Review: What Editors Don't Want to See;
RWA National 2005 Workshop
Author: Jody Wallace
Original Publication Date in Love Notes: July 2006

The editors in this session, Julie Barrett, Krista Stroever, and Abby Zidle were all with Harlequin. Though I don't currently write category romance, I listened anyway, assuming the nuggets of wisdom and warning would apply to romance submissions in general.

The comments the editors made fell into three categories: Basic ground rules; Specifics; & Content.

1) Ground Rules

a) Know the guidelines of the place you're submitting and don't waste our time sending us, say, nonfiction or horror
b) No means no. If we don't ask to see it again, even if the rejection has editorial comments, don't send it again.
c) Don't tell us how much other editors loved your work in the query letter.
d) Do not package your query letter so that it requires a hacksaw to open it. On that note, don't use Jiffy Envelopes with the horrible cardboard filler.
e) Don't send stuff that's smoke-smelling, filled with cat hair, or perfumed.

2) Specifics

a) Don't shove a back story dump in the first couple pages of the partial.
b) Avoid lead off questions in the query (ie "What would you do if?" are tiresome. Tell me why you're targeting this line.
c) Don't overwhelm us with the personal bio in the query.

3) Content (Keep in mind the following items are guidelines, not rules, and the trick is to make it fresh.)

a) Pay attention to details. When people say, 'Write what you know' it's so the details will shine through.
b) In Inspirationals, don't push the envelope without a really good reason.
c) Don't be quirky for the sake of quirkiness. Are you sure you're funny or did your mom tell you you're funny? Don't make every single line a joke. (Reviewer's note: Uh-oh! Does it help that my Mom does NOT find me particularly funny?)
d) Avoid hackneyed conflicts. We see the same emotional conflicts that keep the H/H apart repeatedly. Two in particular are the protagonist who grew up in foster care and has trust issues and the man who's been burned in love and has trust issues. Think of ways real people have difficulty opening up their hearts.
e) In Inspirationals again, we have seen the minister hero falls in love with the wrong kind of woman a lot.
f) Avoid the visible plot machination. The perfect example is, in a romantic suspense, when the heroine has a stalker but refuses police protection.
g) Especially in contemporaries, avoid the fake marriage.
h) Stay away from wimpy heroines. There has to be some magic balance between ingénue and warrior princess.
i) In Romantic suspense, watch for the "torn between two hotties" conflict where one is the hero and one is the bad guy.
j) Make sure the ending is fully fleshed out and not Scooby-esque. We want the whole thrilling denouement and not a summary.
k) We see a lot of the big city girl who returns home because she can't hack it. We're tired of feeling like the big city is a villain and the only good place in the world is a small town.

The editors ended with a Q&A session that touched on synopses, no-no's for inspirationals, angels in inspirationals, heroines who are overweight, authors writing outside their ethnicity, preferences in dialogue, writing cross-genre, complete WIPs, and revision requests. This was a decent session and the editors were well-spoken and approachable.  Ask for 2005 RWA Session 10-122 if you're interested!