Writing

Common Mistakes in Creative Writing Portfolios (and How to Fix Them)

Editors and agents read portfolios in a particular mood: hopeful, but harried. They want to be stopped in the first paragraph. Most of the submissions that don't get a reply fail for a handful of familiar reasons, and nearly all of them are fixable in an afternoon. What follows isn't about talent. It's about the gap between work that's good and work that reads as ready.

Weak openings that lose the reader in the first line

The most common problem sits in the first three sentences. Portfolios open with weather, waking up, an alarm clock, a character staring out of a window, or a statement of intent: "I have always loved writing." None of that gives a reader a reason to continue.

Compare these two:

It was raining heavily as I sat thinking about my grandmother.

My grandmother kept her cigarettes in a biscuit tin, which is how I learned that adults lie about small things.

The second one has a person, a detail, and a question hanging over it. The first has atmosphere and nothing else. Very few writers produce a strong opening on the first attempt; most cut the first paragraph once they know what the piece is really about.

Two quick tests

The delete test. Remove your first paragraph entirely. If nothing is lost, it was warming up.
The second-sentence test. Read your opening aloud. Does the second sentence make the first one matter? If it only repeats it, cut.

Samples that don't match the call

This is where strong writers get rejected quickly. A literary short story sent to a commercial fiction agent. A poetry sequence sent to a publisher of middle-grade novels. A 5,000-word essay submitted against a 1,000-word limit. The writing may be excellent; the match isn't.

Read the brief twice, once for what they want and once for what they've explicitly ruled out. Highlight the word count, genre, audience and any restriction on previously published work. If you don't have a fitting sample, write a new one. Two days spent producing a 1,500-word extract in the right register is worth more than three years of backlist sent in the wrong direction.

Find the through-line

Portfolios also fail internally. A comic monologue, a grief memoir and a thriller chapter bundled together reads as unfocused unless range is genuinely the point. Be able to say in two sentences why these pieces sit side by side. If you can't, the reader won't either.

Ignoring the submission requirements

Requirements are the easiest marks to lose. They are also the most irritating thing to get wrong, because an editor reads them as carelessness rather than accident. Check, in this order:

Format and file type. A PDF when they asked for a Word document is a small annoyance; the reverse can garble your layout.
Word count. Aim slightly under the maximum rather than slightly over.
Anonymity. Some competitions and magazines judge blind. Your name in the header of an anonymous entry can remove you before anyone has read a word.
File naming. Use the convention they specify. If there isn't one, use your name, the title and the genre.
Deadlines. Note the time zone. "Midnight" means midnight where they are.

Formatting slips that distract from the writing

Presentation should be invisible. Anything the reader notices is something they're not noticing about your prose. Common culprits: inconsistent spacing between paragraphs, a mix of curly and straight quotation marks, no page numbers on a 20-page PDF, 9-point type used to squeeze inside a limit, coloured backgrounds, decorative fonts, and clip art.

Keep it plain. A legible serif or sans-serif at 11 or 12 point, 1.5 line spacing, a clear title, page numbers, and consistent paragraph indents or spacing — one or the other, not both. Title each sample clearly. Don't use images unless they've asked for them.

Then open the file on your phone. Half of all submissions are first read on a screen that fits in a hand, and formatting that looks tidy on a desktop can collapse there.

Read the first page as an editor would

Editors read the opening closely and the rest quickly. So proofread the first page of every sample twice. Look for character names that change spelling, tense that slips, and typos in the first sentence — those are the ones that stick.

A bio that tells the reader nothing

"A writer from Leeds who enjoys reading and walking" is a wasted opportunity. Use three or four lines to say what you write, who you write it for, where your work has appeared if anywhere, and what you're working on now. If you're unpublished, say so without apology and mention the manuscript in progress. Skip the list of every workshop you've attended and the sentence about having written since childhood.

Letting the portfolio sprawl

More samples do not make a stronger case. Three to five well-chosen pieces usually beat eight. Lead with your strongest, not your earliest or your most recent. Cut the sample you love if it's the weakest on the page — sentimental attachment is not a reason to include something that dilutes the rest. Variety in form and length is useful; variety in quality is not.