For those of you getting ready to write your first submission for one of the Wine, Women & Wellbeing books (details here), I’ve invited my friend Catriona Turner to offer some advice. Catriona was the copyeditor on my anthology Life on the Move, and helped with some of my other books. Here, she gives us her best tips for submission success. 

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Hello to the Wine, Women & Wellbeing community! And thanks so much to Lisa for giving me the chance to pass on what I’ve learned from working with her on her previous books, as well as from the clients I’ve worked with at The Word Bothy. 

So, you want to write a story and get published. You know that writing experience is not a requirement, but that your work should be ‘polished’. 

But what does that mean? What does polished writing look like? Read on for my step-by-step guide.  

First of all though: don’t get hung up on perfection! If your story can resonate with readers, the editors will help you finesse it. But you want them to see your story shine through in the first place. Here’s how to make their selection process easier. 

Before Writing 

A little bit of planning and preparation goes a long way. 

• Find the story in what you’re writing: plan a beginning, middle, and end, and especially look for some kind of transformation. Readers want to know what you learned, how you changed, the flaw you had to overcome, or how your actions earned your outcome. 

• Decide from what point of view to write: the perspective you had then, or the perspective you have now, with the benefit of hindsight. 
• Consider the reader, and which details of your story are most relevant to them. Do you want to write informally, as if having a chat with the reader? Or to be descriptive, to paint a vivid picture and set the scene? Be careful of any assumptions that the reader sees the world the same way as you. You are expressing your own truth, your own experience and perspective – frame it that way. 
• Pay attention to the word limit. Submitting something too long or too short makes for easy deselection if the editor has a lot to choose from. There’s a good chance you’ll exceed the maximum a bit on the first draft – that’s fine, you’ll find enough to edit out later. But if you start the next stage with something twice as long as it should be, it’s much harder to work out what stays.  

As you write, get ready to tell your story honestly and truthfully – don’t worry about ‘being’ a writer. Be authentic, and your story will hit its mark. 

After Writing  

Now you can think about being a writer! 

• Ideally, leave your piece aside for a couple of days before reading it through. Then, read it, with a bit of distance, and a fresh perspective. Don’t skip this – this is when you get to craft the raw material into a polished submission. (And you will find errors – everyone does!) 
• Look at the opening and closing paragraphs: does the first paragraph have a good hook, something that will grab the reader’s attention? Does the last paragraph lead the reader to a satisfying conclusion? (Perhaps by providing an answer to that original hook?) 
• Look at paragraph length: break down paragraphs that are too long (perhaps more than eight-ten lines), and use them to help guide the reader through events or ideas. 
• Look at sentence length: variety is most interesting to the reader. Avoid overlong sentences – have a look at any that run through three lines or more, and see if they need to be broken down. 
• Pay attention to verb tenses. Whether you choose to write in past tense or present tense, keep it consistent. 
• Don’t be scared of apostrophes: if in doubt, leave it out. 
• Don’t be scared of commas: if in doubt, put it in! 
• Don’t ignore the spell check tool in your word processor! You can even run your text through an online proofreading tool like Grammarly. And whichever spelling convention you choose (American, British, Canadian..), use it consistently.  
• For a final proofread, change your view: a different font or format shows your words in a different light. And always read your text aloud – to yourself, behind a closed door if it helps! 
• Finally, check the formatting requirements before you submit. It’s easier for editors to work with documents that look the same. A common standard is a Word document, in 12 pt Times New Roman, with 1.5 line spacing, and fully justified.  

But none of this matters until you get the words on the page…so don’t hold back! I’m a writer too, and the lesson I learn time and again is that you have to write through some bad paragraphs to get to the really good stuff. Remind yourself that no one has to read it until you’re ready, and then…get writing! 

Comment below if you have any questions. And if you get bitten by the writing bug, follow The Word Bothy on Instagram, and check out my advice and services over at thewordbothy.com. 

Good luck!