by Tom Mach

I was uncertain what to write about for this second lesson. Then it hit me. Expand on the former sentence…something like:

As I rested my oval head on my bony hand, my lethargic brain felt like an overworked GE toaster oven, burning multiple layers of diverse thoughts concerning what I would articulate in this second enlightening epistle regarding yet another thoroughfare to take in my ongoing travels toward non-publication.

I think that would guarantee non-publication, although it might win an award in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for awful writing. [I must confess that one year I did send in an entry that ended up being included in one of the Bulwer-Lytton books. I wrote about a midget who hid under a soprano's gown during an operatic performance, but fortunately I can't find it-no, not the gown, the manuscript!]

Speaking of "fortunately", one easy way to not get published is to saturate your writing with -ly adverbs. Try this one on snugly for size:

She walked lazily up to me, happily singing a tune while merrily blinking her eyes, making my heart dance wildly and my spirits soar ecstatically.

That certainly guarantees non-publication. Here's what you have when you remove those -ly adverbs.

She walked up to me, singing a tune while blinking her eyes, making my heart dance and my spirits soar.

This might get published if your spouse or significant has an intimate, candid relationship with your editor-or if you are already a famous author and the editor buys anything you write anyway. But if you make the mistake of improving it, such as shown below, you unfortunately risk the chance of getting it published:

She waltzed toward me, singing a happy tune. Her playful wink made my spirits soar.

Another thing--editors hate it when you use adverbs to "shorthand" your descriptions. For example, they would lean over the bow of the ship and vomit if they read the following extract:

"I understand," she said haltingly, "that you are going to take a crap."
"That's right," I said smugly.
"Don't forget to flush," she said, tauntingly. "You sometimes forget there's a handle on the toilet."
"Oh, is that what that thing is?" I answered sarcastically. "I thought it was a tie rack."

Next time you want to tick off a publisher, send him or her a story loaded with this kind of dialogue. It will ensure your receipt of hate mail or death threats.

Editors sometimes don't know what they want. They tell you they want detail, detail, detail, in your descriptions. But detail can also get you unpublished, as in the following example:

As I laid back on my new Lay-Z-Boy recliner and clicked on my six-inch green remote that I bought at Target for $8.95 to turn on my 36-inch Sony television with built-in DVD player and automatic VCR programmer, I heard my wife, eight months pregnant with our twelfth child in ten years, scream that she couldn't find my Bud Light in the Maytag refrigerator and would I want a different brand instead?

That's quite visual, isn't it? Yet editors don't want that kind of material for some odd reason. Maybe they'd buy it if it was a woman clicking on the remote and hearing her sex-starved, overworked husband telling her he couldn't find her bubble bath, so he'd be glad to take a trip to the supermarket for another box as soon as he was done doing the laundry and putting the roast in the oven.

I guess what editors want in the way of detail is just enough so that readers can fill in the dots and make up the rest of the description. Something like…

She flicked a curl of her autumn hair from her face as she watched the rain splash against the train window.

Unfortunately, something like that will get you published. What you probably wanted to say instead was this…

She hated the lousy dye job her hairdresser did and moved her putrid reddish hair away from her pot-marked face, hoping the storm would stop by the time she left the train so her mascara wouldn't run.

But, of course, editors don't want that kind of realism.

Anyway, I hope this helped you in your always reachable goal of never getting published. I should have more non-publication lessons for you next time. Happy rejection to one and all!

Tom can be reached at:
TomMach62@yahoo.com