Pop the Trunk

The other day, I tossed a story into the trash.

I didn’t really toss it into the trash, of course, I merely filed it in the “Trunk Stories” folder on my hard drive. The “trunk” is writer-speak for when you stash a story that just isn’t going anywhere, either because you’ve written and re-written it so many times you can’t deal with it any longer, or because it’s run out of markets, or both. You put it in the trunk and forget it. Every writer has one, and it’s more full than we’d like to think.

Sometimes a story hasn’t been rewritten a dozen times, and maybe it still has a market or two left (these days you have to work hard to exhaust every conceivable market), but you trunk it anyway, because you just don’t believe in it any more. It’s entirely possible to write and market a story you don’t completely believe in, because the mantra of “Don’t self-reject” is both strong and accurate. Just because you don’t think the story is the best work you’ve ever committed to paper doesn’t mean that some editor (and as I said, there are a lot of editors out there) won’t like it.

But in some ways you, yourself, as the writer, are the ultimate editor. And it’s up to you to decide when the point has been reached that (a) the story is never going to sell so why bother, or (b) you really didn’t like it that much when you started and now you think you’d rather it never saw print. So it’s up to you to decide when a story should be trunked. (It’s also up to you whether you ever open the trunk and take it out and rewrite it.)

With this story, it was a combination of the two. Not only do I think it won’t sell, but I think I know why. It was an interesting idea (to me, anyway), and maybe the idea can be recycled. But somehow it never came together. (I think the problem is in the ending.) So I’d rather trunk this version and save the concept for a better vehicle. And if I never rewrite it, well, it’ll be because I have better things to do.

Still, every story you write is a learning experience. Even deciding when to trunk a story is a learning experience. Granted, my favorite learning experience is learning how to spend royalty money, but what are ya gonna do?

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Rejection is Someone Else’s Problem

There’s a piece of advice that all writers need to hear, and repeatedly: “Don’t self-reject.”

While this may sound like a New Age affirmation chant, it actually is one of the greatest weapons against failure an author has. It is also one of an editor’s greatest nightmares. Unfortunate, perhaps, and ironic certainly–but let me explain.

The idea behind “Don’t self-reject” is that, as an author, you should never presume what an editor is going to want. This is subject to limitations, of course, since most editors are going to tell you in their guidelines exactly what they want: “Something that everyone will want to read and which will win awards and make me look brilliant.” Yeah, that’s easy enough.

But beyond that, editors may ask to see sci-fi set on the Moon, or retold fairy tales, or lesbian/alien romance… Usually it’s not that cut-and-dried, though, and that’s where “Don’t self-reject” comes in. It haunts that grey area, of “science fiction, but we’ll take borderline fantasy… We’re serious, but we like to laugh once in a while…” How do you know what’s going to tickle that editor’s fancy? Sure, you can read back issues, but unless the editor’s taste is quite specific, you’re still going to be unsure. And that’s where the default setting kicks in: “The editor’s not going to buy this because it’s not in her sweet spot, so never mind.”

Well, no. You think you shouldn’t bother to submit something because it doesn’t 100% fit the editorial guidelines? Let’s be real here: There are a hundred reasons your story might be rejected, and not fitting the guidelines barely makes the top 10. Any magazine worth appearing in is going to reject 95% of what it receives in slush anyway, so why worry about the reasons?

Every writer has received rejections to the effect of, “Loved this story so much I bought one just like it last week.” So much for sticking to the guidelines. If you write to the rules that everyone reads, you’re going to write what everyone writes. The trick is to use the guidelines not as rules, but as, well… guidelines. Give the editor something she didn’t know she wanted–even if you don’t know she wants it, either.

I’ve never been blasted by an editor who said I had completely misunderstood what the magazine was about. (Well, maybe in the editor’s head, but not to my face.) On the other hand, I’ve sold stories I thought were barely in line with what the venue was looking for, more than once. (I recently received an editorial “hold” for just such a story, in fact.)

Taking “don’t self-reject” too literally, of course, can make you an editor’s nightmare and get you banned at a lot of venues. There are things that editors specifically bar, and you’d better pay attention to those. But just as you don’t know if you’ve been rejected because your story was too wordy, or set on Mars, or because the editor simply lost her glasses and couldn’t read it–you might also make a sale because the editor has seen too damned many subs about little green men (for an anthology to be called Little Green Men), and your yarn about Little (Green) Women just stood out by that much.

If you were going to self-reject, you never would have gotten into the writing game in the first place. So why start now?

#SFWApro

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One Story, One Vote?

As always, one of the great problems with being a self-employed professional (in this case, a writer) is that a great deal of your self-esteem is tied up with your product’s success, and this inevitably leads to enormous swings between elation (i.e., sales) and dejection (i.e., rejection). Ironically, as you begin to gain some success in the field, the amplitude only grows. Being an artist just means that every gain sets you up for a longer fall in the next loss. And the two events can be separated by mere minutes. It can make for a yo-yo existence.

Or does it? Does it have to be that way? Let’s examine the latest data: On checking my Amazon sales figures today (all right, for the umpteenth time today), I noticed an uptick in sales for The Secret City, the second book in the Stolen Future trilogy. Now this is the kind of news which I find doubly enjoyable–not only is someone buying my book, but they’re buying the second book in the trilogy. That means they liked the first one enough to buy another. We’re not just talking sales numbers here; we’re talking reader feedback, if only in a passive fashion. (Read something, review something!)

Every writer has some level of impostor syndrome, the feeling that all of your success was a fluke or an elaborate Deep State plot, and tomorrow it will all go away. I don’t know if you ever get over it completely. But reader feedback in the form of buying the second book in a series is as effective a defense against impostor syndrome as there is. It’s even better at that than selling a new piece to an editor.

Which, conversely, was what threatened to bring me down a few moments later when I found a rejection in my e-mail. An editor, using a very pleasant form letter, was informing me that my story didn’t fit his needs. Boom.

So there I am, vacillating between triumph and despair. (Well, truthfully, more like between a pleasant thrill and disappointment.) But which counts for more, the reader who spent his money or the editor who didn’t? And how would it have felt if the two incidents were reversed in order, if I’d gone from “down” to “up”?

The trick is that like any other job where you routinely face the unpleasant (say a cop or a doctor), you simply have to wall it off. You have to try to separate your ego from the result, or you’ll go crazy.

“Separate the ego from the result?” you echo. “I’m a writer. He’s the one who’s crazy.” Okay, you’re right. If you really wall yourself off to protect yourself from your failures, you wall yourself off from your successes, as well. And then you’re just in it for the money, like any other job.

Then the only answer is balance. Celebrate the good and accept the bad. Profit from both. There will always be editors who do not understand your work, just as there will always be those readers (and there will be more of them).

What’s funny is that while editors reject you dispassionately, and readers mostly through simply failing to keep reading you, occasionally a reader will reject you directly (and sometimes personally) with a poor review–and that will hardly sting at all. A bad review (in isolation) brings out the writer’s defense mechanism, which is to say, “Oh, yeah, well, a lot of people like my book so much that they’re reading the second one!” I’ve never gotten a bad review where I said, “Yeah, that’s probably what that editor who just rejected me thought, too.”

The truth is that you have to put these things in perspective. When an artist uses perspective, some objects loom larger than others. And he gets to choose what they are.

#SFWApro

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Rewrite or Wrong?

I was recently tasked with re-writing a story I had submitted to a magazine. As a self-teaching tool, it was valuable, in that I given the opportunity to write to specific requirements. I also had to work on my story-titling skills, which sorely need it. I re-wrote the story, and re-titled it, but alas, it did not satisfy the editorial appetite and it has returned to me. Which raises the question: What do I do with it?

The answer to this is not the obvious, “Send it out again, stupid,” because that’s not the question. The real question is: Which story do I send out?

When one is completing a re-write, one has to strike a balance between what the editor asks for and what one is willing to do. Usually, the editor’s suggestions are good, and make a stronger story. Occasionally, however, a suggestion (or all of them) may interfere with the writer’s vision. What do you do if what the editor wants changes your story–not just the structure, but the tone, or even the meaning?

Fortunately, that was not the case with my story, and I’ll probably keep the changes I made. (Ironically, if you’ve read the previous postings, the only thing I may change back is the title.) But what if the changes were so upheaving that I couldn’t handle them? What would I have done? What should I have done?

This is one of those times when there is no right answer. (Okay, there’s almost never one right answer.) A number of factors come into play, even setting aside your “artistic integrity.” How badly do you want this sale? Would it bring in needed money or lift you to new heights of exposure? Is this a story you’ve slaved over for years, or did you just toss it off in a couple of nights? How badly does the editor want the story? (Never do they say, “Do this and it’s a sale,” but if you have something of a following, you may have leverage.) Has the editor indicated flexibility, or is it “My way or the highway”?

As with so many things, it comes down to what you can live with. But this is what I think.

Look at the proposed edits with an open mind. If this editor has been in the business longer than you have, maybe she knows something you don’t.

Unless it’s just too painful, try to rework the story pursuant to the suggestions. If it’s better, great! If not, nobody has to see it.

If you really can’t get behind what the editor wants, reach out to her. Explain your position. Editors aren’t perfect, but a good one will listen, and you don’t want to deal with a bad one anyway.

In the end, it’s your story. No one can force you to make changes, or to sell it to any particular market. Just remember, no one forced you to write the story in the first place. You did that yourself. And you handled it well enough that now someone may want to buy it. Once you’ve gotten that far, you can deal with the rest of it.

#SFWApro

 

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Suffering from a Sense of Untitlement

They say that the hardest thing to know, is to know yourself. Well, maybe they do, and maybe I just made that up. It’s hard to know. But one thing I do know is, that the longer I write, the more I understand about my own process.

Like, for instance, when I said that I thought the hardest part of re-writing a story would be coming up with a new title. I had no idea how right I was.

The story’s drafted; I need to run it by a beta reader, but I think I fulfilled the magazine’s requests–except one. I have been racking my poor excuse for a brain for over two weeks, conjuring literally dozens of ideas, and discarding them all. And then, to add insult to injury, my novel-in-progress started making noises that it wanted a permanent name, rather than just the working title I slapped on it months ago. Last night I tried on and immediately dumped five of them. I think I have the general idea in place, but nothing’s guaranteed.

What to do? I need to get this story out the door so it can (with luck) sell. I also need the brainpower to finish the novel, which, just as I thought I was entering the home stretch, began presenting new problems. (Why does every scene have to contribute to the plot? Why? I can name lots of famous authors who pad their books mercilessly, but like Tess McGill said: “You can bend the rules plenty once you get to the top, but not while you’re trying to get there.”*)

Perhaps I’ll try one of those random word generators. But you know the worst part? This posting. I knew its title before I ever started writing it.

Irony, thy name is writer.

 

*Of course, she was merely trying to smash a double-glass ceiling shielding corporate America, while I’m trying to come up with a title for a short story. Who’s got the better chance here?

#SFWApro

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Never Judge a Book by Its Title

I’m working on re-writing a story. Happily, this is due to an editorial request. I sent in a story, it was considered, and the Powers That Be decided that, while in their opinion it was good, it could be better. Editors sometimes give you notes and ask if you will rewrite a story in line with those notes. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Sometimes the requested changes conflict with your idea of the story. You can always say, “No, thank you,” and move to the next market. (You want to think very carefully before you do that.)

In this instance, I reviewed the suggestions, found them palatable, and replied that not only could I make them, but only one was likely to be difficult: Changing the title.

You’d think that would be the easiest, but titles are tough–they’re like flash fiction, where you have to tell a complete story in 1000 words…except titles are much shorter.

Your title must express to the reader what kind of story it is you’re telling. Is it horror? Fantasy? Philosophical? Satirical? Is it more than one of these? Your title has to tell all of that in fewer than a half-dozen words. At least if you’re writing a book you have a cover!

Alas, it turns out that I am as good a prognosticator as I feared: I have finished a draft of the revised story, but I have no new title. And the editors were quite clear they want a new title.

I could send it back as is, arguing for my present title, or simply tossing the problem to the editors, but I tend not to want to make trouble for people who might pay me for the trouble I’ve already gone to. And nobody likes a problem author. There’s no guarantee my revision is going to meet with approval; I don’t want to stack the deck against myself.

I think back on the million monkeys typing on the million typewriters. I don’t need Shakespeare; I need maybe five words.

Maybe if I hired five monkeys with five typewriters?

#SFWApro

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Why We Don’t Do What We Do

This evening, as happens so often, I spent my writing time not writing. I was involved in the practice of writing, just not the craft. I corresponded with my publisher, found a new market, looked to see if I had anything appropriate to submit, checked to make sure the story I chose wasn’t already out somewhere (an embarrassing mistake that all of us have made), submitted the story, found another new market, discovered that all of my available stories were already in submission (woohoo!), and corresponded with two (other) editors about potential projects.

Whew. Busy night. So busy I “forgot” to write; you know, that ever-demanding mistress which supposedly runs my life, and for which allegedly I breathe. So why do I not only consider this a productive evening, but fun? Aren’t I supposed to be writing, and feel guilty if I don’t?

Well, yes, I am supposed to feel guilty. Why do you think I’m writing a blog post? But that doesn’t explain why handling all of those ancillary tasks was so much fun. What is it about writers that we will do anything to keep from writing?

First of all, the idea that I would have so many ancillary tasks to do would astound the me of ten years ago, who was just starting to make some headway in the writing game. Back then the idea that I could have three published novels on the market and 11 different stories and novels on submission, would have been stunning. This level of involvement is still recent, so the novelty hasn’t worn off.

Second, attending to little necessary tasks (correspondence, submissions, charting submissions) is easy. Writing is hard. Ironically, the hardest part is when you’re sitting around apparently doing nothing. And not only is it hard, it’s scary. There’s no one to fall back on, no one to blame. You have set yourself the task of creating an entire universe and all the people in it, and then you not only have to come up with something for them to do, it has to be so amusing that other people will pay to see how you did it. They have to be willing to pay and then spend hours watching you. (In a sense.) And if you screw up, they will throw your work across the room and go on the internet just to trash you. (Okay, that applies to everyone.)

Hey, if I wanted to be watched by a hostile audience waiting for the slightest slip-up so it could savage me, and for little pay, I’d be a stand-up comic. Or a teacher.

Still…when you succeed, even if no one else likes what you did, there’s that feeling of accomplishment, that sense that to your characters, you are a god, generous in your bounty and terrible in your wrath, and you can destroy planets with a word–!

Hmm, maybe we writers shouldn’t be the ones who are scared. Maybe our characters should be concerned. That’s probably why they so often take over their own stories.

If they could just type them, too, this would be a much easier business. I’d be happy to take care of their correspondence…

#SFWApro

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Really? People Do That?

There’s a new post over at the SFWA blog entitled, “Don’t Tweet Your Rejections.”* My first reaction was: “Somebody did that?” I don’t mean to make anyone feel bad, but that really seems to me to be the apex of our self-driven society, along with people who have to post everything they do to Facebook, or tag themselves at every stop, or take so many pictures of their food that it’s cold before they can eat it. As explained in the SFWA blog post, tweeting your rejections is bad for your brand. Don’t do it.

As you can probably tell from the previous paragraph, I am not a Millennial. Actually, as I have mentioned before, I grew up when submissions were sent to magazines and agents on paper. There were, ironically, far fewer markets, yet sending out submissions was a lot harder and more expensive. And, of course, you couldn’t tweet your rejections, so that danger did not exist. Still, there were many ways in which you could damage your brand, particularly with magazine editors.

The three or four magazines that existed back then (depending on exactly when we’re talking about), each received about 1,000 submissions per month. When you figure that there were maybe six to eight openings per month per market, and you were competing with every professional writer who had written a short story that month, it’s easy to see that the competition was insane. So why, when your odds of success were about a thousand-to-one, would you go out of your way to antagonize an editor?

Yes, even though editors receive reams of submissions every month, they come to recognize some names. I had a market I subbed all of my earliest stories to (because it was the only one for those kinds of stories), and although I never came close to cracking the market, after a few tries the editor remembered my name. The first time I received a personal note referring to this story not being up to the standard of “your other pieces” I pretty much flipped. The editor knew my name! And for a good reason!

Bad reasons? There were plenty. Aside from simply being obviously and completely devoid of talent, I mean. Editors’ greatest bane is writers who can’t follow instructions. Writing your story in crayon, not the way to go. Sending the editor “presents” with your book (regardless of whether they are relevant), not the road to success.** Nor was folding down a page in the middle of your manuscript to make sure the editor actually read it going to win you points. Perfumed paper? Don’t get me started.

And then there are the cover letters and query letters. Entire convention panels have been devoted to the worst of these. Suffice it to say that short and to-the-point is always the wisest course. And for heaven’s sake, don’t argue with an editor after a rejection, unless of course you want to take the quick road to never having that editor reject you again.

These mistakes are easily avoided. Nowadays there are hundreds of resources that will help you avoid them. Because editors have memories. It’s your job to make them good ones.

*You don’t have to be a SFWA member to read the SFWA blog. If you’re a writer, you should.

**I have it on good authority that sending nude selfies will end your career spectacularly quickly. Your writing career, anyway.

#SFWpro

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I’m Ready for My Close-up…

I got an odd request from an editor the other day. You might recall that I had been given an invitation to write a story for a project, and I wondered whether I should take it if it meant putting aside my novel (third in a trilogy) for a little bit. The response was overwhelmingly that I should, and I did, to good result.

Apparently, the result was better than I thought, although for unexpected reasons. I got some comments back (well-taken, I thought) on the story, and then a curve ball: I was told that character X seemed to be more prominent than I had painted her, and could I write a story about her? Well, you may understand my reaction from the fact that I call her “character X”–because in the story she doesn’t even have a name. She appears in the first couple of paragraphs as a device to introduce the main characters, then she’s done. She’s an extra, a walk-on, with no lines. And now you want to put her front and center?

An intriguing prospect, to say the least. As it happens, it fit in with another concept of mine that I’ve been toying with for some while and never got right. Maybe I won’t get it right this time, either, but I’m going to give it a try.

What I find fascinating is that I originally used the same opening paragraphs from the original story as her opening. Of course, I had to edit them because now I was operating from a new point of view; she was no longer an extra and she needed to be more engaging. Still, it was flat. Not worrisome for a first draft, but not optimal, either.

And that’s when I got the bright idea to change the viewpoint to first-person. All of a sudden, this “extra” has a voice. She has a life, and I’m living it through her eyes. I like the first-person viewpoint, and I use it a lot, but sometimes it isn’t appropriate. Other times, like now, it’s the only way to go.

So the chorus girl has the stage to herself. Exactly what she’s going to do with it, I don’t know, but I do know this: She isn’t going to like the spotlight. It’s going to change her life, and change isn’t always good, or at least it isn’t always easy. But then, if it was easy, it wouldn’t make a good story.

And it’s all about the story. Because everybody has one. Even if you didn’t know you were supposed to write it.

#SFWApro

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This One’s for Writers

Every once in a while, if you’re going to write a blog about writing, you have to write about writing. Right? This is one of those times. If you’re not a writer or planning to be one, you can skip this one. (But you don’t have to…)  If you are a writer–why aren’t you writing? Oh, you’re just taking a break from the next Harry Potter? Then settle in. You need to know this stuff.

Writers are always concerned with how they’re going to get their message across to readers. Unless you’re planning to self-publish, that’s the wrong way to go about it. (And if you are planning to self-publish, there are some other blogs you should be reading.) What you want to do is get your message across to an editor. The editor buys your story from you. He gives it to the publisher. Readers buy their story from the publisher. If you don’t sell the editor, you don’t sell.

How do I sell an editor, you ask? Very good question. And a very big task. To begin with, there are as many ways to sell to an editor as there are editors. (Even so, selling to readers is a lot harder, because  there are a lot more of them than editors.) On the other hand, editors will tell you exactly what they are looking for. These are called “guidelines,” and if you follow them, while you still might not get the sale, you will develop a reputation for dependability, which can be almost as good. (For purposes of our discussion, we will limit ourselves to magazine editors.)

See, even though editors read hundreds of stories a month, they tend to see the same authors over and over, and they remember you. The first time an editor said such-and-such story was not as good as my other stories, I was over the moon. I never sold to him, but he knew my name. He found it worth remembering, and that’s huge.

If an editor is going to remember you, you want it to be for the right reasons. That means read the guidelines and follow them. You’d be surprised how many writers don’t.  On the other hand, sometimes guidelines aren’t as strict as they appear. An anthology’s theme might stretch to cover your story even if it doesn’t fit like a glove. And word limits may be flexible. If the guidelines say, “3000 – 5000 words, firm,” then respect them. But if they don’t, maybe they can be exceeded–but if you’re going to try that, ask first. You can query an editor to determine if exceptions are allowed, and the mere fact that you asked may get you the answer you want.

Well, you may get the answer you want concerning whether you can skirt the guidelines. Getting the answer you want about a sale, that’s going to take some more work. But when you sub that next story, having an editor who remembers you isn’t going to hurt…

#SFWApro

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