The First Five Pages
I found a book at my local library the other day and it is a must read for every writer who is submitting to literary magazines and getting rejected. It’s called “The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile,” written by Noah Lukeman.
I’ve been getting several of those sad little slips of paper lately and thought that this book couldn’t hurt. To be truthful, I don’t read very many “How to Write” types of books because many of them seem to be 120 pages of fluff and only 2 pages of any real advice. But this one is different. There’s a good chapter on adjectives and adverbs — basically, a lot of writers use tend to use too many of them — it’s a huge red flag that the rest of the manuscript isn’t worth reading.
In the short story world, you could say that the first five paragraphs are the most important ones. Many literary journals don’t have enough of a staff to read your whole story, so it must grab a reader right away. One important point Lukeman made is that:
“Agents and editors don’t read manuscripts to enjoy them; they read solely with the goal of getting through the pile, solely with an eye to dismiss a manuscript — and believe me, they’ll look for any reason they can, down to the last letter.”
That’s pretty true, which brings me to a pet peeve I have. There’s an area on the submission manager where most people write a note to the staff and about 15% of people write “enjoy!” in this space. When I told my sister about this, she said to me:
“I bet you hate that because you immediately think — I will not enjoy!”
This is so true. I hate when people tell me what to do. I try to remain neutral, but you’ve already annoyed me with that little, “enjoy!” (It’s especially annoying with that exclamation point.)
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