Submittal ques

Twizzle said:

crossing my fingers someone here can help. I wrote and submitted a sudden fiction piece--about 700 words. Well, while I'm waiting an idea comes, and I start expanding my story. Now it's 9000 words and the original 700 words are embedded within this story verbatim.

so. no word on whether the original is accepted but how do you/would you submit the second somewhere if the first IS accepted? I mean, technically, it's a new story, but then a part of it isn't?

does anyone know?

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Stephen King did 3 versions of "Salem's Lot". The first one was extremely short and called "Jerusalem's Lot". The second was a longer short story, I believe also called "Jerusalem's Lot". The third was the novel, "Salem's Lot". All of them contained the same essential set-up, but the executions were a bit different.

So, precedent has certainly been set for you to sell the short AND sell the longer one, without too much cause for concern. Change the titles a bit and I would think you'd have even less of an issue.

Of course, should JAR or someone else with REAL experience counter this, listen to THEM.

While we're all waiting for JAR to answer this, let me guess at what he might say. Yes, you can try to sell it again. But only to magazines that will publish, i think they're called second rights or something like that, stories that have already been published (help me, James, I'm drawing a blank). When you query these magazines you have to tell them that a shorter version of this story has been published in such and such magazine.

I don't think that any magazine that wants first north american serial rights will be interested in publishing a story that has already appeared in a shorter version in a different magazine.

And as always, remember that when you are using Stephen King as an example, that this is Stephen King He gets to do all sorts of things most other writers don't get away with. And for every rule there is the exception, but the exception proves the rule. And several other cliches I will spare you.

nevada said:

And as always, remember that when you are using Stephen King as an example, that this is Stephen King He gets to do all sorts of things most other writers don't get away with. And for every rule there is the exception, but the exception proves the rule. And several other cliches I will spare you.

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BUT, he wasn't "Stephen King", then. He was still working to get accepted. Yes, I'm sure these were after he sold Carrie, but even so, he wasn't The Man immediately.

I think your points about saying that there is a shorter version out there are very valid, but only if the shorter version really is the same as, say, the middle of the longer version. If it's a re-do of an idea, then they might not be similar enough to matter.

Twizzle said:

thx--I appreciate your help so much. I haven't been able to find anything about this. The problem is the orig short story is just sandwiched in by the new stuff. I didn't change it. Just wrote around it and expanded it. Which is good, in that it's better--or at least I hope it is. But bad, because NOW what??? I hate to withdraw the first piece, no editor is going to appreciate that. argh.

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Don't take this the wrong way, but since the chances are at least even that the first editor is going to turn down the shorter story, why withdraw it until/unless the longer story sells?

I guess I'd worry about this once you get an acceptance, not before.

Yeah I'm with Jeanne on this one. The odds are that it'll get rejected. Nothing to do with the story just with numbers. Once you get the rejection, you can start sending out the new version. If, on the other hand, it gets accepted, then you can retire the new version since the expansion wasnt needed. You are ofcourse working on a new story, right?

Twizzle, consider, too, that if the short version is accepted--yippee!--then you can do a rewrite to the long version which changes the embedded part a bit, even if it's just rewording, renaming characters, giving more or less detail, etc.

I imagine you could do that in your sleep, right?

Maryn, who thinks previous drafts could be handy

Story

This is a tougher question than might be supposed. As an editor, I sometimes treat such a story as a reprint, but just as often treat it as a brand new story. And as a writer, I've sold stories as brand new by doing no more than cutting two paragraphs and removing one, non-central character.

I can't see the difference between 700 and 9,000 words NOT constituting a new story. But this is one of those things that's always up to the editor. Just be honest about the story's history, and I suspect almost any editor will treat it as a new story. I certainly would.