This continues a series of posts outlining things I’ve noticed in reading short story slush for our upcoming Carnvah House anthology, “The Infinity Swords,” and in reading slush for ezines and submissions for critique groups. I’m going to highlight things that got stories bounced from consideration. I won’t identify authors or specific stories, because my purpose isn’t to embarrass anyone. And I should add I’ve committed most of these slushpile sins myself, so if you recognize yourself in any of these posts you should realize you’re not alone.

Visualize, Please

Sometimes, writers don’t clearly think through the things they write. They just write things that make the reader go, “huh?” It’s a very quick way to get bounced from a slushpile.

A fair amount of slush reading convinces me that many writers are too enthusiastic about their creations to visualize what they have written. This is an odd problem, because I can easily see how it happens and because it can be addressed so easily.

How does it happen? The writer is in a rush, caught up in the excitement of the story, eager to get on with it. And so he or she forgets to slow down a moment and visualize the scene presented in the story. (My own visualization violation? I once forgot my hero wielded a sword, and changed it into an axe mid-scene. I also once had a protagonist attacked by four or five people, wrote a beautiful combat sequence, and later discovered my hero had utterly failed to account for one bad guy. Sheesh.)

In one story I read not long ago, the protagonist was lashed to the mast of a sailing ship that was quickly becoming a no-longer-sailing ship. As the vessel slipped into its watery grave, the heroine saw on the ocean floor an item that might just help solve her problems.

Well, if you’ve ever stood near the mast of a sailing ship, you’d realize fairly quickly you can’t see the ocean bottom from there. If the ship tilted wildly, or overturned, then, yeah. But the writer didn’t account for that, and so it seemed the heroine was seeing something she couldn’t possibly see from where she was lashed to the mast. That instance could have been easily fixed, obviously, because sinking ships have been known to teeter and totter. So this instance alone was not a deal-breaker as far as accepting the story. The editors could have suggested an easy fix.

Of course, a moment of visualization would have solved the problem before the story ever got submitted — and that’s what you want to do. Don’t give editors any reason whatsoever to stop enjoying your story and start thinking.

Visualization problems are common, and sometimes even show up in print. I guffaw when I read of people running headlong through caverns. Have you ever been in a cavern? It’s dark. You might be carrying a torch, but beyond the meager reach of your torchlight, it’s dark. And caves don’t follow floor plans; they zig, they zag, they dip, they climb, they branch. Try to run through one, even by torchlight, and you will brain yourself on a low overhang, or slip in something slippery, or stumble on something that used to be part of the ceiling. You will get hurt.

In a number of slush stories I’ve seen, however, heroes miraculously run through dark caverns by torchlight. They usually have good reason to run, mind you; there’s almost always something nasty and hungry looming behind them. But they run without braining themselves, or hitting a wall, or tripping on rocks or slipping in bat shit. The worst that seems to happen is they get lost, but even that seldom happens.

A bit of visualization would solve that problem. So would a bit of spelunking, but I digress.

Anyway, there is a really good solution to the visualization menace: Have someone else read your story before you send it away to an editor. Have several someones read it. Show it to other writers — that’s how I uncovered the sword/axe transformation mentioned above, and the bad guy my hero failed to slay.

And always, always, always picture each scene in your own mind, unfolding like a movie. You’ll be glad you did.

Stay tuned for more Slushpile Sins, when Swords against Boredom turns its attention to “Deja Vu.”

– Steve