Watcha Writin'?

[Valka D'Ur]

He could have, bit I've been submitting stories on & off since I graduated high school. That's only happened to me once.

So did he. He was still a student when he started submitting stories, and even after he started selling a noticeable number of stories, it was still another 20 years or so before he dared quit his day job (teaching chemistry in a university; he was Dr. Asimov by that time, with a PhD) to concentrate on writing as a career.

The really nice thing was the rapid response--only 2 days. In the "good old days" it took months--if you got any response at all.

Lots of editors take their sweet time or never reply. You found one that actually does have some manners.

 

[Zkribbler]

I didn't get words qua words written last night, but I got a lot accomplished.

In What Lies at the End of the Universe, I figured out what lie lays at the end of my universe. I figured out the purpose of one of my support characters. And I named my starship Destiny, which is highly appropriate for this story.

I've never been happy about Oz 2.0's ability to suck readers in. I've now tweaked the first page & I think this may solve the problem. Usually, I avoid using a preface like the plague, but in this case, I think it's necessary.

Spoiler Preface for Oz 2.0 :

In the 1960's, Professor Littlefield observed political symbolism woven into L. Frank Baum’s 1900 classic The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Baum's silver slippers which skipped down the Yellow Brick Road represented Free Silver's overcoming the Gold Standard. The scarecrow represented farmers, the tin man represented factory workers, and the lion was Williams Jennings Bryan. Dor-o-thy was The-o-dore Roosevelt. The Wicked Witch of the East was McKinley's protectionists while the Witch of the West represented railroad tycoons. The flying monkeys were Pinkerton's corporate goons.

In this updated version, Baum's symbolism is brought more to the fore and is expanded upon. The original story is also tweaked somewhat with Dorothy being transported to a rather jolly dystopia where she befriends a genetically-altered cornstalk, a cast-off android, and a toothless lion.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Dorothy befriends a GMO product?

 

[Zkribbler]

Dorothy befriends a GMO product?

Do you think cornstalks could talk without being genetically modified?

 

[Zkribbler]

In looking around for possible markets, I came across a droll passage in Clarkesworld writers' guidelines:

Spoiler Guidelines :

the following are likely hard sells:

• zombies or zombie-wannabes (seriously, I'm not kidding)
• sexy vampires, wanton werewolves, wicked witches, or demonic children
• stories about rapists, murderers, child abusers, or cannibals
• stories where the climax is dependent on the spilling of intestines
• stories in which a milquetoast civilian government is depicted as the sole obstacle to either catching some depraved criminal or to an uncomplicated military victory
• stories where the Republicans, or Democrats, or Libertarians, or the Spartacist League, etc. take over the world and either save or ruin it
• stories in which the words "thou" or "thine" appear
• talking cats or swords
• stories where FTL travel or time travel is as easy as is it on television shows or movies
• stories that depend on some vestigial belief in Judeo-Christian mythology in order to be frightening (i.e., Cain and Abel are vampires, the End Times are a' comin', Communion wine turns to Christ's literal blood and it's HIV positive, Satan's gonna getcha, etc.)
• stories about young kids playing in some field and discovering ANYTHING. (a body, an alien craft, Excalibur, ANYTHING).
• stories about the stuff we all read in Scientific American three months ago
• stories about your RPG character's adventures
• "funny" stories that depend on, or even include, puns
• stories where the protagonist is either widely despised or widely admired simply because he or she is just so smart and/or strange
• stories that take place within an artsy-fartsy bohemia as written by an author who has clearly never experienced one
• stories originally intended for someone's upcoming theme anthology or issue (everyone is sending those out, wait a while)
• your trunk stories
• stories that try to include all of the above

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In looking around for possible markets, I came across a droll passage in Clarkesworld writers' guidelines:

Spoiler Guidelines :

the following are likely hard sells:

• zombies or zombie-wannabes (seriously, I'm not kidding)
• sexy vampires, wanton werewolves, wicked witches, or demonic children
• stories about rapists, murderers, child abusers, or cannibals
• stories where the climax is dependent on the spilling of intestines
• stories in which a milquetoast civilian government is depicted as the sole obstacle to either catching some depraved criminal or to an uncomplicated military victory
• stories where the Republicans, or Democrats, or Libertarians, or the Spartacist League, etc. take over the world and either save or ruin it
• stories in which the words "thou" or "thine" appear
• talking cats or swords
• stories where FTL travel or time travel is as easy as is it on television shows or movies
• stories that depend on some vestigial belief in Judeo-Christian mythology in order to be frightening (i.e., Cain and Abel are vampires, the End Times are a' comin', Communion wine turns to Christ's literal blood and it's HIV positive, Satan's gonna getcha, etc.)
• stories about young kids playing in some field and discovering ANYTHING. (a body, an alien craft, Excalibur, ANYTHING).
• stories about the stuff we all read in Scientific American three months ago
• stories about your RPG character's adventures
• "funny" stories that depend on, or even include, puns
• stories where the protagonist is either widely despised or widely admired simply because he or she is just so smart and/or strange
• stories that take place within an artsy-fartsy bohemia as written by an author who has clearly never experienced one
• stories originally intended for someone's upcoming theme anthology or issue (everyone is sending those out, wait a while)
• your trunk stories
• stories that try to include all of the above

I guess it's a good thing that I'm not trying to sell the adventures of my RPG characters. I write those stories for fun.

I just received an email from NaNoWriMo, which included some lessons useful to any writer. I've posted it in the NaNoWriMo 2018 thread.

 

[Zkribbler]

I just submitted Oz 2.0 to Clarksworld Magazine. [Submission # (714510)]. I had to find a little fat to trim to get it underneath the 16,000-word limit. They assure me of a decision within 2 weeks.

Edit: Pardon me while I pat myself on the back: To find excess words to chop, I had to re-read my entire story. I had forgotten how much fun it is.

 

[Zkribbler]

Thank you for the opportunity to read "Oz 2.0." Unfortunately, your story isn't quite what we're looking for right now.

In the past, we've provided detailed feedback on our rejections, but I'm afraid that due to time considerations, we're no longer able to offer that service. I appreciate your interest in Clarkesworld Magazine and hope that you'll keep us in mind in the future.

 

[Zkribbler]

I haven't been around much because since my last post [last Tues], I had to replace my Wifi router , and then my ISP kicked me off the internet three times , twice for not having a password, which I do in fact have, and once for not timely responding to an email from them, which I could not access. I woke up this morning to discover I now need to input my email password [I don't know if these are related], so now I have to go searching for where I have it written down.

Meanwhile, I've been repairing my TV set three times .

Our beloved Zkribbler is not in a good mood.

Plus, Clarksworld's rejection of "Oz 2.0" hit me a lot harder than I first realized . It's a darn good story and should have sold. To top things off, I just watched the DVD-version of Ursula LeGuin's fantasy classic Earthsea, and the characters & plot are so standard; every character is a stereotype. That's made into a miniseries, and I'm nowhere.

[Edit: I wrote that when I could only get Part 1 to play. Today, I played Paet 2. The characters are still bland, but the plot is much, much better.]

At least now that I have an internet again, I can resubmit "Oz 2.0" elsewhere.

As I neared the end of "Come Hither, Springtme," the quality of my writing collapsed. I've worked on it some & now it's better. I'd forgotten how close I am to finishing The Count of Monte Banco. My plan is to finish both up by the end of this month.

 

[Zkribbler]

I've located the two consulting editors from whom Tor accepts unsolicited fiction. I've queried one of them about "Oz 2.0."

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

I haven't been around much because since my last post [last Tues], I had to replace my Wifi router , and then my ISP kicked me off the internet three times , twice for not having a password, which I do in fact have, and once for not timely responding to an email from them, which I could not access. I woke up this morning to discover I now need to input my email password [I don't know if these are related], so now I have to go searching for where I have it written down.

Don't you just loooooooove telcoms?

 

[Zkribbler]

Another 1 1/2 days with no internet.

Meanwhile. I finished my first draft of "Come Hither, Springtime," and made progress on "What Lies at the End of the Universe." My exploding whale scene is coming next, and I needed to download the original story from Wikipedia.

 

[aelf]

I've been writing sci-fi short stories slowly over the past year.

Previously, I wrote chapters of a novel, but I realised that I need more practice and feedback before I can realistically do that well. I've written 2 stories, submitted 1 to Asimov's, which was rejected after 3 weeks. I realised upon reflection that despite positive feedback from a few friends that have read it, it really isn't any good, so I scrapped it and wrote another one. Have yet to submit it because I haven't even been able to get feedback from people around me, even though I think it's much better than the first.

Plus, Clarksworld's rejection of "Oz 2.0" hit me a lot harder than I first realized . It's a darn good story and should have sold. To top things off, I just watched the DVD-version of Ursula LeGuin's fantasy classic Earthsea, and the characters & plot are so standard; every character is a stereotype. That's made into a miniseries, and I'm nowhere.

Yeah, I think the writing world has moved on since then. More than that, with high literacy rates and the proliferation of content over the Internet, there's just so much writing out there, from bad to surprisingly good, that people are inundated with text. It's harder and harder to sift the wheat from the chaff, so you have to be either exceptional or lucky, or both.

Kind of makes me regret developing writing skills all these years rather than, say, drawing skills. You can tell very quickly if you like a picture or not - it doesn't require the kind of time investment that text needs before you can decide either way.

On that note, in my experience, it's also extremely hard to find people with the time, willingness and candour to give proper feedback. I think it might be even harder for a genre still considered quite niche like sci-fi. What do you usually do?

I might post a thread specifically about this and maybe post a snippet in it or something and see if we can get some mutual feedback-giving going.

 

[Zkribbler]

On that note, in my experience, it's also extremely hard to find people with the time, willingness and candour to give proper feedback. I think it might be even harder for a genre still considered quite niche like sci-fi. What do you usually do?
.

Your post reminded me that, decades ago, I was looking into Orson Scott Card's Writer's Workshop. http://www.hatrack.com/writers/index.shtml
But I was crazy busy and could never follow up. At that time it was free and I beleve it still is. It's writers helping other writers.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Ursula LeGuin is from a different era of SF/F. There's a lot of stuff from the '50s-'70s that doesn't tend to appeal to modern audiences.

My own Kingmaker story is still chugging along; I've done close to 13,000 words since NaNoWriMo finished; haven't missed a single day so far. It's nice to have the leisure to explore little alternative scenarios and then see which ones might best fit the larger story. I've spent the past three weeks trying to figure out just why the main characters were framed for the old king's murder; it was obviously much more than a "wrong place at the wrong time" situation.

 

[Zkribbler]

Ursula LeGuin is from a different era of SF/F. There's a lot of stuff from the '50s-'70s that doesn't tend to appeal to modern audiences.

Although I complain that her characters are stereotypes, I can't help but wonder if this story is what created those stereotypes.

 

[Zkribbler]

Your post reminded me that, decades ago, I was looking into Orson Scott Card's Writer's Workshop. http://www.hatrack.com/writers/index.shtml

One of the tools Card uses is to begin by limiting writers to submit only the first 12 lines of a story. His reasoning is that the first page of a story has only 12 lines and often a publisher will not read beyond that.

I've been going back over my stories and the only two where there's a hook in the first 12 lines is my honorably mentioned "Bethlehem Delictum" and the story I'm currently working on: "What Lies at the End of the Universe
(a Pastiche in the Future Perfect Tense)." Unfortunately, unless the publisher already knows what a pastiche is, I don't get a chance to explain it until page 2, and so my story may be mistaken for plagiarism.

 

[aelf]

One of the tools Card uses is to begin by limiting writers to submit only the first 12 lines of a story. His reasoning is that the first page of a story has only 12 lines and often a publisher will not read beyond that.

I've been going back over my stories and the only two where there's a hook in the first 12 lines is my honorably mentioned "Bethlehem Delictum" and the story I'm currently working on: "What Lies at the End of the Universe
(a Pastiche in the Future Perfect Tense)." Unfortunately, unless the publisher already knows what a pastiche is, I don't get a chance to explain it until page 2, and so my story may be mistaken for plagiarism.

Thanks. That forum looks interesting - I'll definitely be signing up if I can.

The 12 lines thing, though, seems odd. I counted and 12 lines are way less than 1 page even with double spacing, some space for the title and large enough font with consistent kerning. I counted 22, so around two dozen seems more like it. And it makes a big difference too. Do you have an estimated word count for the snippet? It does sound like a great idea.

 

[Zkribbler]

IIRC, somewhere he states page 1 should start about half way down.

 

[aelf]

That makes sense now. Thanks. Gonna work on my hook.