Reading Submissions

Responses to all e-subs sent prior to early August 2006 have now been sent out. There were a few bounces, unfortunately (although none for which I had good news). Of the 130 stories from this batch I forwarded some dozen to John O’Neill for further consideration. Since I started reading I’ve gone through a little over 550 Black Gate submissions, and of those I’ve sent some 50 on to John.

It doesn’t take too much mathematical effort to realize this means I turn over about 1 in 11 tales. Sometimes there’ll be a string of really good ones in a row and sometimes I’ll read dozens and find nothing that catches my eye. It’s not that I’m looking to pass on 1 in 11; that’s just how the numbers average out.

Because John’s currently evaluating the submissions I forwarded from the last two batches I don’t yet have solid numbers on what percentage of forwarded subs get approved, but I do know I’ve sent on more tales than we can possibly accept, and that this, of course, only accounts for half of Black Gate subs, as there are still regular, hard-copy submissions.

I thought it would be interesting to provide you with a rough statistical breakdown of those other 10 subs. After all, if I’m only passing on about 1 in 11, what’s wrong with the other 10?

1. 1. It’s just wildly inappropriate — it’s a gangster story, moreover, it’s an entire gangster novel, or it’s modern poetry with no fantastic elements.
2. 2. It begins with a very, very long infodump describing the history of the fantasy world, or the science fiction world, or the demon world.
3. 3. It’s a fable or a myth that leaves us far removed from the characters.
4. 4. It is overloaded with familiar elements like elves and quests and dragons and quests and wizards and quests OR monsters (oh no, it was REALLY a vampire!) handled in familiar ways.
5. 5. It’s a bleak story about the end of the world and the few human survivors scrabbling over what’s left as they all die off. I’ve seen some very, very good versions of this story, but I’ve turned them away. If the point is that we’ll all die with a whimper, we won’t be publishing it, even though on some days I’m inclined to agree.
6. 6. It opens in generic medieval tavern A and is populated by extras from D and D central casting, or begins in the midst of an adventure that reads like dungeon module B with extras from D and D central casting.
7. 7. It’s a Twilight Zone style horror story or science fiction story where it’s all about the twist and not the characters.
8. 8. It is dripping with adjectives but virtually devoid of character, as though whoever wrote it has been locked in a room reading Clark Ashton Smith and H. P. Lovecraft night and day for a month before putting hands to keyboard (and it must be said that it NEVER sounds as lovely as CAS, no matter how hard someone tries).
9. 9. The writing’s good, but the story doesn’t have any fantasy or fantastic elements, or it’s all about the characters emoting rather than actually DOING something. Sometimes it’s a fine story and it’s just not an adventure.
10. 10. The writing shows promise, but is rough around the edges. Stories like this sometimes garner a rewrite request, sometimes a “close but not quite” kind of letter, with an invitation to try again. Occassionally the writing’s quite good, but the story’s just not as original in character or world building as the last I sent on to John. These are the hardest stories to turn away, but I have to do so, because, as I mention above, we already have more good stories than we can publish.

I can usually tell in the first paragraph whether I’m going to read very far into the story. Traits like what I call “word echo” (repeated use of the same word in nearby sentences), plodding pacing, infodumps, over abundance of gerunds or adjectives, generic characters or situations, even subject matter, and the names of characters and places can clue me in pretty quickly. If my attention isn’t caught by the first page and I’ve seen weak world building or matters like those I mention above, then you’ve probably lost me and I’m on to the next. I’ve had some people get angry with me once they realize I don’t read every word of every submission, but really, if I’m not interested in the first few pages, then why would a Black Gate reader be? If my attention is caught, I keep reading. Statistically, you can see my attention is caught enough to read all the way through in only 2 or 3 out of every 11.

Oh, and if it’s really a satire on fantasy and sword-and-sorcery conventions, I won’t be interested. Our slots are few, and we want to use most of them to provide adventure, not parodies.

Coming Soon: Issue 11

There are a few hundred more submissions to go before I’ve read everything in stock, but before I can turn to those I need to make final decisions about a number of book reviews for issue 11, not to mention write a few game reviews for issue 11. By the time John’s finished looking over the forwarded e-subs and some paper subs we’ll have all the non-fiction in hand and then 11 will be just about ready for the printer, right on time.