How to read a submission 26th October 2010.

Tell me, how do you read a book? Are you a good boy or girl and open it at page one and then read through it page by page until you finally reach the end, then put it down, hopefully with a satisfied smile on your face having enjoyed it?

I suspect most people think that’s what we do professionally do when we’re reading a submission. Unless it’s a very short story, this is not the way we’ll tackle it. We’re much more like the naughty boys and girls who turn to the back pages first, or at least early on.

There are reasons for this, and one stems from the constant stream of advice you, as authors are given – which is to polish the first three chapters until they shine to prove to the publisher how good you are. Oops. We don’t want to judge you on the work you may have polished and polished, we want to see what you’re like when your guard is rather further down. I know, I know, you devote as much attention to the rest of the book. Do you, do you really?

When we look at a submission we have already read your bio, so we have an idea of who you are, and hopefully what makes you tick. If you have simply given us a brief, age, sex, marriage, children, live in, and like reading kind of bio you’ve already been categorised. We’ve also read the synopsis, which might or might not contain a blurb for the book. A normal reader only sees the blurb and bio, once they’ve been polished to a fine edge. Since we actively discourage you from disclosing the ending in the blurb, they don’t know what should happen. We’ve seen the synopsis, so we cannot read on with the hope of a fabulous surprise or uplifting experience.

So we turn to the last chapter and read that. See how you handle the ending, the resolution to your conflict, the triumph (or otherwise of course) of your protagonist, the demise (again, or otherwise) of your antagonist, the happy/sad/tragic/ ending, the set up for the sequel, all of it. Then we ask, did it ring true? Was it believable in the context of the book we haven’t read yet, only glimpsed through the synopsis?

You can tell a lot about the publishable quality of the book by reading the last few pages first. Then we go back and read from the beginning. How far we get into the manuscript is going to be influenced by our opinion about the ending.

Unlike many we do read the majority, if not all of a manuscript. We will rarely stop earlier than that unless the manuscript is so obviously a no-hoper.

What? Surely you’re not that naive to think we’ll read every single perfectly crafted word before rejecting it?

Sorry, I’m sure you’re not that naive.

Although we’re not quite as severe as the reviewer of Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer “This book is one of the worst books I have ever read. I got to about page 3-4.”

Mind you, I did buy a copy of “Revolutionary Road” and didn’t get much past page 25.