summer 2024 ☀️: slush lessons
As usual, time has proven itself to be a construct yet again and it’s now been a few months since my last post. And we’ve moved to Buttondown! Yay!
By popular demand, I want to talk about things I’ve seen in the slush pile that are common reasons for rejection. There are a lot of stories that are objectively speaking, well-written on a technical level, that end up in the slush. What separates them from the ones I’ve sent up to editors? I’ve rejected hundreds of stories in my time reading at various places, and here are common things I’ve seen:
1.) Not enough tension/stakes: Hoo boy, this is one of the most common reasons I reject something. No, not every story needs to be plot heavy or even have a plot, but tension is the thing that keeps me reading to the end and turning the page in anticipation. I want to care about the story, so make me feel like I need to care. Stakes don’t have to be “the end of the world is coming!” or even “I’ll fall off this cliff if I mess this up!” Stakes can be something as simple as needing to finish a middle school science fair project to prove your mom wrong your ability to finish projects.
2.) Lack of emotion: Make me feel something—laugh, cry, scream, whatever, and you’ll be golden. This is the #2 most common reason I reject something.
3.) Not bringing anything new to the conversation: Everything, even works that lie in between genres, is in conversation with something else. It’s true that every story has probably been written or created before, but what’s the spin you can put on it that only you can?
4.) Ending feels rushed or inconclusive: Endings are so important, that final moment you leave the reader with.
5.) Story starts too slow: I have been guilty of this myself in early drafts, but sometimes I’ll see where the actual story doesn’t begin until the midway through the piece. This is very fixable, sometimes I let friends take a stab at finding places where I can cut if I can’t find them myself. I’ve read slush for both flash fiction and longer short stories, and this is an issue in the slush at both.
6.) Doesn’t follow submission guidelines: Thankfully not that common, but it still bears repeating that following submission guidelines is awesome and you should do it.
All these things sound simple when I list them like this, but you’d be surprised how often I run into stories in the slush pile that could use more revision. For those on the fence, I highly recommend reading slush, you get to see what goes on behind the curtain.
Other Announcements
Wyrmhole: Me + 6 other wonderful writers have teamed up and spent the last few months making a new terminally online newsletter focused on speculative fiction. There are story recs, reprints, and (hopefully) original fiction with an open sub call coming before end of 2024. Join the hundreds of other cool people who have already subscribed and check us out! We are rotating editors for each month’s issue, and I’ll be up later this fall in time for our Kickstarter coming to raise funds so we can pay pro rates for short genre fiction. New issues the first of each month at 4:20 PM EST and Patreon patrons get a special issue mid-month every month, too :) This may change in the future, but as of right now, you won’t be able to read the newsletters anywhere except your email, so be there or be square 🪱🕳️
Pub Updates
My review of Your Utopia by Bora Chung is now out!
I have a fairytale micro that was published for National Flash Fiction Day about evil stepmothers out, too.
My story “Portrait of a Woman in a Red Qipao,” inspired by Bluebeard and The Picture of Dorian Gray in the Gothic horror anthology The Crawling Moon: Queer Tales of Inescapable Dread (Neon Hemlock Press) will be out next week. The Publishers’ Weekly review of the anthology specifically called out my story for “unearthing new realms of horror,” which was a 🤯 moment.
Thanks for stopping by! I’ll see you around here and in Wyrmhole.
Until next time,
Tina