Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Fragments & Feedback

This is topic Fragments & Feedback in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by ablelaz (Member # 2446) on :

Hi Gang---I’m the new guy on the block and still exploring, trying to figure out how this site works.
I have read Fragments & Feedback several times, and am completely confused about what we are trying to achieve with this thread.
Thirteen lines of prose, tells me nothing about a piece of literature. It may give me a idea about the author ability with words his/er ability to describe a scene or character, but that’s about it.
This thread is very well used, so perhaps there is something wrong with my perception. After digesting thirteen lines of literature, some have the ability to advise an author about story line, character development, direction and much, much more.
I recently finished a short story about 4000 words, so I thought why not submit the first thirteen lines. I went to word and brought it up counted out thirteen lines and carefully read them. I couldn’t tell the genre of the story, where it was taking place, what it was about, when it took place, I couldn’t even tell who was the main character.
I just thought it would be interesting to hear some other opinion on this. Am I way out in left field on this one or what?
Talk to you soon----ablelaz

Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :

I think the main ideas behind the first thirteen thing are, first, that posting over thirteen lines on the internet starts doing crazy stuff to future publication rights, and second, that most editors only read the first thirteen lines when reviewing a submitted short story. This second one seems to imply that the story should be engaging from the very beginning.

Regarding your doubts about the first thirteen of your work...why don't you post them, and see what other people think? Also, if you're looking for feedback on the whole thing, you can request readers and email your story to them.

Does that help?

[This message has been edited by Jeraliey (edited April 01, 2005).]

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

quote:
I couldn’t tell the genre of the story, where it was taking place, what it was about, when it took place, I couldn’t even tell who was the main character.

Really? None of the above? Not one? Just one? Hmm. Then--no offense meant--you might want to rethink that opening. There should be a hint of one (or several) of those things happening fairly quickly. Then again, as Jer suggests, post it up for crit. Let's have it and we'll see what's what.

Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :

First of all, F&F is used on a couple of different levels by those who take advantage of it. First of all, you can post those thirteen lines and simply ask for feedback on those lines. In that case, we're just going to give you our opinion of how you got started, nothing more. In a short story, those thirteen lines are pretty important. I will have to agree with HSO's comment...you couldn't tell any of those things in the first 13 lines? Not even one little thing? Without posting the lines you have written, I find it difficult to say anything, but it does *seem* strange. A short story needs to get going. You don't have the lead-in time of a novel.

Second, you can ask for readers for the entire story. What may end up happening is that you get comments on the 13 lines as well as volunteers, but don't worry about that. You never know what will be useful anyway. Especially if you want help with the whole thing, I would recommend looking to volunteer to read other's stories....I haven't seen it used as much for that as for the first lately, but this sort of thing seems to come and go in waves. For a while, you get nothing but fragment requests, and then for a while you get nothing but story requests. I seem to remember a couple of people asking for full reads recently.

And you're right. Thirteen lines can only tell you so much. But here's what it tells me: It tells me if the author is worth helping or not. I've seen fragments riddled with grammar erros and the most obnoxious, even childish sorts of styles imaginable. (I will not name names.) BUt truthfully, I see many more well written pieces that indicate the writer is serious and worth my time. That is how I'll judge whether or not to give my advice or offer to read more if you've asked.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

By the way, it's not that some editors won't read more than thirteen lines, it's that most will read at least thirteen lines before deciding whether or not to reject your story.

That may sound like a stupid "I think it's half full" statement, but it isn't. It's just an attempt to be more accurate. Almost all reputable editors read the entire text of a story they accept for publication. And few reject stories without reading even the first page unless the submission doesn't adhere to the guidelines for that market (among the common guidelines--I amusingly typoed that as "guildlines" for some reason, just thought I'd mention it--is that the first page should not be an entire page of the text).

However (and this is the not "glass is half full" part), most editors are actively looking for a reason to put down your story and move on to the next. So most editors, having read that first thirteen lines on the first page, would much rather not do the extra work of turning to the next page unless the first thirteen lines were much better than average (in the upper 5%, say). Consider a standard submission. If you read quickly (and most editors do), you can pick one off the stack, read the first thirteen lines, and toss it into the reject pile in the time it would take you to turn the first page without mutilating or rearranging the manuscript (why do we even call them that anymore?). Which means that to turn the page and look at the first line on the next page of every manuscript will halve the speed with which the editor is able to go through looking for the stories that are actually publishable by that market.

I've left out things like cover letters and so forth because in a properly run office (not that all offices are properly run) the editor has minions to do that stuff (or can "one-man assembly line" that part of the process earlier).

Remember, the typical editor's job is to reject 99% of the submissions coming into a market. True, minions can handle some of that load (if the editor has any, not all, or even many, do), the particularly egregious bottom half of the pile. But your first thirteen lines has to be good enough to make a hardened rejecto-bot actually turn to your next page in the precious time the editor could be using to move through the stack.

So there's a sensible reason for the 13 line rule, and a sensible reason for the reason.