Who is the Slush Pile reader?

Cyia

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Where do you get that most Agents regard incoming unsolicited queries as slush?

In the US, most agents refer to their inbox full of queries as "the slush pile." They call clients who they've signed based on requested MS from those queries "plucked from the slush."
 

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Forgive my inexperience, but I've read on many agents' blogs that sometimes and at some agencies, the agents read slush themselves. So, in some cases it may not be an unpaid person or intern reading slush. This thread seemed focused on slush submitted to publishers rather than agents. Am I wrong?

I should confess that I can be a bit of a language purist.

Technically, they are wrong, but in practical terms, yes, agents will refer to mss. as slush.

I wish they wouldn't refer to solicited mss. as slush, but I also wish people would stop confusing sex and gender, and compose and comprise, and those aren't working out for me either.
 

Timmy V.

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Unfortunately, your essay has no potential audience. Anyone who reads slush already knows all about these sad souls, and the sad souls themselves are incapable of recognizing themselves, and therefore unable to benefit from a description or musings about their category.

Don't fear for the slush piles. As others have said, it is pretty darn easy to sort out the unpublishable and kick the rest upstairs.

If the truth was written in a humorous way...it could be hilarious. And it would be harmless since readers who are not writers would laugh their stomachs off. And as you just said, the writers who fall into the category you speak - would never recognize themselves. So everyone would be in on the joke and nobody would be the butt of it.

Or another angle. Wouldn't it be wonderful to have a show "Mad Men" involving writers. Many people stereotype writers - how fun it would be to simultaneously play up the stereotypes while refuting the false ones.

"Peggy Olson" could be the slush pile reader in Season One, Episode One. Lets let the truth come out - bring it on. awesome.
 

Bufty

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Weird, but I'm always learning. Thank you.

In the US, most agents refer to their inbox full of queries as "the slush pile." They call clients who they've signed based on requested MS from those queries "plucked from the slush."
 

Ken

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In the US, most agents refer to their inbox full of queries as "the slush pile." They call clients who they've signed based on requested MS from those queries "plucked from the slush."

... yep. Another, antiquated, name for them was "over the transom," submissions. Doors used to have windows above them that could be opened for air to circulate through. They sat atop transoms. I wonder if incoming unsolicited subs actually got chucked through them? "Look out Bob, here comes another batch." :)

Rejecting the works that are totally unsuitable for the house (had Mickey Spillane submitted I, The Jury to Harlequin it would have been quite rightly rejected after one page).

It's good he didn't. It would've been criminal if that pivotal novel of his hadn't been pub'd.
 
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James D. Macdonald

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It's good he didn't. It would've been criminal if that pivotal novel of his hadn't been pub'd.


It would have been pubbed -- just not by Harlequin. A house that could publish it well would (and in our timeline did) pick it up.

A lot of the horror stories we hear about best-selling books having been rejected some huge number of times are really horror stories about authors submitting their works to inappropriate markets. (E.g. Pirsig submitting Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to National Geographic magazine (which he no-kidding did). His query was quite understandably rejected.)

(Further Note for the historically minded: Spillane couldn't have submitted to Harlequin if he wanted to; I, The Jury was published in 1947 while Harlequin would not be founded until 1949.)
 

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I should confess that I can be a bit of a language purist.

Technically, they are wrong, but in practical terms, yes, agents will refer to mss. as slush.

I wish they wouldn't refer to solicited mss. as slush, but I also wish people would stop confusing sex and gender, and compose and comprise, and those aren't working out for me either.

I had no idea. Thanks for the education! (If it makes you feel better, I do know compose and comprise, though I'll admit that in casual conversation I mess up sex and gender all the time.)
 

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That scares me that the first person, and the only person...
If they're the only person to read your submission, it really wasn't ready to be submitted. The two firms I'm familiar with (and it's been years) received 90% trash. Really bad trash. Incoherent, poor grammar, no spelling ability, crayon on napkin kind of trash. Any fool can reject that.

Both firms used interns for the first read. That was actually in the writer's benefit because every intern was searching hard for a gem they could polish. Moderately decent stories made it by them, even if they needed work.

The secret to the slush pile is to never be in it. Find an agent. The corollary is that to rise to the top of the slush pile, just be a good writer with a good story to tell.

Jeff
 

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That's really interesting, Jeff. Wouldn't it be kind of neat, in a terribly self-punishing kind of way, just to do that job for a month or two, to see where your writing stood with respect the daily influx? Although, word of warning from someone who teaches foreign languages--you see enough bad spelling or grammar in your students' work, it starts showing up in yours too. I now depend on spellcheck in two languages, where once upon a time I didn't need it at all. Sigh.
 

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I slush read for a small eZine. My overall opinions are here.

I'm unpaid, but so is everyone. (Including the main editor.) Which is common for an awful lot of the world of publishing. (Like most small press and semi-pro magazines. We're there because we love reading and writing, not because there's this gold mine out there.)

Mostly, I'm trying to find stuff that will interest the main editor, which is stuff that's good, that has a plot, that's well written, that isn't overdone to death, and that fits the magazine. I probably only submit ~10% of what I read to the head editor (who in turn reduces that to I'd guess 1 or 2 out of 10.)

I don't read all of everything. Sometimes it's *really* obvious that a story is bad. A lot falters towards the end, though, in which case I have read the whole thing. (Although, again, I get short stories, not novels.) Also, the longer it is, the less likely it is to get a full read and the more likely I am to start skimming.

In case you were wondering, I love finding new stuff. And I love finding new authors. I was *delighted* when I passed a story forward that ended up being purchased. (Esp. as it was a first sale for the young lady in question, near as I can tell.) There's something really, really exciting about being the person who discovered someone new and helped them to have a really great day.
 

fadeaccompli

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In case you were wondering, I love finding new stuff. And I love finding new authors. I was *delighted* when I passed a story forward that ended up being purchased. (Esp. as it was a first sale for the young lady in question, near as I can tell.) There's something really, really exciting about being the person who discovered someone new and helped them to have a really great day.

My goodness, yes. I only recently started slush reading, and it's such a thrill when I see a good story in there, and can pass it along with a recommendation. I want to find good stories. Heck, I consider it a perk of the job that sometimes I get to read really good stories that I wouldn't have found elsewhere...

...because the sad fact of the matter is that there are more stories submitted that I like than there are slots to publish them, and that's only in the small fraction of the slush that I read personally. I've given a lot of stories a recommendation; I haven't seen one published yet, but I have hopes. And it's also fascinating in its own way when I disagree with another slush reader. Opinions vary, sometimes very strongly, and in a way it's reassuring that I don't make any final decisions on anything. I just recommend (for or against), and the Real Editors make the call.
 

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My goodness, yes. I only recently started slush reading, and it's such a thrill when I see a good story in there, and can pass it along with a recommendation. I want to find good stories. Heck, I consider it a perk of the job that sometimes I get to read really good stories that I wouldn't have found elsewhere...

...because the sad fact of the matter is that there are more stories submitted that I like than there are slots to publish them, and that's only in the small fraction of the slush that I read personally. I've given a lot of stories a recommendation; I haven't seen one published yet, but I have hopes. And it's also fascinating in its own way when I disagree with another slush reader. Opinions vary, sometimes very strongly, and in a way it's reassuring that I don't make any final decisions on anything. I just recommend (for or against), and the Real Editors make the call.

It sounds so depressing and hopeless in a way. But I contribute to the problem probably because I've only been reading the classic authors the last five years and I love love love those books. So if I'm not willing to try new authors, I guess I can't really be expecting people to try my work when I take the plunge.
 

Mutive

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...because the sad fact of the matter is that there are more stories submitted that I like than there are slots to publish them, and that's only in the small fraction of the slush that I read personally. I've given a lot of stories a recommendation; I haven't seen one published yet, but I have hopes. And it's also fascinating in its own way when I disagree with another slush reader. Opinions vary, sometimes very strongly, and in a way it's reassuring that I don't make any final decisions on anything. I just recommend (for or against), and the Real Editors make the call.

I agree with that too, although to be fair, I think there are more good stories out there but not necessarily more *great* stories out there.

There's a lot I've recommended that haven't made the final cut. But none of it has been, say, "Flowers of Algernon" level good. They're decent stories that I think are fully publishable, just didn't quite tickle the head editor the right way. (Or were too similar to something else that was slated for the issue or whatever.) But I haven't really seen anything yet where my mind was totally blown.

If nothing else, reading slush has taught me that it's pretty hard to write a good story. (Seeing as I still reject around 90% of what I receive - and I suspect I get better stuff, on average, than a slush reader at, say, Asimov's.) But it's virtually impossible to write a great one.
 

fadeaccompli

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I agree with that too, although to be fair, I think there are more good stories out there but not necessarily more *great* stories out there.

There's a lot I've recommended that haven't made the final cut. But none of it has been, say, "Flowers of Algernon" level good. They're decent stories that I think are fully publishable, just didn't quite tickle the head editor the right way. (Or were too similar to something else that was slated for the issue or whatever.) But I haven't really seen anything yet where my mind was totally blown.

If nothing else, reading slush has taught me that it's pretty hard to write a good story. (Seeing as I still reject around 90% of what I receive - and I suspect I get better stuff, on average, than a slush reader at, say, Asimov's.) But it's virtually impossible to write a great one.

Oh, totally agreed. If I recommend one story a day--and I give a recommendation to anything that I actually enjoyed reading all the way through--that's...usually less than 10% of the stories I've read that day. And "like" is a long way from "loved". If I'm recommending anything that weights at 6 or higher on a scale of 1-10, well, there's exactly one story that hit a 9 for me in my reading so far.

But it's also a matter of variant taste. There are some tropes that will always make me roll my eyes. ("Oh, look. Yet another story in which the protagonist is a horrible person who comes to an ironic bad end. Haven't seen that since five stories ago!") And other people who haven't burnt out on that trope might find other aspects in the story totally make it worthwhile. So a story that reads for me as "Great prose, clever worldbuilding, snappy plot twists, but I hate the whole premise" might be outright GREAT to someone who doesn't hate the premise itself. It's why I like that there are multiple perspectives on these things.

And I agree on seeing how hard it is to write a good story. I've learned a lot about why some of my stories fail by seeing a lot of other stories fail in similar ways. ("Oh, so that's why that ending wasn't satisfying!") Reading slush is really useful for getting more data points, so that pattern recognition can kick in sooner.
 

Mutive

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Oh, totally agreed. If I recommend one story a day--and I give a recommendation to anything that I actually enjoyed reading all the way through--that's...usually less than 10% of the stories I've read that day. And "like" is a long way from "loved". If I'm recommending anything that weights at 6 or higher on a scale of 1-10, well, there's exactly one story that hit a 9 for me in my reading so far.

Yeah, I do about the same. Out of 10 stories, there's generally only around 1 I actually enjoyed/thought was solid enough to be passed on. But it's still generally something enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable. That doesn't mean that it's a *bad* story. But it's not awe inspiring or extraordinary, either. If you can write something extraordinary, you're almost certainly going to publish it, as long as you submit it a few times, to appropriate places. But there's also space for "good, but not excellent stories". Just only so many spaces, with more stories than there are spaces.

But it's also a matter of variant taste. There are some tropes that will always make me roll my eyes. ("Oh, look. Yet another story in which the protagonist is a horrible person who comes to an ironic bad end. Haven't seen that since five stories ago!") And other people who haven't burnt out on that trope might find other aspects in the story totally make it worthwhile. So a story that reads for me as "Great prose, clever worldbuilding, snappy plot twists, but I hate the whole premise" might be outright GREAT to someone who doesn't hate the premise itself. It's why I like that there are multiple perspectives on these things.

Yup, there's always some taste involved. But a fair amount of skill, too. I never reject something because it wasn't "to my taste". (Although I suspect the head editor does.) But I will reject because there wasn't enough tension, the trope is overdone, major logical errors, whatever.

Also, I think in general slush pile readers are a jaded lot. We've read a lot more short stories than the average person ever will, so tend to care a lot more about things like "over used tropes" and get a lot more excited about really new ideas/weird concepts.

One of my friends started whining about how one of her stories was picked up by a certain magazine while another wasn't, despite that she thought the first was better...and I'm fairly sure the second made it only because it was more unique. (And neither was bad. Neither was awe inspiring, either. But purchased story was both pretty good and unusual, while unpurchased story was marginally better, but more typical. I suspect that someone who didn't read a lot would prefer #1, but a slush reader/small magazine editor would prefer #2.)

And I agree on seeing how hard it is to write a good story. I've learned a lot about why some of my stories fail by seeing a lot of other stories fail in similar ways. ("Oh, so that's why that ending wasn't satisfying!") Reading slush is really useful for getting more data points, so that pattern recognition can kick in sooner.

Yeah, I feel the same way. Reading slush has given me a lot of insight as to why certain stories are getting personal rejections or acceptances, while others seem outright ignored. As you said, it's data points. And lots of them. It's a pity that more writers don't get the chance to prowl around slush piles. (Although agreeing to beta read a lot, or running through a popular critique site gives you similar insight.)
 

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I've read a lot of slush for small press magazines. Literally thousands of submissions. Most were easy to reject. If you want to learn about writing, take up slush-reading. You get a fast education in what works and what doesn't. You can however also get burnt out very quickly.

Most stories I would reject within a few paragraphs. Some--my favourites--were first-line rejections. My family got used to me chuntering away as I read. 'No no no no don't do that! Don't do tha-- Oh, you did. Bye!'

Only once did I ever decide to buy a story based on the opening line.
 

fadeaccompli

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Most stories I would reject within a few paragraphs. Some--my favourites--were first-line rejections. My family got used to me chuntering away as I read. 'No no no no don't do that! Don't do tha-- Oh, you did. Bye!'

Ah, yeah. For the first several weeks of slush reading, I read every single story that I was reviewing allllll the way through, unless it was completely broken on a technical level. Now, I stop halfway through in a lot of stories. ("No tension or plot advancement by the halfway point" shows up a lot.) And a lot of those, I know aren't going to work based on the first paragraph alone... But I'm still new enough at it to plow on for a few more pages anyway, just in case.
 

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In my experience, stories which are broken on several levels in the first page or paragraph don't suddenly pick up later.
 

fadeaccompli

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In my experience, stories which are broken on several levels in the first page or paragraph don't suddenly pick up later.

That's definitely my experience too. But there have been a few stories where the first scene was sort of meh... and then I loved the rest, and it would be a very simple edit request to say "Cut the first scene, it's unnecessary." So I try to plow on a bit further than I would if I were making final decisions, in case some personal preference means I'm missing something.
 

Denise Scoubidou

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who is the slush pile reader?

The slush pile reader is doing it for credit at a community college. She writes poems that don't rhyme, and short fiction, all about vampires. She's got whole paragraphs in her Twilight paperbacks highlighted. She, uhhh ... talks kinda like this, y'know? And she's looking for a boyfriend on geek2geek (her profile has no pic). Impress her and the literary world will be at your feet.
 

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The slush pile reader is doing it for credit at a community college. She writes poems that don't rhyme, and short fiction, all about vampires. She's got whole paragraphs in her Twilight paperbacks highlighted. She, uhhh ... talks kinda like this, y'know? And she's looking for a boyfriend on geek2geek (her profile has no pic). Impress her and the literary world will be at your feet.

Yeah ... um ... just a quick FYI: usually trolls make an effort to be harder to spot.
 
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