Although I do not live exactly close to the US, I try to keep in touch with the markets by reading. What I have the easier access to are anthologies like Year's Best (both the Ellen Datlow version and the David Hartwell, for fantasy). I have a problem. I do not find much to like about those stories. Most of them evoke a "uh?" by the time I'm through with them. Very few of them stick in my mind, and a lot of them have me wondering what the editor was thinking of in including them in the anthology. The stories I like reading are not in there. I suppose those anthologies are representative of the direction the field is taking. I don't like it. And what I don't like, I can't write. I can't "fit in", as it were. What do you think?
Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :
I think that's partly why I started a magazine.
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
One of the problems with anthologies is that often the way it works is an editor has to get several "name" writers to agree to write a story for the anthology before the editor can sell the anthology to a publisher, even if the editor works for that publisher.
So you have a bunch of authors whose names will sell the anthology, and those authors usually have to come up with something for the anthology. And what they come up with is not always their best work and may even be something they threw together.
The editor has to take whatever the "name" authors send in, and so it can be a little disappointing at times.
If the anthology is thrown open to the public (thereby giving the editor more scope and choice and a possible chance at good stuff), it requires a lot more work than the editor ends up getting paid for (because the editor has to share the advance and royalties with the authors).
An open anthology usually doesn't have enough "name" authors for the publisher to be comfortable printing it, though, so they don't appear very often.
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
I wonder if I somehow logged in as Silver3 a little while ago and started this topic. I don't *think* I did but that post sounds exactly like something I've found frustrating for a long time.
Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :
Sometimes I wonder if these anthologies and short story magazines are some sort of pyramid scheme.
That is, with aspiring writers as the base, buying the books and magazines so as to see what kind of stories they can write, then those few who get accepted up top, who once were in the base.
Are anthologies read by those not aspiring to write? And if so, who and how many is thier audience?
Posted by BuffySquirrel (Member # 2780) on :
I have been reading Gardner Dozois' Best Of SF anthologies for some years now, and the more recent ones have definitely been disappointing compared to the older ones. Although what Kathleen says is interesting, it doesn't apply to anthos that are collections from stories already published in magazines.
I don't know if there's a trend, or if the editors choosing these stories just don't have the same tastes as I do. But there used to be at least two or three memorable stories in the Dozois anthos, and now I'm grateful if I find one.
What I would say is this: if other writers aren't writing the sort of stories you like to read, then you write them. Write what you want to read.
Posted by Paul-girtbooks (Member # 2799) on :
I believe it was George R.R. Martin who said
quote:Writers write the kind of stories and novels they can't find in the bookstores
Posted by lehollis (Member # 2883) on :
I never knew that about anthologies. (I wondered why they were always so disappointing, in general.) I do think I suspected it, though. At least, I wasn't surprised to hear it.
I do agree that writers write what they're wishing they could see more of.