How to Get Published: Professional Story Editor Reveals Why Stories Get Rejected on Page One
I happened upon this golden nugget of wisdom on Reddit about how to get published. This bit of writing advice applies to fiction writing, short stories, novels, and books.
Some of the information you can find on Reddit is complete nonsense, but from time to time a real gold nugget pops out. This one was indeed real gold. I hope you enjoy it. 🙂
A professional story editor made a post recently where they revealed why stories get rejected on page one.
A quote from them, “I’m a professional editor for pro-rated magazines and contests. I read sometimes hundreds of stories a month and have noticed common mistakes that have held them back from moving out of the slush pile.”
1. To get published “Slow or vacant openings” won’t do
This is explained as an opening to the story where the reader isn’t given a hook. The author gives them nothing to sink their teeth into.
The writer spends more time setting up the setting and the characters than giving the reader some part of the plot that hooks the reader’s curiosity.
This advice does not just apply to grabbing a reader’s attention on page one. This advice lets us know that if we intend to hand our writing to an editor, they are going to decide within minutes whether or not our story even makes it out of the “slush pile” based on whether our page one hook exists and if it’s good.
This is huge for writers to know.
Know this, if you want to even get out of the get you have to develop the skill of creating a hook on page one and making it a good one.
Forget about description, word crafting, and world setting for a moment. How are your hook creating skills? Because apparently, they matter a lot.
There is a temptation to use amazing words and flare to start out your story and describe your world. Save this type of writing for the journals you make about your fictional world. When it comes to actually getting published, work on your hook. Make sure it drives curiosity and make sure it’s on page one.
If you want a quick study, open up any James Patterson book. Read the first page, or even just the first paragraph. You can learn a ton about quick good hooks just by opening five of his books and reading just the first page of each one.
This exercise will take you thirty minutes max and you will be better at writing hooks today.
2. Pay attention to why the reader is here
Why did the reader pick up your book? Why did they buy it? Why do they look for good stories?
Most readers didn’t go looking for a good story to read pages and pages of description and or someone showing off all the pretty words they know.
Most readers pick up books because they want to solve a crime or figure out a puzzle. They want to follow a great character on an adventure. They want to see a character fall into trouble and see if they find their way out.
Why is the editor even looking through what we’ve written? Because they want to see if readers will enjoy reading it.
So what have we done on page one to convince the editor that readers will enjoy what we’ve written?
If we want to get published or even considered we have to wrap our minds around why readers look for stories.
Are we giving them what they are looking for?
Now, I want to qualify here that no one is bashing a cool fictional world that readers can escape into and fall in love with and want to visit.
The thing is, the writers that made them made sure to move the story along and make the fictional story interesting as they described the fictional world, its rules, and fun artifacts that characters use to interact with the world and find solutions for their problems.
And that is one major key reason why certain books get published and others don’t. The writer found a way to create interesting problems for interesting characters in an intriguing setting in a fascinating fictional world.
If we want our stories to be considered even if they are short or novels, we have to keep this in mind.
Imagine you bought a movie ticket. You head in to watch a good movie you’ve been anticipating for months. You sit down with your popcorn and your soda and the credits start to roll and on the screen suddenly the director pops up and says, “We’re so excited you’re here! Before the movie plays I wanted to take a moment to describe the world and setting you’re about to embark into!”
You’d be thinking, “What the?! What’s going on? This is awful! I don’t want to hear him describe the world, I want to see it! I want to experience it through the story.”
Don’t do this to your reader. Give them what they want. Give them a good story and use the world and setting to tell it.
3. Don’t hold the cards too close to your chest
This would mean, if you want your story to be considered for publishing, don’t keep all the secrets and hidden things from your audience.
Figure out a way to give and take.
What do you mean give and take?
Give an answer, take a question.
Maybe it would be better to say give and drop. Give a solution to a clue and drop another clue that needs to be answered.
The editor shared something really important here though.
You have to earn your readers trust.
4. To get published you MUST earn your reader’s trust
How do you earn their trust?
When you create a question or a clue or a secret that needs an answer.
Be 100% sure that you eventually answer that question.
This is a major way that authors gain and lose points with readers.
Think about it.
You have your choice between reading two books.
Both are written amazingly. They both have great hooks, great worlds, great characters and really interesting plots.
The only difference is, one is going to create a bunch of teasing questions to peak your curiosity but will never answer all of them.
The other is going to answer ALL the questions they start.
Which one would you want to invest your time in?
If you are going to drop secrets on your opening page, make sure you also drop an answer so that your reader will instantly trust you to reveal your secrets.
This one fact usually makes the difference between an author we reread and an author we drop.
5. Best practice is to make sure you have character, setting, and a problem the character is going to confront right out of the gate on page one
Say what?!
You might think that’s crazy, but go reread the first pages of some of your favorite published books. Without fail, most of them will have done a good job of introducing a main character and a major problem right off the bat.
Being able to hone this skill will make you one of the best writers on the market.
If you can learn the secret of introducing these major story things on page one you will be well on your way to being published.
Whether it is short stories, novels, children’s books, YA fiction, or magazine contests, you must be able to give the readers and the editors exactly what they have said they are looking for. And do your best to give it to them quickly on page one.
Quote from the editor, “If you can fit it into the first line, you are a pro and people would literally kill for your skills.”
6. It’s not about the money, it’s about the time
These days readers don’t care as much about the money it costs to buy books, magazines, and other content.
They really care about their time and if you are going to waste it.
One way to prove to them right away that you aren’t going to waste their time is if you can deliver all the things discussed above.
This is especially true if you can give them a character, a story, a problem, and a problem solved all before lunchtime. If you can give them this in an expertly wrapped package, they’ll buy everything you can put out. Ask James Patterson who according to google is putting out at least 10 books a year.
Keep this in mind. Readers are constantly looking for a good story that is enjoyable and that they can tell their friends and family about. If you just give it to them, they’ll come back for more.
Don’t overcomplicate the publishing process and don’t try to rage against it. If it doesn’t fulfill your writing desires, that’s fine. Start a blog or a writing club and write for them, but if we really want to be published, this is the way we do it. By giving the readers what they want.
Don’t forget, as writers, we are in the entertainment business.
Don’t waste their time and they will 100% give you their money.
(And don’t get us wrong here. It’s not “all about the money.” The point is, “it’s not about the money.” It’s about not wasting your reader’s time. And at the end of the day, who are you trying to serve? Yourself? Or the reader?)
7. But my setting and world is really fascinating
Many writers fight back against this “get to the interesting part of the story fast” advice. They might say, “my world is super fascinating and everyone will love it. They just need to give it a chance and give me time to explain it.”
This may be 100% true. The world in your mind is probably awesome and readers really would love it.
The hard truth is, with all that is going on every day barely anyone will give you past page one (if even that much) to find out if your fictional world is worth publishing.
It has been said by a professional editor that they barely look past page one to see if we are going to give them an interesting hook to grab readers’ attention.
So while I totally believe you, that your fictional world is worth looking into I also have to give you good advice here.
Instead of focusing on how cool the world is, focus on giving them an interesting character and problem to solve and work on weaving the fictional world and how amazing it is in small bites over time in the story.
If you can use the world, the setting, the items, and characters weaving them into the story and making them work together in harmony you will not only give your reader a great story, but you will give them a really cool world they can love and enjoy.
8. Make your sentences DO more
What is meant by the writing advice “make your sentences do more?”
It means to choose each sentence carefully to carry your reader along in the story.
Avoid “exposition dumps” early in your story. If you want to do a big description, ask yourself, “do I NEED to do a big description section?”
In order to make our sentences do more, the only reason we would need to do a paragraph of description is because it matters to moving the story along.
In some circumstances there will be a time and place where describing will make more sense, but especially at the beginning of your story, make each sentence do more.
9. Learn how to blend your story, actions, characters with your setting descriptions
Many writers suffer from not knowing how to blend all these story elements in a way that carries the reader along in the story but also gives the reader a good view of the fictional world they are in.
Think of it like a trail you’re walking on in order to get to a beautiful view. Part of the trail has fun stops, but in the end, you are actually on the trial to see something amazing. You are there for the little parts of the journey, but you are mostly there for the climactic moment, the big view you are going to see at the end.
When you are starting a trek usually at the beginning you’re not stopping for much of anything. The beginning of the trail can be a little boring. In the same way, you want to give your readers something to look forward to at the beginning of your story and keep them moving forward toward the interesting stuff.
Remember just in like a walking trail you don’t stop much, you keep moving forward. With that in mind let’s take a look at reasons to stop. Sometimes you see a creature worth looking at. There might be a great spot to take a picture. But if you are trekking towards a greater view you won’t stop for long and you’ll keep moving toward the climax.
Along the way in our story we are going to be moving the story forward when we stop to show the reader an item that matters for the main character then we move forward. Then we show the reader a scene that the main character is seeing, but we continue to move forward. Then we show the reader a creature that the main character uses later on in the story to solve a problem, but we continue forward to the climax.
If we view our story as a trek that has the ultimate goal of making it to the climax and resolving the main world crisis or problem than we don’t run into as many problems by taking moments to explain scenery, objects, or creatures that are not just awesome, fun, and amazing, but that is in fact important to the story.
This is how we blend the story, characters, objects, creatures, and setting into one magical journey.
We need to view our story as a trail we are walking our reader through, not as a place or an excuse to explain our fictional world. They come expecting a good story in an interesting world, not just an interesting world.
Final Thoughts:
If you want to get past the “slush pile” and have a chance of getting published as an author whether in a magazine, children’s book, novel, short story, or fictional story:
- Your opening is pivotal
- No slow openings
- Give the reader what they came for
- Gain your reader’s trust quickly by answering some questions your create right away
- Work on getting your character, setting, and major problem out right away. Preferably the first sentence
- Don’t waste your reader’s time
- Your fictional world is interesting, but use it to carry your story along
- Keep moving forward
I think the professional editor actually summed these points up very well in their golden Reddit post by saying, “Using the techniques listed above and making sure to introduce your character, world, and problem/crisis within the first page will enhance your openings. This in turn leads to more sales, acceptances, and readers.”
If you want to be published you need to be the type of writer that knows how to entertain readers, editors, and publishers and you do that by paying particular attention to page one.
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Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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How to Get Published: Professional Story Editor Reveals Why Stories Get Rejected on Page One
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