posted
I have broken my new years resolution and wrote another short story instead of cworking on my novel (it was a dumb resolution anyway).
Regardless, what do people do with stories that they feel are not their best? Do you try to get all of your finished stories polished and submitted or do you just toss some thinking that the story is only semi-intruiging?
Just curious what other's thoughts are. Or perhaps I am my harshest critic.
posted
I have written a number of stories that I doubt I will ever submit, but on the other hand I have submitted at least one story that I didn't actually think was very good and it sold at pro rates. To some extent it depends on why you think a story is "sub-standard", and whether it's personal opinion, or something that you can "fix" easily, or whatever.
It is the writer's job to write stories, and the editor's job to buy them, so there is a strong case to be made that the writer should not try and second-guess the editor. But you should make your stories as good as you personally can make them.
posted
I probably won't submit the thing I'm working on right now---it's too long and has a peculiar quirk in the narration.
I nearly broke off working on revising that to write something fresh, something brought out by something I read---but I don't want to do that. I've got too many stories in my files right now that involve working with and plagiarizing somebody else's plots and imagery, and, besides, it's lurid, and I'm trying to cut down on lurid.
Actually, subtracting my Internet Fan Fiction (which isn't like what I mention above), if I've finished something, I generally do submit it---but I've got, oh, a dozen or so first drafts that never made it any further, all from the last six or seven years. Covering last year alone, I've got four---but I intend to finish three of them, at least.
posted
But maybe the quirky narration and the lurid prose are precisely what someone else wants to read. I don't think either is necessarily a reason to relegate a piece to permanent slush duty.
So I'd say the criterion isn't whether it's too odd or too long or too short or too quirky or to lurid or too whatever, but rather... was it good writing that accomplishes what it intended to do? If *you* enjoy reading it, chances are someone else will too.
posted
There are a couple of stories I probably won't submit anymore. One was just to a couple of places before I decided it wasn't much and I placed it on an old web site I had. I might place it on my newer blog.
One other story I may not send out again, its a sort of different fantasy venting after 9/11. Not sure who would want that. Probably needs cleaning up anyway. I don't mean the language, I mean the nitpicks and grammar.
But all of my others are still going out, well when I remember to send them...I've gotten into a bad habit of forgetting lately.
tchernabyelo's experience isn't unusual. I have heard the same thing from a number of writers. As one pro says we are our worse critics plus at the beginning we don't enough to judge our own writing.
quote:But maybe the quirky narration and the lurid prose are precisely what someone else wants to read.
Didn't have any more luck with that than anything else. Besides, after going through the experience of Internet Fan Fiction, I came to want to avoid the lurid. I haven't been entirely successful in purging it---my characters still seem to lose and gain and lose clothes with appalling frequency---but it's the goal I'm striving for.
posted
I've read a few essays from authors on this topic. Most recently, in "Write Good or Die". The take home message was write it, finish it, and submit it. Always. Writers tend to be their own harshest critics, and what you think may be sub-par may be a gem to someone else.
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posted
That's not my problem. I always think my stories are golden. Brilliant. Sure to be the one to be published.
And then when they come back with a rejection stamped on the front, I have the hardest time convincing myself that anyone would ever want the story, ever. I have never sent a story to the third market. Once it's rejected twice, I think "oh man this sucks" and put it away.
That's what I want to work on in 2011. My plan is to compile all the stories I have which are, in my opinion, market ready, and then always have them all in line to be rejected.
Because, part of me, however delusional, still believes my stories are awesome. ~Sheena
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I've found that my best characters and ideas from stories I discard tend to get recycled in new stories, which makes the new stories better, the characters more developed and rich, and the action more exciting and well-paced. A good three different stories of mine have a character named Dirival who is nearly the same character in each: a young, earnest, skilled swordsman loyal to his realm who wants to protect and serve its people.
There's no such thing as useless writing. Even if it does no more than improve your typing skills and show you elements of your writing that you decide you don't like or want to do away with, it still has benefit.
posted
Trunking a story after only two submissions is something you DEFINITELY need to work on. It's just wrong. Most pro-level writers still get plenty of rejections (you just don't hear about them) - last time Jay Lake (who has sold more fiction than anyone I know) put up his figures he was actually only selling about 1 in 4 subs, and that went up to around 1 in 7 on unsolicited pieces. I recently sold a story at pro rates that had garnered 17 previous rejections. I have one story still doing the rounds after 19 rejections. Of my 36 sales (ignoring reprint subs), I think I have sold 8 to their first market, and 4 to their second market. So that's only a third of my total sales that I'd have got if I'd followed the "trunk it after two rejections" approach. I mean, come on, TWO rejections? I have submitted to more than 60 different markets (and sold to 22 of those), so why on earth would anyone stop after a mere TWO rejections?
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posted
tchernabyelo, I have a follow up question for you. The stories you put out that got 17 and 19 rejections, or any other story for that matter that you sold...did you do any editing between rejections to try and make it better, or did you just send it out relentlessly without a thought of editing it again?
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Osiris - no editing took place. In general, I tend to think editing a story after a rejection is a waste of time; you are not guaranteed to improve it in any way. obviously if a given rejection gives you feedback, then you may choose to act on it - but the very thing that one market didn't like might be something the next market DOES like. Keep the story th best YOU can make it, and hpe an editor sees it the same way, is my general advice.
The only time I rewrite is when an editor says "I like this, but can you..." That has happened only a couple of times, really, and very few editors have asked for anything remotely significant as far as rewriting goes. I did change the ending to one Black Gate sale, and I think it improved it as a standalone story (though if I incorporate the story in a novel it may revert), and I have had rewrite after rewrite going back and forth on another story that I am hopeful will finally sell.
As for Dr Bob - well, I could list, but frankly you are better off signing up for Duotrope. This is a market search tool that will allow you to put in a number of parameters (story genre, length, desired pay rate, etc) and it will give you back a whole list of possible markets. A number of markets I have subbed to have closed (some that I've sold to, some I never did), new ones come along all the time (my last two pro sales were to markets that did not exist a year ago).
In pro terms, the following on-line markets are all well worth looking at:
Clarkesworld Strange Horizons Fantasy Lightspeed Daily Science Fiction Beneath Ceaseless Skies Intergalactic Medicine Show
Pro in print: Asimov's Astounding Stories Fantasy and Science Fiction Realms of Fantasy
At semi-pro online: Abyss and Apex Heroic Fantasy Quarterly
Semi-pro in print: Black Gate Interzone Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine Shimmer
There are many, many more, but those are the ones that I am (for various reasons) more familiar with (and even then I have probably forgotten something I really shouldn't).
There are also literally hundreds of places that will not pay you for your work; personally I avoid those completely, with very rare exceptions (i.e reprints finding new audiences, or the tiny handful of non-paying genre markets that have a very high reputation - so tiny I can only think of one offhand, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet).
ralan.com has a list of adult markets. Sounds like you could search on duotrupe(?) also.
And there are a couple of "nonadult" markets who say they don't mind some eroticness if it adds to the story. Sounds like you may have tried those but a few rejections may not mean much.
I have heard a couple of pros say the same thing about selling a story after 17 to 20 rejections, but when half of your stories are out of markets, you're out.
I, myself, have quite a list including some not quite pro. Some that pay $20 to $50 a story that I send only my shorter ones to. It's almost pro if you send in a thousand word story but not even close if you send in a 5,000 plus word story.
posted
Some of the successful writers I know talk about having a list prepared ahead of time of possible markets for a story. When the story is rejected one place, the VERY SAME DAY send it back out to the next market on the list (with short story markets, you do need to do some cross-checking as some don't permit simultaneous submissions - where you submit more than one story at a time for consideration.)
I've not practiced this particular habit as well as I'd like, but I aspire to it because I think it's a smart way to avoid over-thinking it.
quote:simultaneous submissions - where you submit more than one story at a time for consideration
The term "simultaneous submissions" (same time submissions) is usually used to refer to submitting the SAME story to different markets at the same time (thereby putting the markets into a kind of competition for the story--markets REALLY don't like that).
When you submit more than one different story to the SAME market, a better term is "multiple submissions" (many submissions).
While some people may mean both things for "simultaneous submissions," that can get confusing, so I recommend using two different terms for the two different situations.
posted
I usually have several possible markets identified for a piece, so if it does come back, I can check which of those I don't currently have a sub out to, and send it there. A spreadsheet is an invaluable tool for the writer who actually subs out their work.
My current problem is productivity; over the past couple of years I have not actually been producing stories as fast as I have been selling them, so I have very little in circulation. But the more balls you have in the air at once, the better chance of someone catching one of them, to mangle a metaphor.
quote:A spreadsheet is an invaluable tool for the writer who actually subs out their work.
I wrote a web application that keeps track of all my stories' potential markets and submission history. Yes, I am a geek. On those unfortunate days where a story is rejected, I know with a glance or two what market is wide open for me to submit it to next. Unless I deem they need some sort of revision (and that's an entirely separate topic), my completed stories don't stay on the sidelines for long.
quote:My current problem is productivity
Guilty. I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions, but since no editor I've ever heard of visits my hard drive to see what I'm working on next, I have dedicated myself to upping my game as far as completing stories.
He also offers a free editor that does chapter breakdowns, storyboarding, and some other stuff, maybe useful to folks who feel a need for an organizer.
I haven't tried it, but I use Spacejock's yBook as my main ebook reader.
posted
I just use my word processor. The first time I send out a story I add it to my list. I put the title, word count and the market plus month I sent it in, as the story comes back I underline the market's name. Twenty stories per file.
I have lost a few when my hard drive died a couple of years ago. I hadn't backed up those files for a few months so I lost some of the history, and I have forgotten to list a market or two plus sometimes I don't feel like underlining it when I receive the rejection so I ending up forgetting to a few times but generally speaking it works.
If I had the necessary server capacity---and if I ever finish all the advanced features I want---believe me, I'd open it up to all my fellow Hatrackers.
Actually...my web developing emphasis for the near term is on a tool that will track my writing progress each day (which is a process I currently still perform using Word). Right now, this module does not work to my liking, so I keep hacking at it. When completed, it will tell me how much time I spend on each project so I can see how I spend my writing time...among other cool functions. And, of course, it will all tie into the submission tracking system I already have.
quote:If I had the necessary server capacity---and if I ever finish all the advanced features I want---believe me, I'd open it up to all my fellow Hatrackers.
Oh! I meant, are you willing to share the code - I certainly wouldn't presume to use your resources for my personal ends!
It's fine if you don't want to share it - I understand that. But if you do, well, that'd be really dandy. :-)
posted
Maybe one of the sites that cater to writers would be willing to host it? it can't be all THAT resource-intensive, compared to folks yakking back and forth all day long.
Meanwhile, you could opensource it -- Sourceforge being probably the best and most reliable host for that.
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On those unfortunate days where a story is rejected, I know with a glance or two what market is wide open for me to submit it to next. Unless I deem they need some sort of revision (and that's an entirely separate topic), my completed stories don't stay on the sidelines for long.
