I'm afraid I'm not hooked. I need to know, first off why--at least a little--this note is being written. It's a lot of strange in those lines. Not much to grab hold of with all the odd wording and thoughts.

Of course, Mr. Denton has a long-standing reputation as a short story writer and novelist, and no doubt that made it easier for his story to get published in Fantasy & Science Fiction and then in the anthology; but his opener represents, for me, the radical divide between what we do to get published as amateurs (well, most of us, anyway), and what gets accolades as great fiction. I'm amazed by the openings I see in the book: first person, present tense, confusing openings (and one or two really confusing stories, period), openings in which there's only description and no sense of anything happening for well more than 13 lines... There's even a dramatic monologue. I was going to provide actual statistics, but I haven't put the time into it yet. If I do, I'll post them.

Don't get me wrong -- I understand all the reasons that I can't use the book as a representative sample of what I should do. I just think it's very interesting that the things we do to get published the first time have very little bearing on what ultimately gets published as "the year's best."

Regards,
Oliver

Either way, good point made. I agree, it's amazing what someone who's an unknown has to do to get published as opposed to someone who's already well known.

It's like writing an entire book in present tense. After a while, I got the hang of turning everything into past tense on the fly, but once I'm doing that, why the hell did the author cast every damn sentance in present? It was a great book, but it would have been at least twice as good if it had been written in past tense.

I can go out and take a dump off of...what would be a good building to deface in this manner? Anyway, I could do something that would make me instantly semi-famous locally and then write a book about why I did it. And people would probably buy it. That wouldn't mean that the book would be any good. It would be something that people only wanted to buy because the author's been on the news.

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No, it's a terrible opening and it's shameful that such things get published just because the name is big enough.

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Well, hold on. It got published because it's a great story. It probably got through the slush pile because the name is big enough. There's a difference.

When I read something in a book, I trust the editor and publisher to have chosen something worth reading, and I'm reading for enjoyment; I'm reading in a totally different way than the slush reader is, because I have totally different goals. As I read short stories, I generally find myself giving it at least a page. In a book, that's considerably more than the 13 lines we use in F&F.

The trust I have in the editor and publisher is similar to the trust the editor has in a writer she knows. I'll read an extra page to see if (say) the strangeness is resolved well; the editor will, too, if she knows the author, and may discover that things are really cool by the 20th line. The editor won't do it for me. There's no trust yet.

We can rail against it, or we can recognize it for what it is. I find the whole phenomenon interesting, which is why I did my little experiment.

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why the hell did the author cast every damn sentance in present?

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Because if she didn't cast every sentence in present tense, you'd tell her that she needed to be consistent?

Seriously, though, to each his own. Apparently unlike a lot of people, I have no problem with present tense or first person or both together; and I think it gives a sense of immediacy that past doesn't have, and that the tradeoff of transparency for immediacy is sometimes a reasonable one. Much more literary fiction than genre fiction is written in present tense, so I'm sure part of it is just what you get used to. I know a writer who was published multiple times in the literary world, and he used present tense a lot. He just likes the sound, the flavor of the language that way. Now he primarily writes genre fiction, and has had his name in brand-name magazines -- writing in the present tense.

I have even gotten used to some second-person present tense, although that tense is more dangerous because if the writer says something that goes against the reader's grain -- "You've always supported those who want to stop global warming," say -- the reader will blink, whereas if she had said, "Susie has always supported those who wanted to stop global warming," he's not likely even to notice.

Vive la difference! The only danger is in thinking that other people's successes are a good reason for me to ignore convention in my own writing. The trust with the public (including professionals and readers) has to be built up first, and that means that I need to know and follow the rules first -- if I intend to get published.

This one focused not on "you guys suck" but "look what gets published" -- which I think in this case is the right focus. [rant]Last year I picked up a couple of Asimov's and an Analog. I couldn't believe what they were publishing. Mostly low-quality work by big names, but also low-quality work by no-names like most of us. What drew the editors to thse stories?

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When I read something in a book, I trust the editor and publisher to have chosen something worth reading, and I'm reading for enjoyment; I'm reading in a totally different way than the slush reader is, because I have totally different goals.

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Then you aren't qualified to comment on this board. If you think that the things that make a story good after it's been published are somehow different from the things that make a story good before it's been published, then you are of no use to people who want help telling (and selling) good stories.

When I offer to read a story here, it's because the opening impressed me as something that might be the start of an enjoyable story. If I enjoy the story, then I praise it. If I have to force myself just to scan it, then I say why I wasn't interested in reading it. That is the only kind of feedback that can have any meaning.

Really, the fact that you claim to like present tense narrative says more than enough.

Survivor, I don't think you're really analyzing what you're saying.

For instance, your last post is a non-sequitur. I said something about reading published material for pleasure. You quoted that and said that it implied that I'm not qualified to comment on unpublished material read critically. That just doesn't follow.

Also, I didn't claim that the quality of a story is different before and after it's published; I claimed that many people will be more lenient with the opening lines of a story if they trust the person who gave it to them. For manuscripts, that's the slush reader and the author; for books, that's the editor and the reader. On F&F, it's the critiquer and the writer. If you wanted to deny that, I'd be interested in seeing why.

Consider three different ways I could read the first 13 lines of a story:

1. As someone who is working his way through a slush pile. In this case, I'm playing a numbers game. I have too many manuscripts, and I need to get through a hundred quickly so I can find the three I can use. In the abstract, I want each story to succeed; but my job is to weed most of them out. I can reject a story for any reason, or without having a particular reason: just because "it didn't feel right." The key is, I'm looking for reasons to quickly reject a story, which may involve more gut reactions than real analysis. What comes out of this is essentially binary: reject or process.

2. As someone who is trying to help people get past the gatekeeper just mentioned in #1. I'm interested in analyzing the text so I can determine what could be clearer, better, more generally palatable, and so on in those lines: what would make the slush reader turn the page. What comes out of this is more diverse: specific reactions, advice, and criticism.

3. As someone who is reading for pleasure, I'm actively hoping for a good story. I want the author to succeed at entertaining me. I'm probably not analyzing the text (unless I can't turn off my internal reviewer). What comes out of this is also fairly diverse, but probably less specific than in case #2: reactions, thought processes, etc.

"Sergeant Chip" was an excellent story. It's not excellent because it was published; the opener isn't "more forgiveable" because the author has a reputation. It's published because it's excellent, and the opener was less of a barrier to publication because of the author's reputation.

Of course, some garbage gets published, too, and you wonder what the editor was thinking. I have no explanation for that.

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[Y]ou aren't qualified to comment on this board.... Really, the fact that you claim to like present tense narrative says more than enough.

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You sound more hot-headed here than I would expect from you -- like an epicure who refuses to believe that anyone with "good taste" can like fried chicken. Maybe more like a meat-and-potatoes man who refuses to believe that anyone who likes escargot can use a hibachi properly.

You'll notice that I haven't ever advised anyone to write in the present tense, in part because I know it can be a barrier to selling. Same with first person. That's because it's harder to get published in those forms, not because the Ten Commandments of Tolerable Writing dictate that Thou Shalt Not Use Them. I repeat: to each his own, as long as you understand the consequences of what you're doing.

When I scan the first couple of pages of a book I might buy, I don't trust the editor and publisher to have chosen something I'll find worth reading. I only trust them (meaning all editors/publishers in a free market collectively) to have generally made an effort to publish anything that many people will want to read. There's a big difference here. First off, we don't really have that free a market in the publishing industry, there really are excellent books that don't get published because they aren't "fit for publication" according to certain political considerations. So I actually don't trust "them" because I know that they do hold stuff back when they don't like the "message" of the text. But even if I did trust them, I would only be trusting them to make it possible for stories that I like to find a market, I wouldn't be trusting them to make sure that the story's to my taste. End of rant about the publishing industry.

Here's the thing, we trusted you when you posted this, we just honestly didn't like it. You betrayed that trust deliberately, trying to open up a debate that is better left closed on a forum like this, namely the debate over whether or not the craft of writing even matters. For purposes of this forum, we are simply not interested in hearing about how it's who you know, not what you know. Yes, we all know that it does have a significant impact, but there is no point in discussing it here. This forum (meaning Fragments and Feedback) exists to help people improve their writing, we don't discuss the relative importance of networking and having inside contacts. The rules are very concisely and clearly stated in the forum description, which you should have read at least once. They are also occasionally explained to those who violate them, which you have probably noticed happening more than once since May.

That got me a little hot under the collar, perhaps.

Third, and this is something that you need to understand if you want to offer criticism, there are not three different ways to read a story. If I'm working a slush-pile, I don't need to find excuses to reject most of the stories. If the first page has something that would make me throw a published book back on the shelf rather than buying it, then I throw it into the reject bin. If it has something that would keep me reading a published story, then I keep reading. A book I would buy at the bookstore has to have the same quality as a manuscript I would recommend to my editor for publication. I know that there are other considerations for publication rather than readability, but I'm not concerned with those.

The second case, someone who is trying to help people write better, is only different because I take some time to explain why I didn't want to read further or what things were hindrences even if they didn't stop me. The actual reading is the same. As a slush-killer or someone browsing the bookstore you don't have much chance to give the author feedback. That doesn't mean that you don't think about why you didn't like something.