advice from slush

By now, the deadline for the new issue has passed. We've been reading the submissions in the slush pile. Sadly, we can't give personal feedback to authors. But as we do occasionally, here is some advice gleaned from reading these stories in the slush pile:

• Use 2nd person point-of-view with caution. This pov can be annoying. This pov can be amazing--but it's difficult.
• Don't use overused cliches. For example, do not start your story with the protagonist waking up. Do not show your protagonist looking into the mirror to describe him/her/itself.
• Do not start with a page of backstory/exposition/description. This may be a market-dependent tip; online readers like a more dramatic opening. If you need a lot of exposition, put it later in the story. You don't have to use linear time.
• Do grab the reader's attention on the first page. This can be done with great characterization, a unique situation, unique voice, and a variety of other ways. Violence on page one generally doesn't work because readers don't care about the characters in peril yet.
• Do not exceed 7000 words; this is our word limit. Secret tip: there is a sweet spot in terms of word number. Less than about 1200-words is tough to tell a full story. More than 6000 words can seem draggy.
• Do not annoy the editor. This can be done via an annoying cover letter, an excessive number of spelling errors, no punctuation, etc. If in doubt: don't do it.

I guess that's it for now.

Thank you for sending us your stories!