I see I’ll have to concede to some rules to get anywhere, but I can do that (though I hate rules). No matter what, I must love what I write or I won’t be writing it. Do you ever feel like you have to “sell out” to sell a manuscript? Or do you see it from a different perspective?

I’ve edited for short fiction before. I can tell you now that the large majority of stuff is just atrocious and easily discarded within the first couple of paragraphs. Some stuff doesn’t even get that far – if someone blatantly disregards the submission guidelines, they don’t even get read. That leaves a small amount to be read in more detail and even the most jaded editor should be able to sort the wheat from the chaff there.

Interesting article that you linked, however – certainly food for thought!

Also it reminds me of a post I just read [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/03/you_are_not_hir.html]: Most manuscripts editors get tend to come from writers who haven’t had theirs placed before so they are below average in quality. Meaning editors are getting a sample bias and end up underestimating the quality of an average new writer.

BT – Good points. Much as we’d like to think that fiction markets are completely objective, they’re not. An editor that’s had enough of zombies, for example, will reject even a brilliantly written zombie story. As an editor that’s their prerogative. It’s up to us to write what we want to write and then place it in the market where it stands the best chance of being bought.

If taken on face value, everything has been done before. I read a post once where the plots were branched out into hundreds of ideas that had been done before (you can search on my blog under the label plots if you really want to see it), and another post where there are only three original ideas.

It doesn’t matter in the end. If you can come up with a new angle, and that only has to be the slightest of new angles, and tell it in your own voice, then you have written something original. The problem is when you try to sell it.

Some editors lump everything into those old plot categories and if yours isn’t original enough (obviously very subjective), it won’t progress.

In the end, you can only write about the ideas and story lines you have in your head and do as a good a job as possible. You can seriously do your head in trying to think up a totally new idea.

Sound advice, Alan, to check what editors are putting out as stuff they don’t want to see. It also helps to read an issue or two so you can see what they have paid out cash for.