I try to read with an open mind, but I do have biases. Still, that leaves a fair amount to write about. I've also read any number of lesser stories, from the OK to the miserable. You may have only written one story about a family gathering for a funeral, or about a grade-school humiliation, but chances are I've read a dozen it reminds me of. 7. Often as not, I commit myself to a piece on the basis of something I hear in the first paragraph or two, a line of quirky, authentic observation, spoken with style and nerve.
Good writers edit vigorously, draft after draft.
What's left is concise and rhythmic, a pleasure to accompany down the page. I expect you to know how to punctuate and to spell. A manuscript full of errors tells me you're not ready to be asking anyone for money as a writer. I didn't hang around for the second sentence. I admit to suspecting that, as Robert Frost once groused, there are too many of us.