Bookplanet: When publisher Susan Hill asked aspiring writers to send in their stuff, she didn't anticipate the deluge of abysmal manuscripts

From the good old Guardian: The ultimate needle in a haystack -- by Susan Hill

I opened the mail box and novel number 3,741 popped up. "You have unleashed a monster," my assistant said.

I had decided that my small publishing company, Long Barn Books, should venture into fiction - after all, someone took a punt on my first book. I asked to see the first four chapters and would call in the rest if they were promising. I knew there were a lot of aspiring novelists out there but could never have anticipated the tidal wave of prose that would engulf me. Most of the hopefuls ought to be doing anything but try to write. Most seemed to have written the same (bad) novel.

Fiction-as-therapy may be a useful exercise in personal understanding or as part of the counselling process but it sure as hell does not make for an interesting read. I quickly learned to recognise the warning light, which flashed within the first few sentences. Most of the worst novels were written in the first person narrative present tense. "I open one eye. My eyeball hurts. I look around a dim room strewn with unwashed plates, dirty cups, stained underwear. I feel despair filter through me. I do not know where I am."

Gripped?

"I want to be a writer. All I dream of is being a published novelist. Writing is the only thing I want to do," they said passionately and I do understand. After 50-odd years, believe it or not, I still feel the same. But a longing to write, even accompanied by dedication, really is not enough. Ability/talent and some sense of what makes a novel appeal to readers are essential too. "I wouldn't want to be in any way commercial," one woman wrote. Yet "commercial" only means "saleable" - it is not synonymous with "rubbish".

What does a publisher do? Initially, risks their own money to pay the author, then the book manufacturers, and then tries to persuade booksellers to stock the book, in the hope that people will want to spend money on it. It is a tough commercial world. Why would any publisher produce an unsaleable novel? What use would a few thousand copies of it be stacked in my warehouse? If you despise commerce in general or believe literature should be outside and above it, the only thing to do is put up your books to be read free on the internet.

A love of writing books should spring from a love of reading them but as I waded on through the submissions I wanted to engrave one sentence on all their hearts - read more, write less. Read the great novels, the classic novels past and present. It is the only way to learn and above all learn how to tell a story. But few had one to tell. When I said so, I received sneers in return.

But think - To the Lighthouse, A Passage to India, Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy, Wuthering Heights Pride and Prejudice, The Quiet American, The Turn of the Screw, Midnight's Children, Atonement, Middlemarch - a random list of great novels, all of which tell wonderful stories about fascinating people set in a variety of interesting places. Try to think of a great novel that does not have a story, memorable characters, vividly evoked settings.

I had expected submissions from literary agents who all say it is getting harder to place fiction. I had just two. Perhaps they think my small firm is beneath their consideration. Yet our egalitarian contract is mould-breaking and extremely generous. I contacted every creative writing course I could find by personal e-mail. Only one replied. Perhaps these courses do not feel that helping their students find publishers is within their remit but what does it take to pin up a notice on a board?

Out of the 3,741 submissions, I asked to read just seven in full.

Every one of them was a pleasure and a revelation, each by a talented, if not always fully-formed writer. Interestingly, all but the eventual winner were set in the past and several in countries other than the UK. Charlotte Johnston, an 80-year-old, wrote Hidden Lives, a delightful book about a 19th-century Welsh family. Francis Barber Gentleman, by Marion Jordan, told the story of Dr Samuel Johnson's black slave. It was more biography than novel and it did not quite go anywhere but it was a memorable read and I have hopes for its author.

Ian Pike is a wonderful writer who sent me The Ice Barn, set in the American West. It was the close runner-up to my eventual choice. I gave it 8/10.

But I was looking for a full score and I had almost given up hope of finding it when into the box popped the beginning of The Extra Large Medium or Unfinished Business by Helen Slavin. When the real thing comes along it is unmistakable and this is by a born writer with a crisp style and wholly individual voice. It is very funny, moving, original, off-beat and it tells not one but a basketful of stories about characters who walk straight off the page to grab your attention.

Publication is next May and there is already a wonderful buzz of interest and enthusiasm surrounding it.

I will soon be on the look-out for the novel to publish in 2007 - a novel as good as Helen's. I should be so lucky.