TECH: 101 Tips (58)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 19 Dec 2009

Writers' Digest, October 2004, pages 26 to 33, has a collection of short "nuggets of wisdom" related to getting published. Maria Schneider is the author of the compilation. Take a deep breath, and here we go:

"Surprise the editor. I'm amazed by the blandness of many queries. Remember: your proposal is sitting in a stack of proposals, being read by editors who don't want to bother with it. Everything about your query -- the subject, the ways it's written -- should make an editor say, 'Wow, this is really different.'" Ken Budd

What's funny about this one is the contrast -- after all those suggestions that you make sure to use a standard format, same old font, and all that, here's Ken Budd recommending that you surprise the editor? Of course, I think he's pushing at a different level -- make the query/proposal/idea REALLY GOOD! Not strange paper, not odd typography, but a story that needs to be told, an idea that makes the editor sit up and say "I WANT THAT STORY!" Which is hard, because these are professionally bored people, who have seen it all before... but if it is your story, told from your heart, it can do it.

Anyway -- make your tale something that the editor wants to read. Even after reading all day.