What constitutes an "Unpublished work."

Michael_T

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I'm at the point where I want to start subbing some of my work, and it turns out I have a lot of flash stories sitting around my blog that given a little editing, some of them may be marketable as short stories or even flash in their own right.

So I was wondering if any of you had an idea of how much change must go into a piece before it becomes an "Unpublished Work" as most literary mags have that particular requirement.

I understand adding a comma somewhere is not enough change to count, but then again, if I take a 300 word flash story and stretch it out into a 75,000 word novel, that's got to be enough. So where do you think the line is? How much change is needed to some of these stories before I can confidently submit them with a clear conscious?

I personally think that if the story itself changes to where actions by the characters are fundamentally different (this does not mean using 'strolled' instead of 'walked') For instance, if my character is an artist working with pottery and ends up shattering his work at the end, changing the medium to music and having the MC smash a guitar at the end would be enough of a change to warrant it being a 'new' story as long as everything else is adjusted for the change and it's not just a find and replace of the word pottery to guitar.

Also, if any of the major plot points change. So Perhaps instead of speeding through traffic to get to the hospital, the main character performs a field operation on the injured party. That would constitute enough of a change IMO that the story would have to be fundamentally different then.

What are you opinions?
 

Debbie V

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Performing the operation is a major change. It affects everything after it. Going from pottery to guitar doesn't. That could still be the same story.

This is subjective and you could get burned by it if someone disagrees with your view. I'd go for changes that really make it a whole new story.
 

Old Hack

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It's easier and more productive to write a new piece, rather than to try to change an existing one. Write something else instead of fiddling around with your old work.
 

Jamesaritchie

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The line is wherever the publisher says it is. As always, whenever submitting anything to anyone, agent or editor, you simply need to be upfront and honest about the genesis of the story, and allow the agent or editor to make the decision.