequences to propel the story past writer’s block.  For more details here, please see this article on writer’s block and this one.

Some other twists you can throw in:

• The character’s goals change.  A character might “fail” at a goal because he decides that it is no longer worth pursuing.  (More commonly, failures are caused by external opposition).
• The character is initially unsuccessful but keeps trying.  (For example, the Captain America movie would have been pretty boring if Rodgers had given up after the Army told him no the first five times).
• A problem or obstacle could be self-inflicted.   For example, in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, there are external villains (the 7 Evil Exes) but the biggest obstacles to Scott’s relationship with Ramona come from Scott himself, like his irresponsibility and immaturity.  (He, ahem, cheats on her with a high-schooler, which is not the best way to win a 24th birthday).

For another style of plotting, please see Organizing Your Story with Cause and Effect.

2. It didn’t make enough of an impact on readers.  Publishing is a high-risk industry.  You need to convince publishing professionals to put themselves on the line for you.  An editor that was truly impressed is much more likely to speak up on your behalf than one that felt it was merely pretty good.  Write a book so good editors would regret letting it slip away to another publisher.

3. It’s not what the publisher is looking for right now.  For example, editors might pass on an otherwise publishable work if it’s too similar to something they’ve recently published.

4. There were elements that worked, but it’d need more rewriting before it was ready.  Depending on how well the strong elements worked, you might garner a revise-and-resubmit letter here.  “The characterization was really strong, but I found the plot hard to follow for reasons X and Y.  Could you work on that and send it back to me?”  Besides a publishing offer, a revise-and-resubmit letter is the clearest sign you’re deep along the path to publication.  Alternately, any sort of personalized rejection letter (even one that doesn’t ask you to resubmit) is somewhat encouraging.  There’s not enough time to write thousands of personalized rejection letters, so editors will only put in that extra time if they think something is working.  (In EXTREMELY rare cases, an author might receive a personalized rejection letter along the lines of “Plagiarizing my book and then submitting it to my publisher is not the soundest career move,” but otherwise it’s definitely a sign that the editor saw some promise in the work).

5. It was good, but not a good fit for that publisher.  It might be much shorter or longer than they’re used to working with, it might be in a different genre or subgenre than they’re working with, it might be aimed at a target audience they’re not used to, it might deal with plot elements they’re not comfortable with (such as religion, politics, drugs, rape, lurid violence, Canadian characters*), etc.

*Joking!  Sort of.

6. It was good, but not a good fit for that editor/reader.  Especially if you’re submitting without an agent, it’s sort of the luck of the draw as to which readers will evaluate the submission.   The agent’s job is to identify receptive editors and pitch directly to them.  (Also, having a quality agent usually makes the manuscript look more credible).  Take Twilight. In the end, many editors were interested, the rights went to auction and the author and agent got a huge payday. If it had been unagented, there’s no way of knowing how readers would have responded at each company.  Personally, if I had been the publisher’s assistant, I probably would have passed on it after 2 pages.

7. It didn’t look marketable enough.  Even if you can win over one editor with something really out there, you still need to win over the acquisition committee.  It really helps if some comparable books have sold well recently.  (More on the acquisition process here and here). Alternately, if it looks like your work might not be easy to market, it’d probably help to do some premarketing work on your own to establish that readers are interested.  For example, if you really liked the sample pages of my comic book, The Taxman Must Die, perhaps you’d like to join the few hundred enlightened souls in my raffle for a chance at a free, signed copy when it comes out.  Although the concept of a superhero comedy about an IRS agent without any superpowers probably doesn’t sound very marketable, hopefully it will be easier for them to visualize thousands of sales if hundreds of people have already expressed an interest in reading it.

8. It wasn’t finished.  Most publishers won’t consider any unfinished novel from an unpublished author, even an incredible one. When inexperienced authors submit unfinished manuscripts, it raises huge red flags that they’re having trouble completing it.  If you’re in that situation, I would recommend finishing the manuscript, doing any necessary rewrites and then submitting it.  If you’re stuck, I’d recommend checking out this article on writer’s block and this one.

Bonus #9 for comic book writers: the publisher liked only the art or the writing, but not both.  The art or writing would have to be pretty incredible to convince a publisher to move forward.

*Unless you’re a major celebrity, like a film star or head of state.  In that case, a publisher might be willing to ghostwrite a book for you.


5.  You forgot to include the word-count for your novel or the page-count for your comic book.  

5.1. Many publishers will instantly reject you if your word-count/page-count are not even close to what the publisher usually prints.  There’s a bit of variation by genre, but usually I’d recommend 80,000-100,000 words for an adult novel manuscript.

6.  You missed anything else in the submission guidelines.  Do not pass Go, do not collect an advance.

6.1. You’ve tried submitting to a publisher that doesn’t accept unsolicited submissions.  Notably, DC and Marvel Comics do not accept unsolicited submissions from writers.  Admittedly, publishers DO accept such stories once in a blue moon, so it’s not necessarily a waste of time to try, but more likely you’re dead on arrival.

7.  Your query letter raised significant questions about your mental health and/or professionalism.  If you want to be a professional writer, always be professional.

8.  Some publishers will instantly reject writers that include copyright notices because it suggests that they’re paranoid amateurs. Also, please don’t submit to a publisher unless you have faith in their professionalism. Including a copyright notice is like saying “I don’t trust you not to steal my work unless I tell you not to,” which will go over with the editor about as well as a frying pan to the face.

9.  A few publishers will instantly reject you for addressing your query/cover letter to “Dear Editor” or “To Whom It May Concern.”  I’d recommend looking up any one of the editors that handles submissions for the publisher and addressing it to him/her.  Even if that person isn’t actually the one that ends up reading it, it’ll show you put some thought into the submission.

10.  You tried using a hilariously bad pen name.  Here’s some advice on pen names, Max Slaughter.

11.  The query/submission letter had too many typos.  Personally, I’d stop reading at three unless the writer was a head of state or something. Unless the main selling point for your proposal is your celebrity bio (rather than your writing skills), your writing skills need to be impeccable. If it’ll take you a few years to get the rules of grammar down, the publisher can wait. It has no reason to rush out a book from an author that isn’t ready yet.

1.  As always, a manuscript with serious proofreading issues is dead on arrival. First, this is a generally reliable indicator that the story is not among the very best*.  Second, the more proofreading a manuscript needs, the more it will distract the editorial staff from their other duties (such as, umm, all of the other titles they’re working on).  If I were reviewing manuscripts for a publisher, I couldn’t envision any many circumstances where I would keep reading a submission with more than a few proofreading errors in the first 1000 words (~3 pages).  (Main exception: If the author is a celebrity or has a really interesting bio, such as experience as a Navy SEAL or SWAT officer, the publisher might be willing to put extra time into proofreading and/or ghostwriting).

*If you are an author that has gotten an unsolicited manuscript with more than ~10 typos professionally published, please let me know.  That must have been some story!

2.  I’d really like to see a main character quickly separate himself/herself from other protagonists in the genre. For example, he/she can do something that most other heroes in the genre wouldn’t do in the same circumstances.  If the main impression I get of the main character is “standard genre hero,” the character probably isn’t well-developed enough to hold my interest.  Relatedly, if the main character can be summed up in one word, I would regard that as a really bad sign.  If I’ve gotten through ~20 pages and the main character can be boiled down to “nerd” or “soldier” or “superhero” or “astro-ninja” or whatever, the characterization probably isn’t deep enough.  If I could use my own work as a positive example (even though I’m not a published author), I feel Agent Orange established himself as a lively, unusual sort of superhero.  Here’s what I did with 5 comic book pages in The Taxman Must Die (~200 words).  Given 20 novel pages (5000-6000 words), you can surely can do more.

3.  I’d really like to see the main character(s) doing interesting things as soon as possible. For example, if the story starts with a character waking up, I feel that’s a huge red flag unless the character’s morning routine is highly unusual and/or dramatic.  For example, if the character is woken up by artillery fire, that’s probably a good sign.  If the character has an ordinary morning leading into what seems to be an ordinary day of school, why not just skip to the interesting part?

4.  I would be concerned if I can’t identify at least one personality trait and a flaw of the main character within 20 pages. Some common problems on this front:

• The main character isn’t consistently depicted.  He just sort of does whatever the author is feeling like at that moment, even though he doesn’t feel like the same person he was 5 or 10 pages ago.
• The main character doesn’t have a personality.  The author decides how he acts by asking herself “What would be the best thing to do in this situation?”, rather than “How would this character act in this situation?”  By the way, it’s okay if your main characters act “wrong” and/or make their lives more difficult.   A character’s mistakes are usually more distinct and memorable than his “correct” choices.
• The main character isn’t active enough.  The story just sort of happens around him.
• The plot doesn’t give the protagonist enough chances to distinguish herself.  If the main character makes a series of choices that pretty much every protagonist in the genre would in the same circumstances, the character will probably not stick out much.  Likewise, if the character doesn’t do anything differently than I would in the same circumstances, I’d probably find her pretty boring.
• The main character doesn’t have a flaw.  Need some ideas about how to fix that?

5.  If the main character hasn’t faced some sort of challenge or obstacle within the first 20 pages, the plot has probably stalled.

6.  If the story is set somewhere besides a modern First World country, I’d be concerned about the author’s worldbuilding skills if I can’t identify any ways in which it feels different than a modern First World country. Please let your imagination flow freely, especially if the story isn’t set on Earth.  Likewise, I would probably be annoyed if the story prominently used a nonhuman species that was pretty much indistinguishable from humans.

How to catch their eye: “Being clear and concise, using unadorned language, concrete modifiers (only when necessary) and strong, active verbs will send your submission skyrocketing to the top. On Writing Well by William Zinsser, while specifically about non-fiction, has great advice for anyone learning to write.”  Also, they are not fond of abusing substitutes for “said.”

They are separately looking for short stories to fill an anthology.  “The idea is pretty simple, all the stories revolve around a red scarf lying on the road and answer the question, in some way or another, how did it get there?”  (Note: This theme is just for the anthology).   Story length for anthology entries: 2000-20,000 words. The preferred genres are the same as above.

If you know of any other publishers looking for superhero short story submissions, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.  Thanks!

1. Please do not ever use more than one exclamation mark at time.  It looks awful!!!
2. Even if you’re writing a heated conversation, please don’t end a string of sentences with exclamation marks!  It will look really strange!  I wouldn’t recommend it! In a heated conversation, readers can infer that the characters are shouting at each other even if the sentence ends with a period.
3. If you’re inclined to capitalize words for emphasis, 1) don’t and 2) if you do, please do so super-sparingly.  (No, really, just a FEW times in the manuscript, PLEASE.  It’s SO HARD to read when AUTHORS just seemingly use all-caps AT RANDOM).

1. Author is functionally illiterate.
2. Author has submitted some variety of literature we don’t publish: poetry, religious revelation, political rant, illustrated fanfic, etc.
3. Author has a serious neurochemical disorder, puts all important words into capital letters, and would type out to the margins if MSWord would let him.
4. Author is on bad terms with the Muse of Language. Parts of speech are not what they should be. Confusion-of-motion problems inadvertently generate hideous images. Words are supplanted by their similar-sounding cousins: towed the line, deep-seeded, dire straights, nearly penultimate, incentiary, reeking havoc, hare’s breath escape, plaintiff melody, viscous/vicious, causal/casual, clamoured to her feet, a shutter went through her body, his body went ridged, empirical storm troopers, ex-patriot Englishmen, et cetera.
5. Author can write basic sentences, but not string them together in any way that adds up to paragraphs.
6. Author has a moderate neurochemical disorder and can’t tell when he or she has changed the subject. This greatly facilitates composition, but is hard on comprehension.
7. Author can write passable paragraphs, and has a sufficiently functional plot that readers would notice if you shuffled the chapters into a different order. However, the story and the manner of its telling are alike hackneyed, dull, and pointless.

(At this point, you have eliminated 60-75% of your submissions. Almost all the reading-and-thinking time will be spent on the remaining fraction.)

 

8. It’s nice that the author is working on his/her problems, but the process would be better served by seeing a shrink than by writing novels.
9. Nobody but the author will care about this dull, flaccid, underperforming book.
10. The book has an engaging plot. Trouble is, it’s not the author’s, and everybody’s already seen that movie/read that book/collected that comic.

(You have now eliminated 95-99% of the submissions.)

 

11. Someone could publish this book, but we don’t see why it should be us.
12. Author is talented, but has written the wrong book.
13. It’s a good book, but the house isn’t going to get behind it, so if you buy it, it’ll just get lost in the shuffle.
14. Buy this book.

• Freedom Fiction wants speculative fiction, which “consists of genres such as science fiction, fantasy fiction, horror fiction, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, alternate history, and all their sub-genres. Additionally we are into detective fiction, crime, gangster, hardboiled, noir fiction and very much into pulp fiction…. If your fiction is unconformist and maybe even not fitting the mentioned genres, do query us and we will see if we can find your story a home at Freedom Fiction.”  NOTE: Please query them before submitting stories over 3000 words.
• Theory Train wants “edgy new speculative fiction and poetry. Speculative Fiction is defined as anything that occurs in a world not our own. So we’re looking for well-written fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, superheroes, and horror… Maximum 4500 words for fiction.”  Submissions for the upcoming issue are due May 1.
• Hogglepot wants magical stories. “Hogglepot accepts fantasy of all sub-genres, including (but not limited to) dark fantasy, heroic fantasy, fairy tale, historical, gothic, light fantasy, magical realism, paranormal, science fantasy, superhero, supernatural, steampunk, sword and sorcery, urban fantasy, and such. Think anything from Lord of the Rings to Toy Story and everything in between…. The fantasy element must be present in the story, whether the characters be magical creatures such as vampires or dragons, or if the protagonist stumbles upon an ancient magical artifact, or if the characters mix magical potions, etc. There needs to be some sort of magical element within the story. We like magic.”  Maximum length: 5000 words.

2.  The plot sounds too banal. Your query has one page to give us enough details to show what’s at stake and make your plot come alive.  For more on quickly getting to the point, see this article on two-sentence summaries.

• REJECTED: “A man has to save the day.” The only way this could be more generic is if you replaced “man” with “person.”  Next time, say something about what he has to do to save the day, who he’s saving it from, etc.
• STILL PRETTY BAD: “A detective has to solve a case.”
• BETTER: “A poisoned detective has 48 hours to solve his own murder.”  I like the sense of urgency here.
• SWEETNESS: “A killer who believes himself an artist of unmatched talent is incensed by being placed last on the FBI’s most wanted list.  He begins killing off those fugitives above him in twisted manners that serve his creative vision.”

3. The manuscript isn’t finished yet! I’m not aware of any novel publishers that work with first-time novelists that haven’t completed the manuscript.  Unproven first-timers prove themselves by completing the manuscript, and until then nobody will know whether you have it in you to finish the job.  The publisher can wait.

4.  The characters come off banal. What are their personalities like? How are they different from other protagonists in their genre?  (Personality? Key traits? Flaws? Hard decisions? Unusual choices? What’s at stake for them? What are they trying to accomplish? What mistakes do they make?)

5. The author has stumbled into a highly-developed niche without trying hard enough to stand out in a good way. In particular, if the author has only read a few books in the genre, it’s probably going to feel like a ripoff of them.  Read extensively and try looking for unusual choices you could give the characters.  For example, Peter Parker is more human than purely heroic, so it makes sense that he pettily declines to stop the robber that later kills his uncle.  Bob Swagger is so loyal that, even after being framed as an assassin, he breaks into an FBI-guarded morgue so that he can bury his dog properly.  In each of these cases, the unusual choice leads to a major negative consequence.  (Peter’s uncle dies and Bob gives away his position to the FBI).

6.  The introduction is forgettable. Some common problems:

• The main character(s) doesn’t do anything interesting early on.  (Red flag: The story starts with a character waking up and doing his morning routine).
• The main character isn’t well-developed early on.  Give the character a chance to establish himself early.  (For example, force him into a difficult choice).
• Too little is at stake.  The character doesn’t have to be in physical danger, but do threaten something or some goal he cares about.

7. The author has forgotten the word count or the word count is outside of the publisher’s range. You need to tell your publisher how long the manuscript is (to the nearest thousand words).  The page count is NOT acceptable for novel publishers because the page count fluctuates wildly based on your typesetting choices (spacing, font, size, etc).  Most publishers prefer adult novel manuscripts between 80,000-100,000 words, but length guidelines vary a bit by genre.

8.  The antagonists are forgettable. For example, they may be one-dimensionally evil, not threatening enough (like a villain that lets the hero walk away from a tough loss), not challenging enough for the protagonists, a cardboard cliche (like most bullies), etc.

9.  The main character doesn’t change. This doesn’t have to be positive change–for example, Frodo gets corrupted by the ring.  The character’s capabilities may be a part of it (like Peter Parker becoming more confident after developing superpowers), but it should definitely go beyond just the capabilities.  For example, does the character’s personality change?  Does he develop any new flaws?  Do his motivations/goals change?  Etc.

10.  The protagonist is too perfect/unflawed. It’s probably unbelievable and possibly even goofy if the protagonist is a purely unvarnished bundle of virtue and everybody he faces is pure eeeevil. I’d recommend some morally gray obstacles.  For example, maybe the character’s friends aren’t 100% supportive of everything he does, maybe his coworkers/bosses have reasonable disputes with the character, or maybe there’s an antagonist whose intentions are pretty pure, etc.  If there’s no approach for a character to disagree with the hero without coming off as a bad person, the hero is probably not morally complex enough to feel fully believable.