Deciphering the code

 I’m continuing to submit my short stories, and to search out new markets for them.  And this week I’ve had a lesson in facing down the Imposter and not self-rejecting.

One magazine I’ve considered submitting to before uses phrases like ‘we want gorgeous, lyrical prose’ in its submission requirements.  In the past, that’s been an instant self-reject.  I don’t write gorgeous prose, I write straightforward stories with a simple structure and vocabulary.

So imagine my surprise when I decided to check out some of their published stories this time, and. found only straightforward narratives there.  To me, ‘gorgeous prose’ has a hint of the literary to it, and suggests a magazine which might like lots of alliteration in stories.  Or perhaps a story which is more about the sound and shape of the words rather than straightforwardly telling a story,  How wrong I was in this case.

Another phrase which has always put me off submitting is ‘experimental fiction’.  Apart from the fact that I have no idea what the phrase means, I don’t write in a way which could ever be called experimental.  I write stories in the time-honoured way of beginning, middle, and end, usually in that order.  But when I investigated some of these so-called ‘experimental’ stories, what did I find?  You’ve guessed it.  No hint of anything experimental about them, either in the writing form, or in the story content.

So the big lesson to me today is to not to take to heart some of the nonsense editors put in their submission requirements.  Sure, I have to adhere to genre and length requirements, but it’s when we get to the not-easily quantifiable area of story subject that things get tricky.  Stories those magazines have published often bear no relation to the things they say they want in their submission guidelines.

More and more I’m understanding how subjective this process is, and I’m coming round to the scattergun approach to submitting.  If a magazine says it ‘has no formula for great science fiction’ (several of them do), them I’m just going to submit what I want and believe in.  My formula, written in my unique voice.

I’ve spent years trying to second-guess what editors want, with absolutely no success.  So now I’m going to submit what I love and want to see out there.  After all, I can’t do any worse with that approach.