Inventing Reality: A Guide to Writing Science Fiction
Get-it-in-the-mail syndrome
You’ve written a science fiction story and decide it’s time to let the world see it and your genius. You’re now on your way to the mailbox to send off that piece.
Whoa, mister!
Before sending any piece, make sure you’ve done more than just write the piece. Revising almost always is a key step on the way to publication.
When writers are so eager to submit their story for publication that the work isn’t revised, they suffer from “get-it-in-the-mail syndrome”. This term was coined by CSFW’s Sari Boren. It’s a term that sometimes pops up during critiques of science fiction works.
A special form of this syndrome is the “grouper effect,” in which participants in a writer’s workshop do not adequately revise their work because they’re eager to submit to the group for review. CFSW’s Alan Jablokov coined this term.You want to revise your work, however. The competition for the limited magazine spots and novels that will be published is high. Often perfectly good stories are passed over. To give yourself the edge, you want to make your story as perfect as possible. That doesn’t mean you never submit your piece because it’s always in the state of being rewritten, but it does mean that you shouldn’t just rip off a piece and ship it off to an editor. It’s a rare story, indeed, that is perfect after the first draft.
You Do It
Look at one of the pieces you’ve written for a previous “You Do It” section that you are particularly proud of. Reread the piece, editing it for the obvious spelling, punctuation and capitalization mistakes but also for weak descriptions, superfluous wording and other pitfalls we’ve discussed so far in this blog.