I was surfing on the eHarlequin site, and I found this great listing of pet peeves from an editor. Now, I’ve always wondered about the submission issues that might get under an editor’s skin, and, well, now I know a few!

I was curious to see if another editor might have the same issues, so I asked Felecia Mills, editor with Red Sage Publishing, for a list of her top five pet peeves. And here they are:

1. Not giving me enough time before you start e-mailing me wanting to know about your submission. It takes longer than 2 weeks.

2. Wimpy heroines! Create strong, independent, intelligent, self-sufficient women who don’t need a man to “complete” them.

3. Sudden turns of character. I hate it when I’m reading about a devilishly wicked character who suddenly, and without explanation, turns “good”. Whenever a character has turned “bad”, there’s always plenty of backstory to explain why. I would think turning good would be require at least a little explanation.

4. Weird language. Please don’t make the hero use words that nobody has used since 1832. You can have a great story, well developed, strong, sexy characters, all ruined by stinky dialogue. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve read the word “sated”.

5. I would think that everyone would do this, but please, read through your story before submitting it. It doesn’t bode well for your writing career if you submit stories full of typos, grammar and usage errors. Don’t rely on spell check. Invest in a good dictionary, thesaurus, and a good usage & style book. And learn how to use them. And use them often.

Thanks, Felecia, for answering so honestly.

So…anyone been guilty of committing any of these submission crimes? I’ll confess–I think I use “gaze” too much (one of the listed Harlequin pet peeves), but I’ll sure be watching out for my usage in the future!

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 21st, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.