Buried treasure

We know our writing sparkles by the time we submit it to an agent or editor, but they don't. At least, not initially.  Our work gets plonked onto the depressingly-named, enormous, slush pile.  Ugh!  Slush, as if our story was as limp and drippy as melting snow.  It's a totally unappealing prospect for a writer.

So it was a surprise to read agent Julia Churchill's take on them in the May 2014 Writing Magazine,  "I love the slushpile," she says.  "It's where our job starts.  It's a meritocracy, and where I find the vast majority of my clients." 

It's an interesting response.  It files in the face of the writers' myth that agents are just looking for an excuse to reject us.  Here is an agent actively looking for good things in the mountain of stuff she gets sent.

And then there's editor Barry Cunningham's take, in that same article,  "Rejection is not - repeat not - about quality but about publishing fashion - only."  Huh?  You mean I'm wasting my time polishing my story, making my prose shine out like treasure?  Not so fast.  What he also wants is an authentic voice in a great story, and you can't get that without polishing your work.

Yes, there is a chance of getting our work snatched off the slushpile, but to make that happen we have to edit our stories, know and use our authentic voices, and be able to sum up our stories in a sentence.  If we can do all these things then our submission will shine out from the poorly-edited stuff that is unprofessionally presented.  It will reveal itself to the reader like buried treasure.

And, like buried treasure, it will be picked up, dusted off, and examined closely.  You'll have succeeded in leaping off the slushpile.