Thread: *Clicks Send* ... WAIT!

OK so how many of you have sent off a competition/story pitch only to realise after a quick glance that there is a glaring mistake in your work.

Worse yet, how many have you have sent another email begging for them to ignore your first story and accept the second, revised version? I've certainly done it in the past. I

'm sure there are some of you who will say "You shouldn't send your work out with mistakes" but that, in its very nature, is what a mistake is.

I post this up after stopping myself from sending a THIRD revision! I guess I have some sort of desperate OCD!

When I started submitting short stories to different places, I found the submission process in itself was something that needed to be learned. That said, it's not difficult to follow the individual rules and guidelines of each publication/competition. Now, I use a checklist with all of their criteria on it, and some of my own criteria, too.

Before you send those things out try this:

Re-read, curse, edit.

Re-read out loud, laugh, shake head, fix awkward wording.

Read backwards (not kidding, that'll make other problems pop out at you)

Hand off to someone else to read or read out loud to them. This will help catch errors in meaning.

If you do this much then there is a pretty good chance that your story, your pitch, your query or whatever you're sending will only have one or two minor things wrong with it. Or not. I try to be optimistic.

^
What she said.
I was going to respond simply: Every. Single. Time.
(As usual, Foxee has the jump on us all.)

Reading out aloud is a great tip. Then try reading it in a different text size, so the words appear in a different place, in an attempt to overcome a problem that some wise member of WF told me about; that we miss typos because we read/see what we expect to be there instead of what is actually there.

Originally Posted by Bilston Blue

Reading out aloud is a great tip. Then try reading it in a different text size, so the words appear in a different place, in an attempt to overcome a problem that some wise member of WF told me about; that we miss typos because we read/see what we expect to be there instead of what is actually there.

Ooooh I like this one. Getting someone to read it out loud is a good one too! Not sure about the reading backwards as I struggle to edit it forwards as it is! But I also like having your own check list. I've started writing my own based on what I know my usual mistakes to be. (Punctuation and tenses are my biggest).

My problem is I've never been very good at professionalism. I've actually lost two jobs becuase I don't seem to grasp the idea that other people expect perfection first time. I had to get work where silly mistakes make it more interesting. So if I want to take this as seriously as I mean too, best I buckle down.

Thanks for the tips! Has anyone else been as 'young' or 'wet behind the ears' as me at the writing game?

How soon after you finish something are you sending it out? Have to let it marinate a little. I'm way too close to the stuff after I finish; I have to sit on it for at least a few months.

Don't get me wrong, I don't send stuff out the second I've written it. I do go through and edit it quite a bit and I obsess over it for a week then leave it a few days and give it another go. But when I get to the point where I really can't find any more things to fix that's when I send it off. But I then sit back with a contented smile and think about what winning/being accepted would be like... so I give my pride and joy a read as a sort of victory lap.... then I notice a gaping plot hole or a chunck of text in the wrong tense or something like that.

How soon after you finish something are you sending it out? Have to let it marinate a little. I'm way too close to the stuff after I finish; I have to sit on it for at least a few months.

Good advice here. I have a drawer reserved only for finished work which will sit in there for at least a few weeks, possibly months. It's amazing how much you wish to change after letting it stew for a while. I put this down, in the main, to my developing as a writer, but I suppose things happen in our lives that will change the way we look at things, our perceptions of things and people, and it all has the potential to influence both the style and content of our stories/poems.

Originally Posted by Potty

Thanks for the tips! Has anyone else been as 'young' or 'wet behind the ears' as me at the writing game?

Only with two buckets as earrings.

Originally Posted by Bilston Blue

Good advice here. I have a drawer reserved only for finished work which will sit in there for at least a few weeks, possibly months. It's amazing how much you wish to change after letting it stew for a while. I put this down, in the main, to my developing as a writer, but I suppose things happen in our lives that will change the way we look at things, our perceptions of things and people, and it all has the potential to influence both the style and content of our stories/poems.

I spent two months working on a book, and when I finished I thought it was great. It's been about four months since I've read it, but I remember the plot, and now I'm not so sure I even want to try publishing it. At this point it's more useful to me as experience.

Not only have I done this (once really bad that involved a lot of areas that were highlighted in the document--doh!), but I've also had stories published with the glaring mistake still there!

Makes me cringe every time I see it in the archives of The Battered Suitcase.

I often read aloud to find these errors, but I could imagine that would be a horrible experience. I couldn't count the amount of times I've passed a piece around, only to see a sentence fragment out of place seconds later.