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Topics covered on this page Publisher's notesSince we began reading submissions we’ve seen several patterns emerge. Here are some observations that may help with your submission. Spelling, grammar and presentationIt would be embarrassing for a publisher to miss out on a great new writer because they hadn’t been able to see beyond a few spelling mistakes or a lack of punctuation. But it can be off-putting to work through a manuscript that has many errors – it looks like the author doesn’t take their work seriously. Please read your manuscript over – better yet, get a friend or family member with a fresh set of eyes – to look for typos and punctuation mistakes before you send it to us. Don’t just rely on Spell Check. Making those pages countThe submission guidelines call for the first 50-60 pages of your manuscript, but you should decide on the most natural break point around the 50-60 pages mark and stop there; if it takes your submission a little over or under, that’s fine. This makes for a more satisfying read. At this stage, your manuscript has no arresting cover, no captivating blurb – those 50 or so written pages are doing all the work for you. They need to pull their weight. Many manuscripts have a prologue, and many readers derive pleasure from such preambles. But you need to be aware that while you may have written a trilogy and these few pages constitute a tiny proportion of the whole, they could take up ten percent or more of your submission to us. Your manuscript needs to be quick out of the blocks; you don’t have the luxury of a leisurely start. This means you’re going to have to trust the reader to work some things out for themselves, because if you try to explain all the circumstances and background that lead to the main action, you’ll slow things down and risk losing the reader’s attention. CharacterisationFrequently, we’re not getting any sense of the protagonist’s appearance. While the author may have had a clear mental picture of their character, this is not coming across to the reader. Too often, by the end of the manuscript, we still have little idea of what this person looks like, even though secondary characters may be exceptionally well drawn. Sense of placeAs with the main character, we may only get a vague, unsatisfying impression of where the action of the novel takes place. Be this a fantasy world or a contemporary realist setting, the reader should get a clear picture of this story’s universe. Armchair travel is one of the great pleasures of reading, along with armchair detection and armchair space faring. Again, the author may have a vivid sense of place in mind, but this is not being conveyed strongly on paper. For example, each Australian capital is unique – if you live in one of these cities, you may be taking its features for granted, but you need to conjure up the sights and sounds that make your city special. A single sentence on the distinctive smell of a local plant, waterway, factory or fast food joint can go a long way to bringing your setting to life. With genre fiction, where the plot may rest on unlikely or unusual events, it is vital that the reader is given something to ground them, a secure basis on which to rest the story. A strong sense of physical place can help the reader to believe and trust in your fictional world. Be sure to portray your world or universe while keeping in mind that most readers will be strangers to it. Give us sights, smells and sounds. Know it inside out. Own it.
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