Writers, don't do this to yourself.
I am nearing the very end of a truly staggering number of short story submissions. AI submissions have come, at last, to the magazine for which I am a first reader; we had an increase of more than a thousand submissions this round.
I am tired. I've been doing this for a solid month longer than the outside of the usual time. I've worked my way through hundreds of stories, many of them absolutely appalling. Published authors who think that since they Came Up With the Idea, it's okay to use AI and then just tweak the story in edits (not only is this not okay, it's also generally painfully obvious; writing and editing are two different skillsets and these things are edited BADLY), unpublished authors who think that just letting the computer do it for them is fine...and then the usual raft of a couple of thousand sincere, honest attempts at the gate.
Some of the genuine stories have been good! One or two have been excellent. Some have been good-but-wrong-for-us (why are you sending us historical fiction with no element whatsoever of the fantastical? Why are you sending us Fifties-style westerns? Why are you sending us very non-magical romance? Why are you sending us straight-up porn without plot?). Many have been not good enough, as is usual for any submissions queue.
We're all tired, every one of us submissions editors. We're so beyond ready to be finished with this.
I have eight stories left to read in my own personal queue. And then I can be done and take a rest for a little while.
And it is into THAT frame of mind that comes the first page of the next story on my list.
Top left corner, contact information. Good.
Center of page, title and writer name. Good.
Top right corner, word count: 11,000 words.
And I look at it for just a moment.
I am fucking exhausted. It is my job to approach stories with the very clearest mind I can, as unaltered by outside circumstances as possible, but you want to bet your fucking ass I am not going to do anything but instantly bounce a story that is a thousand words over our top limit.
It feels weird to have to say something so obvious in 2024, but, authors?
Stick to the word limit and other submission criteria for whatever market you're submitting to.
If you're going to push your luck, at least do that at the beginning of a submission period, not the end; the queue fills up chronologically, meaning that if you submit at the end of a two week period it goes to the end of the list. Meaning I, or another submissions editor, will see it when we're the most tired we could possibly be.
Treat yourselves better, please.
