What to do After a Story Goes Bust

Expecting one of those 'Keep Calm' images?

Stay productive.

After being out of the loop for a good long while, I am researching short fiction markets, places where my completed stories can find a home. Before, this meant marking favorites on Duotrope. (You more seasoned authors are now looking upon me with incredulity.) This time, I'm keeping an Excel doc with all the relevant details and notes on my impressions of the publication plus which of my stories might fit in there.

Running a search on Duotrope can only tell you so much about a publication. To get a better feel, I, of course, must read the stories published there. Sometimes I’ll get through 2 and know it’s not right for me. Other times I’ll recline in my seat at my computer and realize I’ve just gone through 6 in one sitting—even if the magazine still isn’t right for my story. I did find some potential homes for my current manuscript, but I found many more great stories.

And that's the upside to this tedious task: I am reading more short fiction and rediscovering what I love so much about genre. So, before I go back to being productive, I'll leave you with three stories that appealed to me on different levels—psychological and emotional, enigmatic and probing, fun and adventurous.

Clarkesworld Magazine
(To See the Other) Whole Against the Sky by E. Catherine Tobler (I listened to the podcast version.)
Aquatica by Maggie Clark

Apex Magazine
Weaving Dreams by Mary Robinette Kowal

RaNoWriFo Update

At just over 8500 words, it's a bust. I have no idea where the past two weeks went, but they certainly did not go into my writing. I never got into the story I wanted to write. It all felt very unnatural. Not necessarily the process, mind you. I wrote my last RaNoWriFo novelette in 6 days! But this time around, I loved the idea but wasn't feeling the characters or the plot, and one needs to care about those things to write about them successfully.

Next time, I'll choose more wisely. For now, I'm shelving this story to revisit it in future. Back to my regularly scheduled writerly things.

RaNoWriFo

#amwriting

It's the second biennial Random Novelette Writing Fortnight(!), in which I write a 20-25k novelette in two weeks.

Why a fortnight? Because it's half a month. Why a novelette? Because it's half a novel. Why biennial? Because I was too lazy to do one last year.

And now that I've announced it, there's no wussing out. See you in two weeks.

Update: For chuckles, here's proof an unedited excerpt from the novelette I wrote two years ago:

The king made good on his threat and called off the official search. Not one Eleamite soldier, guard, or knight was to look for Gwendolyn. This, he thought, would work to discourage Giovanni and his only help, Armand. But true to his word, Giovanni did not return. The three moons passed, then four and five. The heat of summer waned in September, and the cool of fall swept through in October. The leaves faded and shriveled, and the king seemed to do the same under the inquiring masses. His anxious subjects, and ally nations, wanted to know why there had been no wedding, why there was no word of a future heir, why the events of the prophesies had suddenly come to a halt. Had they misinterpreted the texts? Worse, had they been misled? The rumors spread, and the king, once such a visible force in the kingdom, retreated, for he had no answers. Scarcely did he leave the palace grounds. Scarcer did he leave his chambers until he was bed-ridden with stress, broken under the strain.

Image: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild

Walking Distance

Question: How long will it take Julian to walk 15 miles?

To research, I ran a quick Google search for how fast the average human can walk and compared the various answers. An average of 2.5 miles per hour seemed to be the best answer. My own walking speed is about 2 miles per hour. So, 2 to 2.5 miles per hour.

I decided since young Julian was accustomed to riding horses or coaches everywhere, he was as much a slowpoke as me. So, how long would it take Julian to cross the island?

Answer: 15 miles divided by 2 (or 2.5 per hour) = 6 to 7.5 hours.

Almost half a day! Poor, spoiled, rich kid. Hee hee.

So, next time you need to know how long it will take your character to walk a distance, know that the average person can walk 2.5 miles per hour, decide whether your character is faster or slower than average, and then do the math. Of course, you'll also want to research what it's like to walk X miles, for Y hours, in Z conditions.


Image: Toward Los Angeles, California (LOC) by Dorothea Lange

SIROTI: Cowbird



So, a long while ago, I browsed through NewScientist.com. It’s a good site for light reading on—you guessed it—science related topics. In their Books & Arts section, I found the article, A Wikipedia for Life’s Meaningful Moments. That Wikipeida is Cowbird, a new site the creator says is “a sanctuary for storytellers.”

Well, hey, that’s us writers! As such, I sympathize with the spirit behind the site, but after some time perusing the place, I came away feeling it’s more akin to blogging than Wikipedia(ing?), except the environment is curated and symbiotic.

It’s a little difficult to navigate, difficult to know where you are and where you just came from. It’s all non-fiction anecdotes from real people’s lives, most of which, as you might expect from everday non-fiction, isn’t brimming with exciting tales of wonder and adventure and new discoveries. Indeed, from what I read, it can lean towards navel gazing. However, if you do happen upon one of the more competent writers there, you can get some bits and pieces of what might make an interesting story, bits and pieces of relatable moments, and sometimes, raw truths that make you think.

Cowbird is not a site for storytellers of fiction, but it is a bit like wandering a library of souls. You’ll skim over lots of stuff you don’t care for, but once in a while you’ll find something to lose yourself in.

Library of souls…hmm. *squirrels it away in Ideas folder to germinate*

Loose Threads

Where did she go?

 

We'd pulled into the dollar store, shopped, and pulled out again.

 

Did she have family? Did they know where she was?

 

This was downtown, in the middle of stores and traffic. I imagined she had a few dollars and change in hand. Perhaps, she was getting something to eat—or maybe something to relieve her pain.

 

She wore a marshmallow type coat, brown. Nothing covered her silver hair. It was getting late. It was getting chilly.

 

I had seen her slowly crossing a gravel lot, far in the distance. Then she was gone. Her thread crossed mine, pulled it taut for a fleeting moment, and then it slipped away.

 

 

Image: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild 

Critique vs. Review

A few days ago, I wrote a review for a novelette I read. I generally don’t do that, but since I won the ebook for free, I felt it was proper. It took two drafts and between the two, my awareness of the difference between how I critique and how I review, and sometimes how I cross the two, increased. Mainly, with a review I’m addressing another reader, and not a fellow author. Here are some other things I learned.

An inordinate amount of technical jargon means I’ve written a critique. POV, formulaic, characters, passive vs. active, showing vs. telling, protagonists, plot, cliché, etc, etc—an author can recognize these shorthand terms and know what to do with them. That’s not necessarily true for readers. Too much of that means I’m analyzing the story as a writer instead of as a reader. It’s a sign I’m more hung up on style versus substance, which, if the style isn’t an utterly distracting disaster, shouldn’t be the main focus.

A lack of ‘story’ means I’ve written a critique. A critique assumes the reader (who is usually the author) knows the story. A review doesn’t. There should be a sense of progression, if possible, in explaining to the reader what the book is about and how I experienced it from beginning to end. All with a minimal amount of spoilers.

Too much objectivity means I’ve written a critique. Objectivity is good for critiques. A review is inherently subjective. I’m writing about my unique reading experience, so the piece should convey my personal impressions and not generalized observations. It’s okay to use ‘I’ and ‘me’ because that’s who I’m speaking for. It helps punctuate the elements in the story that affected me most.

A lack of proportionality means I’ve written a critique. My first draft focused only on the things I didn’t like, because those were freshest in my mind. With a critique partner, I can do that and the author will know I still like the overall story and writing. Not so with a reader browsing through reviews. The balance between positive and negative in my review should be a fair representation of my reading experience. By the second draft, I recalled several highlights I had overlooked—not things I had to hunt for, but things that buoyed above and made the read enjoyable for the moment. It wasn’t fifty-fifty, but there was a lot more to appreciate than I had originally stated.

In the end, I wrote the kind of review I wanted to read, the kind that could help me decide whether to take a chance on a book. For me, that review is comprehensive but concise, and, yes, in the age of e-publishing, it lets me know how the writing and editing stacks up. So, I felt it was okay to include a brief paragraph about technical issues—not a detailed list, but a general take on whether it was clean or problematic.

Also? Don’t publish your first draft cold. Let it simmer or write another. It just might be the difference between an unhelpful critique and a fair, honest review.

Photo: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild