I’ve been thinking about how to begin this little letter for a few weeks now, mostly because, well, who am I to tell you what makes a good story? As far as I’m aware, nobody died and made me President of Fiction, unless the letter informing me of my promotion got lost in the mail. It happens. It occurred to me, though, that I am human to a fault, which means that I necessarily have preferences that will influence what stories I’m interested in publishing. Keeping these preferences secret from you would surely do harm to both of us as you decide if you want to submit to Blue Mesa Review or, perhaps, hang up your metaphorical pen and become a well-adjusted, upstanding member of society.
If you’re committed to this whole writing thing, though, considering the following points.
Every editor talks about a desire for fiction that could have been written only by the author; I’m no better, but I will try to explain what exactly this means to me. I have no idea who you are—and probably never will—which means that you don’t have to capture your essence on the page. Attempting to do so would surely precipitate a minor breakdown. What I’m interested in, then, is reading something fresh. I want to read a story that I haven’t read before (wow, am I good at giving cliche advice). What I really mean is that, given the choice between
1. a story that is technically competent but safe
or
2. a story that is ambitious but unstable,
I’m more inclined to prefer the latter. In an essay included in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose, Flannery O’Connor suggests that anyone can learn to become a competent writer, which is to say someone with a decent grasp on plot, tension, characterization, etc., but what is often missing is “the vision to go with it”. Show me your vision, whatever that means to you. I’d be thrilled to read pieces that take some risk, whether on a technical or conceptual level. Blue Mesa Review is absolutely the place for the stories you’re a little afraid of, the ones that feel unwieldy, the ones you aren’t entirely sure you understand. Take a look at the fiction published in our most recent issue if you don’t trust me. (We’ve only just met! I don’t blame you.)
Risky and unique are certainly broad adjectives, so I’ll give you something a little more tangible here. I will be upfront and tell you that we receive hundreds of submissions every year, which means that each piece has a very limited opportunity to make a good first impression. To do so, it will be beneficial to have your story start…where your story starts. I’m only being partly sarcastic here. But if the action doesn’t begin until page three, you’ve probably already lost your reader’s attention.
A writer-friend recently said something to the effect that the phrase “kill your darlings” might be a little too intense; perhaps “rearrange your darlings” might be better advice. I am quite fond of killing personally, but I think this rephrasing gets to the heart of what I’m trying to say: If much of your first paragraph is backstory/exposition, a little copy and paste action won’t kill anyone. Moving your background information deeper into the story to give your inciting incident the spotlight is a good way to grab a reader’s attention. You can trust your reader to keep up with you. Your reader (which here is me) still has just enough of an attention span left for you to withhold some information, I promise.
I’ve talked (probably too) much about what I’m looking for thus far, so let’s get more negative, which is surely more fun. Sometimes the perspective of a story can smell a little fishy, a scent that then inevitably infects everything else. Recently, I’ve come across a number of stories about a woman’s childhood written from the perspective of her husband. This can certainly be done, if you somehow make the story about the man or if his commentary is interesting enough to warrant spending so much time with him.
If it’s actually the woman’s story, though, it can feel odd to have it filtered through the man’s view. My concern here isn’t the potential for a vaguely misogynistic reading (though here is probably the place to make clear that any bigotry that isn’t commented on/critiqued/made fun of will disqualify your piece) but more of a technical concern about how to most effectively tell the story. Could your piece be more dynamic if the narrator tells their own story?
If you read this far, your story will automatically get published. I’m kidding. But do know that I am committed to reading your fiction with care, as I’m sure can also be said of the readers, and I wish you the absolute best of luck as you submit to BMR and elsewhere.
