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Eukara Vox -> Issue 42 - Editor's Note (smbdoll) (5/4/2009 15:52:21)
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Welcome to Issue 42 of The Zardian. We had a lot of fun creating this issue and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.
This editor's note, however, was not easy to write. Why not? It's not because I don't like Douglas Adams. He's one of my favorite authors. Shining the spotlight on an author of his calliber and working with The Zardian authors as they create their homage to his work has shown me my own shortcomings. I am not a comic author and my own small attempts at humor will never be anywhere near the same quality.
So, now that I've seen the line I can not cross, what do I do now? I will of course, attempt to better my own work so that one day I might be able to approve it for publication. In the meantime, I will play to my strengths. Though I'm not the best with words, I try to be as open and honest as possible with readers and applicants to The Zardian.
I enjoy reading submissions sent in by users. If I could publish every one of them, I would. As often as possible, I try to give individual feedback. While this is effective and I hope has helped authors to improve their work, there are a few shortcomings that recur often enough to make me feel a need to point them out. Avoiding common mistakes can help bring your submissions closer to something we are actually looking for.
The first of the most common mistakes is simply dashing off an article in five minutes from the first idea that pops into a person's head. Or at least, that's what it seems like to us editors when we receive a submission that is no longer than a paragraph or two and is full of spelling errors. Please show us that you at least care enough about your own ideas to develop them properly. Too often we receive "stories" that lead nowhere involving scenarios that are highly unlikely for the characters involved. Often these are no more than a line or two of dialogue followed by an equally unlikely and abrupt ending. I'm sure these seemed like good ideas at the time, but it's not something we're willing to publish.
While mistakes in spelling and grammar aren't an automatic disqualifier, we do consider how long we'll have to spend editing an author's articles to publish them. If a short article is going to take hours to polish, its content might not be worth the time it will take to make it ready for release. It will have to take a ground shaking original idea to get your article past a wall of grammatical mistakes. It's much easier to simply have a good, original idea and proofread it carefully.
Original ideas are a must. Yes, we like Artix' game notes. Yes, we like Ask Zorbak. The problem with those of you that follow these styles is that you are not showing originality. We already have authors writing in these styles and we are not looking for more interview holders or more people to write question/answer style articles. When you sit down to write an article, please ask yourself what The Zardian is missing and how you can fill that gap with your writing. If you show an idea that is both outstanding and innovative, we may be willing to overlook the occasional, minor grammatical mistake or two.
As well as having an original idea, it helps to submit a final draft instead of your first draft. When rereading what you have written, you can often find sentences that can be placed better in a different paragraph, or even whole paragraphs that read better in a different context. Finding those, rearranging them and playing with the layout of your article can often make the entire article flow better and make it easier for your audience to read. By submitting a first draft, you're taking away your best chance of showing your work in its most favorable light.
As a final tip, before I end this long editor's note, I'd ask that you please consider your audience. We have a wide range of readers, from younger than 13 to older than 40. It's a very difficult range to work with, as one has to find that balance between ideas simple enough to fascinate a young reader while not being so simple that they alienate the older ones.
Now, for those of you that didn't want to read all that rambling, let me sum everything up in a few simple sentences. First, when you send in your application to write for us, don't rush your articles. Proofread them and send us a final draft instead of a first draft. Please make sure you have original ideas that will better The Zardian and appeal to a wide age group. If you can take this advice to heart and use it to improve your submissions, you stand a much greater chance of being accepted.
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