Tag: writing

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writing writing advice

Submitting short stories (part 2/2)

Continuing on from yesterday, let’s talk more on with the nuts and bolts of submitting short stories to magazines/anthologies.

The Cover Letter
I feel like that heading should come with a dramatic flash of lightning and a crack of thunder. This is the number one thing that scared the hell out of me when I was starting out. It’s the first thing people see before they ever get to your story.

Trust me, it’s not worth the angst. This is a cover letter. It’s not a query letter, like you’d use to try to convince an agent that your novel is amazing and they should totally invest the time reading it. With cover letters, you want it simple, short, and to the point.

First, remember how yesterday I told you to read the submission guidelines? Start there. If there’s something in particular the editors want in the cover letter they will tell you. (eg: a short biography, etc.) Otherwise, this is all you need: the title of your story, its length, your relevant publication credits, and courtesy. I’m not going to claim I’m an expert at cover letters, but I’m guessing I’ve managed to do something right since I’ve sold some stories. Here’s an example of a cover letter from me:

Thank you for considering my story, “Most awesomely Mind-Blowing Story Ever.” It’s about XXXX words long. I’m an associate member of the SFWA and part of the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop. I’ve published:

“Entangled” in Specutopia issue #1 (July 2012)
“Comes the Huntsman” in Strange Horizons (July 2, 2012)
“The Jade Tiger” in Penumbra (March 2012)
“Transportation” in Anotherealm (September 2011)
“The Falling Star” in Aurora Wolf’s New Fairy Tales Anthology
“The Book of Autumn” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies #49

Thank you and I hope that you enjoy reading my story!

Exciting, I know. But the point is, your story is supposed to be exciting and interesting. Your cover letter is supposed to convey the absolute minimum of necessary information so that you’re not wasting the time of someone who you’d much rather have reading your story.

Don’t tell the editor at length that you’re a new writer and have no publishing credits. If you don’t have any listed, it’s obvious enough and you shouldn’t belabor the point. It’s okay to be new, everyone was at one point. Don’t describe your story or even highlight the genre of it in the cover letter unless the submission guidelines tell you otherwise. Most editors/slushpile readers like to go in to a story without preconceptions. Help them out with that. Don’t apologize to the editor about the quality of the story, point out that you have no self-confidence, or defensively state that your friends totally liked the story.

I mention all of the above sins, mind you, because at some point I’ve committed them myself and had some kind editor (BLESS THEM) ask very sweetly if I would please knock it the heck off. I made the mistakes so you don’t have to!

Wait.
After the angst of the cover letter and the terrifying, stomach-churning moment where you send the e-mail or click the submit button, this is the worst part. You have to wait for what is often a long (3-6 months or more!) time and can really just look forward to a rejection e-mail, likely a form letter, at the end of it. It sucks.

Don’t query about your story unless you’ve waited long enough. Period. The submission guidelines (remember those?) will normally tell you at what point you ought to query to make sure your submission didn’t get lost. If not stated, you should wait at least 90 days.

So you know what you do, while you’re waiting? Write more stories. Edit them. Submit them.

I describe it as playing story ping-pong, where every time one is rejected I bounce it back out to another potential market. (Sometimes with a little additional polishing if someone has been kind enough to send a note along with the rejections.) Right now, I have thirteen stories out and waiting for rejection or the much, much more rare acceptance. And I’m writing more.

Because we’re writers. It’s what we do, right?

Upon rejection:
I have a lot more to say about getting rejected, stuff that deserves its own blog post, but really quick: DO NOT ARGUE WITH AN EDITOR. EVER. EVER. EVEREVEREVER. 

You might think your art is the best thing ever. No one is required to agree. And the last thing you want is to gain a reputation as someone who is combative, nasty, or just plain crazy. You want more chances to catch the attention of these editors, since maybe they’ll like another story of yours. You don’t want a permanent place on someone’s spam filter.

Also, if someone sends you a nice note along with a rejection – and it does happen! – take it as the enormous complement it is. Most editors are incredibly busy, and even a sentence or two, particularly if it’s advice about your story, is a real gift. That said? Don’t send them a note back. They’re busy. Their inboxes are full. Don’t clutter them up.

Finally, unless the submission guidelines (those things again!) say re-submissions are okay, they’re not. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve edited and re-grooved a story, you get one chance per market and you’re done. The only exception to this rule (other than the submission guidelines) is if the editor e-mails you specifically to ask you to re-sub the story once you’ve done some editing.

Questions? This obviously doesn’t cover everything.

Categories
writing writing advice

Submitting short stories (part 1/2)

A friend of mine asked me for advice when it comes to submitting short stories for publication. Which actually surprised me a little at first, but hey. I’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m dropping things off my cover letter publication list to keep it down to six items, so I guess I must be doing something right on occasion.

This is not meant to be exhaustive (please ask questions if there’s something I haven’t covered) and neither is this meant to be a guide about writing. Here, we’re starting with the assumption that you have a short story that you’ve polished to a golden shine, which you believe in enough to fight for it and put up with rejections.

Nuts and bolts all the way, baby.

So let’s imagine: you have your golden, shiny story. You want to knock the socks off of an editor with the emotional power of your art, and as a result be showered with dirty handfuls (hah!) of cash. Where do you start?

Pick a market.
I use Ralan.com and Duotrope for the most part to locate markets, though I have other ways now. These sites are good places to start, however. Duotrope is lovely because it’s searchable, and has parameters like payscale, genre, sub-genre (though this is of limited use at times), and story length. Ralan is for scifi/fantasy/horror in particular. I like it for its list of open anthologies.

So what is your story? Scifi? Fantasy? Horror? Dark fantasy? You need to have this figured out before you can even really start picking and choosing; sending a magazine a story in a genre they aren’t interested in will get you a guaranteed rejection. Once you’ve decided that you’re, say, scifi, you can do a search in Duotrope for markets that publish that genre, and additionally tell it what length and payscale you’re looking for. (I don’t normally bother with subgenre, myself.) Hopefully you already read some of the publications on the list that comes up, so you have an idea of what kind of stories they publish. Otherwise, when you think you might want to try a market, read at least a few of their stories first. This helps you get an idea of the general type of stories the editor likes, though that certainly doesn’t mean they want carbon copies of their current offerings.

The other thing you should think about is payscale. I advocate the principle of go big or go home. Start with the pro-paying markets and then work your way down to semi-pro, and token. (I don’t believe in giving work away for free.) If you aren’t confident that your story is worth $.05 per word, you’d better keep working on it until it is. It’s hard to get into even free markets. You need to have your best work, work you are willing to set in front of any editor without shame.

Read the submission guidelines.
Read the submission guidelines.

The submission guidelines? Read them.

No, really. Read the submission guidelines.

The guidelines will tell you everything you need to know about submitting to the market. If they want your manuscript formatted a particular way, do it. No matter how magically delicious your story is, if you don’t bother to format it properly, it’ll get tossed because you couldn’t be bothered to read the guidelines. (Hint: most places use a variation of William Shunn’s excellent format, so I recommend starting out having your manuscript formatted like this. The only major difference I’ve seen is that italics are normally okay to be left as italics instead of underlined.)

The guidelines also tell you what the editors want, story wise. They tell you what the word count limits are. They tell you how to send the MS (file attachment? plaint text in email? electronic submission form?).  The guidelines are the source of all manner of useful information. Read them. Love them. Read them again. Live by them.

Do not submit your story to more than one place at a time.
This technically fits under “read the submission guidelines” but I feel it’s important enough to need its own section. Unless a market specifically says “simultaneous submissions okay,” do not do it. Period. And if one market is okay with simultaneous submissions, the other markets you send your story to had better be as well.

I know it’s frustrating. A lot of markets can take 3-6 months to get back to you, or more. The waiting sucks. But too bad. You have to wait for one market to pass one your story before you send it to another. It’s the height of rudeness to withdraw stories once submitted because you’ve gotten them picked up elsewhere, and don’t think editors don’t talk to each other, or don’t have memories when someone annoys them. I’m not guaranteeing this would be a permanent black mark in your record, so to speak, but it’s just really not worth risking it. Be polite.

Okay, this is running kind of long, so I will continue on tomorrow.

Categories
writing

Read me in Specutopia issue one!

The first ever issue of Specutopia is now online! Please go check it out and pick up a copy. I’ve got a story in there of course – Entangled. Unfortunately, it’s not one of the stories that will be available as a free read online, but I assure you the magazine is well worth the cost. And not just because I’m in it! I got a copy as part of my author payment and I really enjoyed reading the other stories.

I wrote Entangled about two years ago for the short story competition for Aussiecon. The story was much shorter and less complete then, but still made it to semifinals, of which I’m very proud.

It’s taken a bit of traveling, but I’m really glad this story finally has a home, and a good (shiny and new!) one at that.

Also in writing news, I just finished the rough draft of my third short story for the Clarion Write-a-thon.   This one is a hot mess of a story right now since I didn’t have a clear plan starting out, but I think I’ll be able to edit it into something I can be proud of once the write-a-thon is over.  If you want a peek at the excerpt (and the awful title) you can see it at the blog for my team.

This puts me at halfway to my writing goal, and right on time, too! I’m also just two sponsors short of my ten sponsor goal, so please consider throwing a little bit of money in the ring! Remember, you have the chance of winning naming rights to a character in one of my awesome steam punk short stories that will later be published by Musa.

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tom hiddleston writing

Donation made!

As I said before, I wrote Comes the Huntsman as a gift, and as such didn’t feel quite comfortable keeping the payment for it. I e-mailed Mr. Hiddleston’s publicist and asked if there was a charity I ought to send it to. He told me that Mr. Hiddleston supports UNICEF, which helps children all across the world.

So:

=

I had a horrible day today. This makes it just a bit better.

Categories
write-a-thon writing

I want YOU to be the underwire in my authorbra.

Well, it sounded funny at one in the morning. What could possibly go wrong?

But seriously, I would love your support. I’m now 1/3 of the way through my self-imposed Clarion write-a-thon torture and chugging right along. I’ve finally set myself a donor goal, and it’s not for some amount of money – I just want ten (or more) supporters. I don’t care if the pledge is a nickel a story. I want – nay, NEED – to be well supported! Cross my heart!

Like a… well, you get it.

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! (she says in a sad parody of deep announcer voice guy.)

Ever wanted to take part in a steampunk adventure which may or may not include zombies? I mean, who doesn’t? And who wouldn’t want to do that while simultaneously supporting an amazing scifi/fantasy writing workshop?

I’ll be writing at least four more stories about Captain Ramos and her pirate crew in 2013. If you donate to the write-a-thon cause, no matter the amount, I’ll throw your name in my awesome kangaroo leather hat. At the end of the write-a-thon, I’ll draw a name from the hat, and if you’re the winner, you’ll get naming rights (within reason[1]) to a character in one of these steampunk pirate adventures. Want to be a pirate? A drooling corpse? One of the lawmen hot on the trail of the notorious Captain Ramos? We’ll get it figured out.

Sound awesome? Want your name in the hat? (Of course you do.) Head over to my write-a-thon page and pledge your support!

Also, if you’re curious about my progress thus far, here are my two reports from the team blog:
Report one: Eyes Burning With Smoke
Report two: Significant Figures

1 – No, I am not going to name one of the characters IP Freely, or Mike Rotch, or name a zombie after your least favorite politician no matter how much I agree with you about them being a giant turd bag. Of course, I know everyone who reads this is way too mature for those kinds of shenanigans, but I figured I ought to throw that out there just in case someone has had one too many espresso shots today.

Categories
free read tom hiddleston writing

Comes the Huntsman

And I am done with my graceless heart
so tonight I’m gonna cut it out and then restart
– Florence + the Machine Shake It Out

As of today, my story Comes the Huntsman is online at Strange Horizons, available to be read for free. (Though you should consider donating to SH if you like the story!) This is my best work to date, so please go read it, and tell your friends if you like it! Being published in Strange Horizons has been my dream since I started writing seriously again, so today feels unreal for a multitude of reasons.

You see, Comes the Huntsman was not a story I actually intended to write. Nothing remotely like it, in fact.

I wrote it all in one sitting on February 8th of this year, because it was Tom Hiddleston’s birthday in less than 24 hours. I am an unabashed fan, and I’d been intending to get something written to send in with all the other fanworks for the big, gleeful happy birthday package. Unfortunately, I had a rough semester, then I was out of the country for nearly a month and a half for various reasons and it just didn’t happen.

So I sat in front of my computer and decided that damnit, I would write something, and then I’d post it online, spread it around Twitter a bit, and feel like at least I made the attempt and let my fan flag fly. I was vaguely shooting for something cute, fluffy, and quite possibly fan-fiction.

That’s obviously not what happened.

I was in tears as I wrote the story, not necessarily out of sadness but because writing the thing just felt overwhelming. I was in tears all over again when I re-read it. I sent it to my dear friend Rynn, not really sure what I should do because I knew why I’d set out to write the story, and it had gone where it needed to go instead of where I intended it to end up. I didn’t have time to write another story, and I didn’t know if it was any good, and and and–

Rynn’s the one that told me it was good, that I should try to have it published. I flailed at her via gchat about butbutbut and this was supposed to be a gift and so many other worries. Well yes, it can still be a birthday present. That’s what dedications are for, if you feel like it’s what you want to give.

It wasn’t anything I ever intended, but I looked at Comes the Huntsman and knew I’d written it with someone in mind.

So that’s the reason behind the dedication. I see no reason to act as if it’s some coy secret that the mysterious Mr. T. H. is indeed Tom Hiddleston, whom I have never had the privilege of meeting but respect greatly as an artist and a genuinely good human being. (In my book, there aren’t too many better compliments than that.) Sorry it’s a bit late, but sometimes I still have the bad habit of doing things at the last minute.

Since this story was intended to be a gift, and as far as I’m concerned is whether it ever reaches the intended recipient or no, I don’t feel right about keeping the payment. I might be a grad student but I’m doing okay, and I know there are people who can put the money to better use than I. If I by some miracle hear from the incredibly busy man himself (I’ll be holding the money for a couple of months just in case), I’ll be more than happy to send the money wherever he might like since I don’t feel it’s my story in that way.

Comes the Huntsman is a special story for me for many reasons beyond its emotional content. It’s the third short story I’ve sold at a professional rate, which means I get to – as I’ve jokingly said – wear the big girl writerpants from here on out. Three short stories at $.05+/word is a magical border (at least in my genre) that makes one a “professional” writer. I can no longer submit stories to Writers of the Future, or any other publications/contests that are aimed at non-professional or semi-professional writers. That alone is enough to make this a profound day in my life as a would-be artist.

I normally don’t write stories like this, ones where you just let your heart have its say without filtering it through your brain first. I was so out of my comfort zone as a writer that I’ve yet to find my way back. But even more so, writing a story for someone is a very powerful experience, full of uncertainty and churning worries. You spend a lot of time worrying about if this thing you’ve drawn from yourself and shown to the world is worthy, what other people will think, if it will be a welcome gift. When it’s a situation as odd as this, you take a lot of those worries and turn them up to 11. (Supposedly grown-up nobody writing a story for a famous movie star who is completely unaware of her existence? Psh. Give me a break.)

To hell with all of that. I refuse to be anything but proud of what I’ve written and why. I want to love, create, and give without fear. In my experience, you will always have more regrets about the things you haven’t done, as opposed the things you possessed the bravery (or madness) to do.

Or:
And it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back
So shake him out.

Sing it, Flo.

UPDATE: The payment money has now been donated. More here.

Categories
write-a-thon writing

It’s that time again!

The Clarion Write-a-Thon is now accepting writer sign-ups! So as you’ve no doubt already guessed, I’ve signed up.

Last year I wrote the rough draft for Fire in the Belly and even met that goal a bit early. However, I know I can churn out large walls of text on command, so long as I have a compelling story to write. I’ve done NaNo enough to know that, and the fact Clarion gives you six weeks instead of 30 days actually makes it a little more relaxed as far as pace goes. So I’ve set myself a goal that feels much more challenging – I’m going to write a short story a week, for six weeks.

As far as word count goes, this seems laughable compared to pounding out over 100k words in six weeks. But to me it sounds pretty intimidating because I have a hard time keeping it short, coherent, and interesting. I need more practice with short stories, so this will be my chance to do just that.

Oh yeah. And I’ll keep working on the current novel draft during that time too. Not sure if it’ll still be King’s Hand or if I’ll have moved that one to the percolating pot and gotten started on the next thing, but we’ll see.

Of course, the write-a-thon doesn’t actually get moving until June 24, so I can always change my mind and crank my writing goal up a notch. We’ll see. Maybe if you all heckle me enough, I’ll do it.

Either way, please consider supporting me in the write-a-thon!

Categories
rants writing

Fifty Shades of Pissed Off

I’m probably not going to rant about what you expect. It’s pretty standard these days for struggling writers who haven’t scored their first novel publication yet to go off on bitter, venomous screeds about, for example, Stephanie Meyer or E.L. James and how damn unfair it is that obviously I can string words together in a superior way so where are my millions and by the way I’ve figured out that stalking isn’t love and ARGH.

Whatever. Whether it’s true or not when someone complains about quality of writing and cringe-worthy plot elements, it all comes out sounding like sour grapes anyway, just waiting to be crafted into the finest whine. (See what I did there?)

Actually, I’ve got a much more specific problem with Fifty Shades of Grey that has nothing to do with writing quality. In all honesty I don’t know what the writing is like in that book and I have no intention of ever finding out, because dental surgery sounds more appetizing to me than vampire BDSM erotica. But you know. Whatever floats your boat.

My problem begins and ends with the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey started as fanfiction.

I wrote fanfiction for years before I ever started writing my own original work in any kind of serious way. Hell, I still write fanfiction today in the rare moments I have spare time. (This is me, side-eyeing that unfinished Avengers fanfic that’s staring at me accusingly from the internet.) I still meet people online who remember me from my days of writing Gundam Wing fanfic where Duo murders the shit out of vampires with a narrative flair lovingly borrowed from Laurel K. Hamilton.

This is the thing about fanfiction. You do it because you love someone else’s story. It’s a way for fans to have a conversation with someone else’s art, and for that art to answer back. Fanfiction did amazing things for me. It taught me how to write dialog and how to put together a plot that could span 80K words and still keep people interested.  It’s awesome and fun and a magical way to waste time that you really ought to be using to, say, study for your oceanic geochemistry final because your brain has just melted.

But always, always, always you are in communication with someone else’s art.

Someone else already did the hard work for you. They created the story, the world, and characters that, rightly or wrongly, people like and give a shit about. They worked their ass off to create a base of fans who are now predisposed to seek out and like what you write because they loved the original. Even if you’re writing a complete alternate universe, you are still dipping your toe in a pool that some other person built for you.

At its most basic, it isn’t yours.

And that right there is the thing that just pisses me off about Fifty Shades of Grey. Changing the character names and doctoring the details so that they’re no longer a match doesn’t do anything to alter the fact that the story involved borrowing someone else’s ideas and playing ‘what if?’ with them. And at the point you’re making money off of those ideas, you’re no longer borrowing them – you’re stealing them.

Back in my Gundam Wing days, I actually had a couple of people who really liked my stories suggest that I either just throw them on Lulu (uh, no, I don’t want to get sued if someone notices) or alter them a bit for plausible deniability and self-publish. I never took those suggestions seriously, even though I probably could have done it fairly easily. Hey, that’s what a global find and replace is for, isn’t it? But it wasn’t right. The characters weren’t mine. The concepts weren’t mine. And I knew that tarting them up a bit wouldn’t change anything because what was in my head when I wrote the stories wasn’t from me.

But Rachael, you ask, what about things like Laurie R King’s Mary Russell novels? Or you would if you were some kind of creepy stalker who had broken into my house and observed my bookshelves for a few minutes. Obviously, I’m okay with what is basically fanfiction of Sherlock Holmes being published for profit. I’m okay with things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

This is the difference, and I think it’s an important one. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is dead. Jane Austen is dead. They’ve both been gone for a long time, and are obviously no longer capable of creating their own stories with their own characters, let alone be financially hurt by someone grabbing their coattails and going for a ride. Frankly, it’s been long enough since those works were created that there’s even an interesting question if modern writers can even add to work because perspectives have changed significantly. And of course, those issues are entirely separate from works that are still under copyright, but are used with permission of the author or estate.

As someone who hopes to have novel credits to her name some day in the near future, the commercial success of Fifty Shades of Grey both infuriates and scares the shit out of me. The success of someone else wouldn’t necessarily diminish my own (in this case purely hypothetical) success, but it’s still, to put it bluntly, unfair.

But really, that pales in comparison to my utter fury as someone who writes fanfiction. As fans, the contract we make with creators is that if they’re nice and let us play with their toys, we’ll give them back in good condition. We admit and revel in the fact that we are playing in someone else’s sandbox. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, Fifty Shades of Grey is a betrayal of what writing fanfic is supposed to be about.

Legal technicalities aside, arguments about just how much resemblance to Twilight is too much aside, that is the issue. There’s plenty of fanfiction out there that bears only a passing resemblance to the work upon which it is based. But normally, the writers have the integrity to admit that their jumping off point wasn’t something that came from within them, and thus it’s not right to try to capitalize on it. It’s cheating.

With how successful Fifty Shades of Grey has been, I won’t be surprised if we see more people taking fanfiction and trying to rewrite it into something with at least a veneer of originality. I’ve never been good at guessing the future, so I’m not going to make any sweeping predictions about how this could change things for fanfiction in general. The communities of fans who share their enthusiasm and stories are so enormous that global or fast change seems highly unlikely. But it does make me sad regardless, because the entire endeavor feels so much less innocent now.

…which I suppose is only fitting since we’re talking something that was originally BDSM porn fanfiction.

Categories
writing

Stories and blog posts, oh my

So, Penumbra is kind of awesome. They bought one of my stories and I wrote two blog posts for them. Not because I needed to write two blog posts. But because I wrote one, thought it was too silly, wrote a second one, and then sent in both. And they decided to use both.

For those interested:

The March issue is on sale – my story, The Jade Tiger is in it. The theme of the issue is Steampunk.

Silly blog post: A Wild Word Doc Appears

Less silly blog post: Because Sherlock

As you see, my talent for choosing titles never ceases to amaze.

Categories
grad school writing

Read one of my stories!

Last year Anotherealm bought one of my short stories, and now it’s published online and available for reading! Go here!

I was a bad girl and worked on doing some queries and such today instead of doing my geochemistry homework. Geochemistry this semester is looking pretty interesting, though. The class is actually focused on marine geochemistry, where we use chemicals to make rocks yell HOORAH which is pertinent to my own research since the ocean is very involved in the carbon cycle, and climate. And thus, very involved in climate change.

I’m also going to be doing a one hour independent study this semester, as long as the paperwork went through. I need to learn about paleosols in thin section anyway, so that’ll be the aim… research micromorphology and then apply what I’ve learned to thin sections that Mary has from two sites in the Bighorn Basin. I’m pretty excited about that. I just need to get someone to show me how to use the automated stage on the microscope in the sed lab. Or tell me where the left occular for the other microscope’s gotten to. Because trying to use a binocular microscope only looking through one eyepiece… it started doing funny things to my vision after a while.

So expect some pretty pictures of paleosol thin sections at some point in the near future! (Near future meaning this semester… as was pointed out to me at Skepticamp, geologists need to qualify what we mean when we say things like “quick” and “soon.”)