Anyway, I thought a good way to introduce myself would through this question:
“Which of these story openings sucks less?”

Thanks!
Chad

PS: If I violate any of the local netiquette, please let me know. (Example: are these too long for anybody to actually read?)

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Like every night, Julio de la Cruz, captain of the Alfred Russell Wallace, sat third-watch on the spaceship's bridge, sobbing, shaking with tears. He listened to dirges, mostly; the music tonight was Mozart's Dies Irae.

His sobs echoed off the fused-quartz viewscreen ahead of him; tears fell on the reactor control board in front of him. Starlight filled the darkened room; Saturn's rings shined soft yellow, but the planet presented its night side to Julio's eyes. Sol -- merely a bright star.

The computer beeped, bringing his attention to the communications board. It decoded the super-encrypted message one letter at a time. What? he thought. 'Shift course to Neptune?' Why? More letters appeared. Diamonds? Larissa? Outsiders? Aliens? Mother of God!

He grinned. The tears dried. For a year, he'd wanted an excuse -- any excuse -- to delay his return to Earth. How could he face the widows, parents... the orphans? I was looking for an excuse, and this -- this qualifies!

---------

"Aliens," said Tom.

"Yes! Imagine --"

"Somebody built a maser in their backyard and decided to **** with our heads. Ain't aliens."

Julio shook his head. "No. It was on a one-time-pad cipher." He patted the computer teminal. "Bertha here decoded it: it's from Atlanta. Corporate says, 'aliens.'"

"Why us? Wallace is an explorer, not a dive-bomber! NASA should do this themselves, sub-contract. No -- the Air Force. Bomb 'em flat."

"We're the only ship within two light-hours. NASA would need thirty months to boost a ship out here. And the Zoomies are too busy with the terrorists."

Tom looked out the viewscreen, silent. Julio had presented the problem to him first, privately. The crew would mutiny if Julio tried to order them, but Tom, Julio's nominal (damn him) deputy, could convince the crew. They still respected Tom, trusted him. Julio wondered, but, can I convince Tom?

--------

Julio de la Cruz was the captain and master of the Alfred Russell Wallace; but, the crew seldom listened to a damn word he said. Not anymore.

How, he wondered, do I convince them to do something this downright stupid?

"This is too dangerous," said Shannon. "We'll be trying to land on vapor and prayers, dry tanks!"

Julio said, "We'll be fine. Nereid's gravity is -- what? -- one-one hundredth? Thereabouts?"
Shannon looked puzzled. "Neptune's been explored. Nereid especially! Why us? Why now?"

They gathered in the ship's gym, the only space in the lifesystem large enough to hold all eight people. Arms, legs, two weight machines and a pair of stationary bikes filled the tiny room, leaving just enough air to breathe. Dirty walls and dim lights. No windows. Locker room smell of eight people crammed in a small ship for years.

Tom, the second in command, said, "If we miss our intercept, Nereid can't capture us. Too little gee."

Damn, thought Julio, what if they're right? "I still think it's possible. Bertha says the math works." Of course, the computer had chewed on several million possible orbits before finding one that wouldn't exhaust their fuel, or crash them into Neptune, or worse.

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Trimmed to 13 lines each, 6/18/01

This protects the writer's electronic rights to the story, and it still gives readers the "first page" of a story in manuscript format.

Since many editors only read the first page of a manuscript anyway (deciding from that much whether the story is interesting enough to continue with), readers here should be able to make a similar judgment on your story openings.

quote:

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We recommend that writers post no more than the first thirteen lines of any story here on the Hatrack website.
This protects the writer's electronic rights to the story, and it still gives readers the "first page" of a story in manuscript format.

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Can you give more details about this?

Does that mean if someone had the first thirteen lines posted from two or more chapters of the same novel--as I guess would happen in one of the critique groups over a period of months--that it would affect the electronic rights of the author?

I'm very tired, and didn't catch that they were beginnings for the *same* story until the second time through. My mistake served me well, though, because I was trusting the gut. I was interested in reading on after finishing the first opening. You lost me on the other two because of language. I'm your general audience. No scientific background. If you're writing to the audience I represent, go with the first (except perhaps the hero crying. Loses sympathy).

Did you post the rest of it elsewhere?

Second one is confusing - no scene, no character, just dialogue.

Third doesn't appear right - a captain not listened to? If he isn't, he's no longer a captain and you have a mutiny. That's serious stuff.

quote:

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Does that mean if someone had the first thirteen lines posted from two or more chapters of the same novel--as I guess would happen in one of the critique groups over a period of months--that it would affect the electronic rights of the author?

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The 13-line limit is to protect you. Follow this other rule as well, never post anything in its final form on any crit board ect.

Electronic rights are a huge issue. Before, few places cared about them, but with the flux of big name guys getting on the electronic bandwagon it is a growing concern. Electronic also covers books on tape.

To answer your question, no I don't think having thirteen lines posted in a group over time will use up those rights, they are not consecutive, and do not make up what an agent or editor would decide from, and they are not final draft.

IMHO
Shawn

quote:

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no I don't think having thirteen lines posted in a group over time will use up those rights, they are not consecutive,

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Trouble is, if your're posting with a group over a period of months, each time your mss comes up for critique, you'll be posting 13 more lines from subsequent chapters, thus going beyond the 13-line limit for any particular mss. Would that second (and third, and fourth) posting constitute loss of electronic rights? Are you thus limited to only one thirteen-word posting per mss?

I've tried to research the issue, but been unable to get much info. My impression is the whole subject is confused.

I can't find any info on the issue of thirteen lines.

So far as I can see, unless electronic rights have been specifically purchased, or else a work is being specifically used commercially [ie, being sold electronically] then electronic rights are in no way infringed upon, and remain available to sell.

[edited to remove potentially reactionary wording!]

If you set up your manuscript properly, you will double-space between each line of text, giving you 25 or 26 lines on each page.

The first page of each manuscript should start the text halfway down the sheet of paper, to allow room for the name, address, word count, title, byline, and room for the editor to make notes to the typesetter as needed.

So the first page of a properly presented manuscript only has 13 lines on it.

That's for a short story manuscript, though. Novel chapters can start closer to the top because a novel has a title page with just the name, address, word count, title and byline--plenty of room for editorial notes to the typesetter.

Anyway, the first 13 lines implies the first page, and many editors will only read the first page of a manuscript before deciding to reject or to read on.

Now, for the electronic rights question. Even though most publishers are not likely to make use of the electronic rights to a story, for several years now, they have insisted on controlling an author's electronic rights and have included "deal-breaker" clauses about those rights in every contract.

New writers, who have no clout, must agree to let the publisher control electronic rights in order to make a sale--novel or short story.

If the electronic rights have already been used up by the author, by publishing the story on a website (which is accessible to the whole world) for example, then the publisher can't control electronic rights. Unless the author's work has phenomenal sales potential (as in the case of some self-published works such as THE CHRISTMAS BOX), the publisher is not going to be interested in publishing a story or novel without that control.

Even if publishers don't have any use for electronic rights.

They anticipate having use for them in the future and don't want to have to negotiate for them later.

So, Kolona's question is whether or not the first 13 lines of each chapter will total enough wordage to constitute the using up of electronic rights.

And Chronicles wants to know if printing out copies for your family and friends counts as self-publishing.

The answer is that it all depends on the numbers.

If you have gazillions of 13-line chapters in your novel (and some novels have chapters even shorter than 13 lines), you could certainly end up putting a majority of your novel online.

If you have 15 chapters in your 90,000-word novel, that's 15x130 (ten words per line) words which is 1950 words--only about 2 percent of your novel.

If you're concerned about posting the first 13 lines of each chapter in a group discussion area on this website, feel free to just post the chapter title (or Chapter 11) when you start the topic for that chapter.

If Chronicles has a family numbering in the thousands, then printing out copies for them would count as self-publishing. Print runs of less than 100, though, don't usually concern major publishers. Nor does privately emailing copies of your work to a few people in your writing group.

The concern publishers have is that there be a large enough market for the work to make it worth their time to publish it. Anything you do to lessen the size of that market makes them less interested.

I don't think the bean-counters are ready to be convinced that electronic publication will lead to enough requests for a printed version to make it worth your while to self-publish online first. For now, I'd recommend that you err on the side of caution.

I hope this helps.

Apologies that you got to see the rushed and somewhat combative post.

But there are still a couple of issues I'd like to run by you, if that's okay:

Firstly, with regards electronic rights - if talking about novel-length works, then surely one or two online samples would not constitute use of electronic rights?? This has direct inplications for my website, even if that works requires serious editing.

Also - for the crit group you've just established some of us in - I sort of imagined that we would be sharing full length chapters of a couple of thousand words for critique, so that not simply the style, but the themes could begin to be addressed. I imagine that if this is the case, then so long as it's kept in a small private group then electronic publishing rights are not violated?

My primary aim is to be published. Obviously, I don't want to threaten that goal with pointless naivete.

Brian

quote:

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if talking about novel-length works, then surely one or two online samples would not constitute use of electronic rights?? This has direct inplications for my website, even if that works requires serious editing.

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One or two online samples that aren't very big (meaning a substantial percentage of the whole) are probably all right--it's as grey an area as defining "fair use."

As I said, the publishers are concerned with anything that makes it so they don't get to claim your electronic rights in the contract. Once you've sold a novel, the publisher would probably ask you to remove samples from your website--and replace them with a link to the samples they would want to put on the publisher's website.

quote:

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Also - for the crit group you've just established some of us in - I sort of imagined that we would be sharing full length chapters of a couple of thousand words for critique, so that not simply the style, but the themes could begin to be addressed. I imagine that if this is the case, then so long as it's kept in a small private group then electronic publishing rights are not violated?

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The privacy of the critique group, as well as its smallness, protects your electronic rights just as printing out copies of the manuscript and handing them out to an in-person critique group would not violate first publication rights. The number of people who see your work in both cases are miniscule compared to the nubmer of people the publishers are hoping will buy your work from them.

It's a matter of numbers.

Short version, I've canned this story as it didn't turn out well. I moved to other projects. But yes, as you preceived, the crew WAS near mutiny.

Thanks for the clarity.

chad -

Thanks for the reply.