scads of slush

The Editors of Electric Spec are hard at work reading scads and scads of slush. If you submitted: Thank You! We appreciate our authors and our aspiring authors.
It's getting to be crunch time as our production meeting occurs in the beginning of February. So, next time, I'll report on that meeting.

In the meantime, here are some takeaways from our recent slush pile...

• Do include some showing within your first 500 words. I saw a lot of telling. Other markets may like 100% telling; we do not.
• Do earn your death. I saw a lot of people die. I get it; death is very dramatic. But authors should make readers care about their characters before they kill them off. After reading so much death, I'm a little tired of it. :(
• It's odd but sometimes we end up with some quite similar stories in Hold-For-Voting. When this happens, we only pick one of the bunch. I guess the way to deal with this is to make sure your story and characters are unique.

I'll leave it there. I need to prepare for the production meeting!
Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes info!