Zac chimed in my ear."Go, Zac," I said. He's my artificial intelligence enhancer.
"You asked me to remind you when it's almost August, time for the Ready for Market group."
"I know," I said. "I've been wondering--do you think 'Better than Heinlein' is right? Someone expressed a dislike for Bob's work."
"Bob? You're on first name terms?"
“Well, no ... you don't think mentioning him in a familiar way lends authority to the idea?"
"No," said Zac. "It makes you sound pompous. Call him Heinlein like everyone else. To your question, yes, keep it as 'Better than Heinlein' otherwise you'll trigger an interminable debate about who was the best author ever--and as soon as someone mentions JKR or Dan Brown there'll be a flame war and She Who Must Be Obeyed will lock the thread and everyone will go home miffed. We're trying to be professional writers here, so we all ought to be able to see he was a great writer even if his work isn't to our taste, a writer of quality to which we can aspire."
"So, um, we just explain that the idea is to grade a story as 'Better than Heinlein' if it's better than your favourite author, better than the best published author you know in the story's genre. Okay?"
"Yes," said Zac, reassuringly and adverbially.
"Do you think we have the right set of characteristics to grade stories by?"
"Yes," said Zac, beginning to sound a little testy. It always amazes me how an implanted imaginary machine can sound like it has emotions. "If they were wildly wrong, someone would have said by now. Just start the darned process. Post something in the 'Hatrack Challenges' area and figure the rest out as you go. After all, that's what you usually do!"
"Okay," I said.
#
It's time to start, people.
The detailed rules follow below in this post (and if anyone wants changes to them, please post in this thread or let me know by e-mail). But here's the short version:
Take a story you've already workshopped, or at least polished, a story you're ready to shop around the markets. Post its first thirteen (together with title, word count and genre) in the thread I've started in the Hatrack Challenge area for the 'Ready for Market' group and follow the instructions there for reading and grading.
Enjoy!
Pat
Ready for Market Group - Objective
==================================
To help each other get stories ready for market, submitted and published.
We all have trouble second-guessing what editors want, and it's hard to know when a story is really ready for market--or as ready as we can make it.
In an article at Baen, Mike Resnick observed that as new writers we have to be, not just good enough, but better than established writers if an editor is to make space for our work.
The "Ready for Market" group uses competition (F&SF is a competitive market, despite us being a friendly lot) to help us judge our stories against others, and a grading scheme which asks, "Is the story better than Heinlein?" The grading assesses the story overall, and important characteristics like plot, character development and so on.
Without demanding a lot of critting work on the part of readers (the story should probably have been workshopped already, so in the author's mind it's pretty much ready for market), this scheme should help us to understand which aspects of a story are okay, and which need work.
The group is open to anyone at Hatrack. Stories should probably have been workshopped and certainly ready to submit to market.
Stories must be complete. No WIPs. This is not a way of getting others to help with the writing of a story that has not yet made it past first draft. Grammar and spelling should be good.
Stories that have been rejected by editors will be welcome. After grading, the writer may choose to share the (non-form) rejection letter so we can discuss how it compares with our gradings.
How it Works
============
The scheme is designed to demand a minimum of effort both from readers of stories ("graders") and administration.
There's almost no need for written crits (just a few one liners), unless you want to do them.
The only commitment you make to the group is this:
You don't have to submit a story every month. But in the month you submit a story you commit to:
- grade all first 13s according to the 3/2/1 scheme below;
- select at least one story to read fully, and grade the story overall and on ten characteristics according to the scheme below.
That's the minimum. In line with Hatrack's ideas on the value of critiqueing, the more you do the more you learn, and the more kudos you earn. Grading more stories, or critting some, will be well received and hopefully returned.
Everyone will get their first 13s graded, and some (hopefully all) will get one or more gradings of the full story. For novels, we’ll read and grade partials—the first twenty pages and the synopsis—so that novels get about the same chance as shorts.
Note that there is no guarantee that each story will get a manuscript request, and thus get graded. No request means its first 13 wasn't enough to attract interest from what we assume is a representative audience and that perhaps therefore some work is needed to make it stand out in the market-place.
Grading Scheme
==============
The scheme aspires to "better than Heinlein" or your favourite author of today, because our theory is that we have to be competitive with published authors to break into that first market.
For first 13s:
--------------
3 - would read on enthusiastically
2 - would read on with caution
1 - would not read on
Each grade includes a one liner (one sentence or bullet point) with the reason for the grade.
For stories:
-----------
Story overall:
3 - Better than Heinlein (or, better than my favourite published author of today, or better than the best published author in the story’s genre--name her if you like)
2 - As good as the best authors published today (but not quite good enough)
1 - Okay but not as good as published authors
Story characteristics: (3 = better than Heinlein, 2 = average, 1 = weak)
1 character development
2 plot
3 satisfactory ending
4 milieu
5 willing suspension of disbelief
6 unique/never been done before
7 writing style
8 dialogue
9 action
10 understandable ("I get it")
Thus, if a story is requested as a result of its first 13, it gets a 1/2/3 score on its overall readiness for market, and on each of 10 attributes. If you want to include a short crit of the story, that's great but not mandatory.
When
====
There's a monthly cycle.
On the 1st day of the month everyone is invited to post first 13s.
We give ourselves one week to do that. This is not time for writing since the stories should be ready for market, but just recognising that we can't all get to things immediately.
Entries close on the 7th day of the month.
By 14th day of the month we
- grade first 13s
- request at least one manuscript (via an e-mail to the writer) of the story we'd like to read and grade (probably one whose first 13 we scored highly)
By the last day of the month we
- grade at least one manuscript
- grade more stories if we want to (e.g. those that have great first 13s in addition to our favourites)
The "end of the day" is the end of the day in your local time. There's no need to be more precise than that.
Where
=====
On the first of the month I will create a fresh Topic in Writing Challenges for "Ready for Market" entries for "this" month.
Contributors post their first 13s only. You include three lines at the beginning of your first 13 giving title, genre and word count:
quote:
Title: My Story that's Ready for Market
Genre: SF
Word count: 5000 words
First 13 lines of your story.
On the 7th day I'll create an "entries closed and here's a template for first 13 grading" post and then we use the same Topic to post gradings of first 13s.
On the 14th day I'll create a post that says, "first 13 grading closed and here's a template for full story grading" and then we use the same Topic to post gradings of stories we've fully read, and to discuss them. If discussions get long on a particular issue or story we move the discussion to a new topic in the appropriate area of Hatrack.
On the last day of the month I'll create a "gradings closed" post. The Topic remains open for further discussion, which could include sharing of non-form rejection letters for stories we graded this month, in order to better understand what gets stories rejected and how to improve our ability to grade stories--to second guess editors and market readiness.
On the first day of the following month the cycle restarts with a fresh topic.
Rules & Admin
=============
Normal Hatrack rules apply to story content and critque etiquette.
Note that only first 13s are in the public topics. Manuscripts are shared via e-mail, as usual.
If you submit one story, you must grade at least one full story. For novels, use partial (first 20 pages and synopsis) to read and grade, to make the amount of work equivalent to a short.
If for any reason the month's submissions include nothing you can read in all conscience (you only do Fantasy and this month it's all SF) you are at liberty to withdraw your submission and try again next month, because this month's contributors aren't your target audience. Or, do your best with the story you most sympathise with; you're a budding writer and your opinion will likely be valuable even if this is not your genre.
Since all the reporting is in public there should not be much admin work. However, I will monitor traffic to assure everyone grades first 13s and stories according to the rules. If someone appears to be not playing nice, I'll write a polite post in the month's thread reminding them of the rules.
If it takes off, and if there's too much work, I'll offer free ansibles in exchange for assistance.
If it takes off and we want to modify the rules, I'll offer to facilitate discussion towards consensus on revised rules.
There was a useful discussion of the concept at http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/004933.html.
Cheers,
Pat
Printer-friendly view of this topic
