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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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.
I can barely think of a half-dozen short fiction print markets I've read for f&sf. I'm only now learning there are on-line e-markets as well.
If you are willing, would you list what are the 20-60 something markets to which you send your stories?
And congratulations on your many sales.
Respectfully,
Dr. Bob
[This message has been edited by History (edited January 13, 2011).]
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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My current problem is productivity
S!
S!
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I wrote a web application that keeps track of all my stories' potential markets and submission history.
http://www.spacejock.com/Sonar3.html
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.
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.
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Oooooh....willing to share?
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.
Some of my code reads like fiction.
S!
S!
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Some of my code reads like fiction
As it should...especially for a nerd named Crank.
And that's good.
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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.
It's fine if you don't want to share it - I understand that. But if you do, well, that'd be really dandy. :-)
Meanwhile, you could opensource it -- Sourceforge being probably the best and most reliable host for that.