The W1S1 Check-in and Chill Lounge and Bar

Little Ming said:

You can ask the critters to be gentle, or if you're looking specifically at voice (or whatever) you can ask for critiques to focus on that.

If you really feel like you can't post your own work, at least consider critiquing others. We say this a lot in SYW because it's true: critiquing others helps you improve your own writing skills. Problems you can't see in your own work or are emotionally attached to will be easier to spot and critique in others.

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I do critique a lot of work. I'm extremely brutal and I hate myself for it. It's just that none of the critique I do is through SYW.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Well what I'm looking for is specific names of publications of stuff I should try because I would have a much better chance of getting into them than into, say, Shimmer. Because I am extremely new to this stuff and so many publications are behind a paywall and I'm in a position where I can't randomly buy issues hoping that maybe it'll be helpful. Most of the short stories I've read have been anthologies from the library and I can't submit to them because they're not places to submit to. I can't share what I do have, though, because nobody has read my stuff and posting on SYW when you do not have an intent to thoroughly tear your work to shreds is extremely rude. I mean like the only thing I think that would work is if I could send to someone and get suggestions for places to look at but that would be as rude as posting in SYW. So I'm in a huge bind.

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As I said above, you can ask the critters to be gentle. Most will comply.

I'm assuming you write speculative fiction (hence Shimmer). There are other speculative publications that post free stories. Off the top of my head Clarkesworld, Daily Science Fiction, Buzzy Mag, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Do you have anything posted elsewhere? I see a Wattpad link in your sig. I would just ask folks to look at something and suggest markets.

Personally, I sub stuff anywhere I damn well please (as long as it fits the general guidelines for the market) because I can't expect that writing to fit a market specifically will work. And, as Zanjan and others have pointed out, an editor may be looking for something fresh. You write the best story you can, find a market you like and see what happens. Then rinse and repeat.

Aggy B. said:

Do you have anything posted elsewhere? I see a Wattpad link in your sig. I would just ask folks to look at something and suggest markets.

Personally, I sub stuff anywhere I damn well please (as long as it fits the general guidelines for the market) because I can't expect that writing to fit a market specifically will work. And, as Zanjan and others have pointed out, an editor may be looking for something fresh. You write the best story you can, find a market you like and see what happens. Then rinse and repeat.

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I should take the Wattpad link out. It does not reflect my actual writing. It reflects my horrible attempts at 'spidersilk.'

I could send With Polish or something but that one's not currently up for critique unless they're willing to listen to me pull my hair out because it's flash fiction at exactly 999 words and I don't want it to get stuck in the donut hole a lot of my other stuff has been stuck in.

I've been doing pretty much what you've said so far but then I keep hearing that a lot of it is about "fit" so I want to find "fit."

Whoa. I just went to the NM fiesta at my daughter's school and this thread exploded.

@Hanson: Thanks for explaining me Yes, trend and trendy are different to me. Trendy used to be sparkly vampires or Facebook. Whereas trends are more general ideas that shift up and down.

@Batspan: I am no market expert. My perceptions are most likely vastly different from yours. When I got serious about publishing in the short fiction market, I noticed there were many fewer stories about fairies and dragons with happy endings than there were slipstreamy stories with sad endings or at best meh endings. An example of what I love to write is Pixie Plague at 4 Star Stories which is only a token paying market. An example of a story I wrote with what I perceived as publishing potential and which did garner me positive personal rejections from pro markets and landed at the semi-pro market of Kazka Press is Zeitgeist.

Don't get me wrong--I'm proud of Zeitgeist, but writing in that darker tone with sadder endings really takes it out of me.

Yes I realize markets like DSF take lighter stories and I definitely send some their way, but my publication list is fuller of the sad or at best meh endings rather than fluff and HEA.

TBH Hap, I think you may be over-thinking the whole thing, and stressing yourself out as a result. Yes, it's worth checking into markets to see what kinds of stuff they tend to run, but that's not the end-all be-all. I've asked for advice on particular stories before, largely because I was working in a somewhat unfamiliar genre and considering subbing to markets I had absolutely no familiarity with. But in general, the only thing you'll lose from sending stories out everywhere is time, and if those stories were just going to sit there on your hard drive, it's all the same anyway.

Hapax Legomenon said:

Like last I read a volume of Shimmer, there was maybe one short story that was kind-of-sort-of-not-really-but-maybe like anything I'd written. Most of them were "spidersilk" (not that that's a derisivie term, it's just something I can't do.).

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zanzjan said:

So, there are definitely a few markets that tend to like more ornate language than others (and state as much in their sub guidelines) but again, that's frequently a reflection on the story being told itself, and those tend to be fairly specialized markets in terms of genre, and isn't quite the same thing as voice. Most of the broader SFF markets don't have that emphasis. So it's just a matter of writing the best story you can, getting the best feedback you can, and then sending it out to any fitting market while you work on the next thing. There's also no reason you can't experiment with voice, whether or not you think you can do it -- writing isn't a monolithic and unchanging skillset, but a progression of many small skills as they are exercised. I know I've written stories just to play with aspects of craft, and while they aren't always (or often) successful as cohesive stories, the learning that comes from then find ways to manifest in future work.

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Just wanted to add to this point about Shimmer: they really aren't the best market to use as some kind of exemplar of the way things are at large. I don't know of any other market that even comes close to being as exacting as Shimmer in their requirements. I'd go so far as saying that Shimmer is the only market I know of that "requires" a certain kind of voice, and as Zanzjan says, it's one that goes hand-in-hand with the types of tales they're drawn to. "Voice" and "story" can't easily be separated.

Melinda Moore said:

@Batspan: I am no market expert. My perceptions are most likely vastly different from yours. When I got serious about publishing in the short fiction market, I noticed there were many fewer stories about fairies and dragons with happy endings than there were slipstreamy stories with sad endings or at best meh endings. An example of what I love to write is Pixie Plague at 4 Star Stories which is only a token paying market. An example of a story I wrote with what I perceived as publishing potential and which did garner me positive personal rejections from pro markets and landed at the semi-pro market of Kazka Press is Zeitgeist.

Don't get me wrong--I'm proud of Zeitgeist, but writing in that darker tone with sadder endings really takes it out of me.

Yes I realize markets like DSF take lighter stories and I definitely send some their way, but my publication list is fuller of the sad or at best meh endings rather than fluff and HEA.

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Okay, so it sounds like even with my very limited experience you seem to have noticed the same thing I've noticed.

I don't have the exact same problem you have but I feel like it's kind of similar. No matter how dark or violent anything I write gets, it's still very tongue-in-cheek, I guess, is the best way to describe it. And that's not really something I've seen a whole lot of.

I'm going to look at those two places, though.

@Dani: I did not know that about Shimmer. However I guess it seems kind of the same with Ideomancer.

Melinda Moore said:

...
Yes I realize markets like DSF take lighter stories and I definitely send some their way, but my publication list is fuller of the sad or at best meh endings rather than fluff and HEA.

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While DSF tends to publish more lighter stories, they've published many darker, sadder, and downright depressing stories too.

Lighter story markets that spring to mind are:
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
Crowded Magazine
Stupefying Stories
Betwixt
Goldfish Grimm's Spicy Fiction Sushi

There is a trend toward dark - which is sometimes how SF/F authors deal with an expectation of modern audiences to have more realism even in imaginative work. But I expect that most markets will take any story as long as it's good, regardless of light/dark, tongue-in-cheek/deadly serious.

Aggy B. said:

There is a trend toward dark - which is sometimes how SF/F authors deal with an expectation of modern audiences to have more realism even in imaginative work.

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That's an interesting thought. It seems that straight literary magazines tend that way too. It had never occurred to me that it might be because people equate realistic with dark or sad.

Yup, even Strange Horizons has published humorous pieces on occasion. Not many hard and fast rules.

Aggy B. said:

Do you have anything posted elsewhere? I see a Wattpad link in your sig. I would just ask folks to look at something and suggest markets.

Personally, I sub stuff anywhere I damn well please (as long as it fits the general guidelines for the market) because I can't expect that writing to fit a market specifically will work. And, as Zanjan and others have pointed out, an editor may be looking for something fresh. You write the best story you can, find a market you like and see what happens. Then rinse and repeat.

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I just want to clarify this rather tricky aspect to writing in response to mkts.

I'm not really suggesting one should write 'to fit a mkt specifically'.

What I suppose I'm really saying is, Be Open.

Be open to trying a new approach, to changing your style, your subject matter, your genre.

I think it is foolhardy to write to a trend in the sense of 'ok, vampire love stories are in, so I'll do that' - unless of course you intend to bring a whole new approach to that particular storyline/ subject.

The second aspect of my prev post is the idea of being AWARE of a publication's 'voice'. Shimmer is indeed a very distinct voice (one I hope to tap soon...), but one should be aware of all of the different 'voices' out there in the publication world, and I believe one should respond in kind to those voices -ie, sing in harmony.

In doing so, your writing skills and enjoyment will increase, i.m.exp.


So, in summary, dance new dances, but don't ape.

Batspan said:

Shimmer's *more* shimmery? I haven't heard of any changeover -- I follow some of the editors on Twitter.

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Going digital, except for a Annual at the end of each year. It's also offering the stories for free, but over time. Mind you then did offer the odd story for free before. I assume it's a marketing approach, which, if it results in greater mkt growth, I'd be happy with.

Spidey sense tells me there may be a change (probably slight) in 'voice' a little, but I've no hard evidence of it.

I do really, really like some of there recent stuff, so, long may they continue.

Hapax: Shimmer does indeed have a very specific tone/voice that they are looking for, but they are more of an exception than the rule in that. There are many great markets out there that you can read for free, to see if the stories you find there might be a closer fit to what you write. Some of the places I'd recommend checking out are:

- Clarkesworld
- Lightspeed
- Strange Horizons
- Daily Science Fiction
- Galaxy's Edge
- Beneath Ceaseless Skies

All of the above have their content online, free of charge.

Some magazines prefer flowery, almost literary stories (think Clarkesworld, Shimmer) while others prefer a good plot to verbal acrobatics (Galaxy's Edge, IGMS). Others yet have an eclectic taste and buy lots of very different stuff (DSF, Buzzy).

If you write humor you should also check out UFO Publishing (shameless self-promotion!), though we won't be reopening to unsolicited submissions for another 9 months or so.

Hapax Legomenon said:

No matter how dark or violent anything I write gets, it's still very tongue-in-cheek, I guess, is the best way to describe it. And that's not really something I've seen a whole lot of.

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That's interesting. I'm not saying to change the way you write, but it's possible you are right that this might be holding your work back from being accepted.

I say this because I think I might have had a similar issue in my own writing. My writing teacher at the time pointed it out to me. She said one day I was going to have to move on. After a while, she realised that was my natural writing style.

Thing is, I was writing contemporary stuff for her (her skills were in the literary arena). When I wrote contemporary, I'd always be tongue in cheek. She said it created "ironic distance".

It took me a while to understand what she meant. It's hard to describe, but I'll try. Essentially, the way I wrote, even though I was trying (and thought I was) writing from a close, personal POV, my use of language and juxtaposition of detail created a situation where the reader saw an ironic view of the character that the character didn't themselves.

My cynical worldview infected my stories even though my characters weren't cynical themselves. Maybe if they had been cynical, it would have worked. In fact, when I wrote one that did have a cynical MC, in first person, that one sold. The cynicism came from him, part of his personality, rather than being a tongue-in-cheek narrator.

In fantasy and science fiction, that kind of tongue in cheek can come across as not taking the genre seriously, I think. A lot of people don't like that, and maybe editors won't buy it for that reason. When I write fantasy and SF, I don't suffer from ironic distance. Now, I can see the change in tone between my secondary or paranormal world stories and my contemporary settings.

I know how to get rid of it in my writing now too. But it's not something a critiquer ever pulled me up on. I think the stories work better now, at pulling a reader in, too. I had to consciously push past the tongue in cheek, and at first, I didn't know how.

This might not be your issue, but since you brought it up I thought I'd add my 2 cents.

If you are writing a farce (which some of my contemporary stories were, though I didn't know it at the time), or humour, then that tongue in cheek can be your friend! I think it can work in a story - but it takes more skill than I had at that time.

EDIT: Markets that might accept that kind of thing? Probably the ones that aren't always serious. (Obviously.) My first, very tongue-in-cheek effort got to the final round at ASIM, for example.

EDIT 2: The trend towards dark: yes, I think it's very apparent. Latest 'best of Australian SF & Fantasy' I read should have mentioned in the title that it was mostly horror. Very dark indeed. Often bleak. Sometimes its because they set out to write horror, other times I think it's for that perception of 'reality' that others have mentioned. Totally happy endings seem less believable, unless it's a comedy or romance. But as a reader, I like a happy ending (usually there has to have been some kind of cost to get there though), and I'll keep writing both kinds. I don't like totally tragic endings either. They annoy me; I feel like I've wasted my time reading about the person's struggle if nothing at all is gained. Unless it's signalled that it's set out to be horror, I feel like the story is pointless if it ends that way. But that's just personal taste.

@Fhir

I don't know. Whenever people have mentioned the "tongue-in-cheek"-ness or the voice of a character it's always been positively... and when people read the stuff where I'm consciously trying not to be tongue-in-cheek everyone thinks it's terrible and they can really tell that I'm insanely uncomfortable writing it.

The question I have, after reading all this, is do you just need to vent and not really want help? Because these two pages seem to have gone in circles. If you're not finding what style is like yours 'out there' then read more. Seriously. And submit more. Throw the net wider and wider. There are SO many magazines out there, it's just up to you and your search terms in Google, basically.

Heck, I've had readers and professors and everyone tell me my work is difficult, then I get an editor who says the same thing followed by a 'yes' because THAT editor, THAT person sees 'difficult' as a good thing.

Then there's the pull back to improve more thing. I remember in college using 'my voice is just SO different' as a crutch, a salve for rejection. Really, I just kinda sucked and didn't understand tone and voice (not saying you don't, I was a horrible whiny holier than thou undergrad - basically - a teenager). So I took a breather and decided to actually listen to the professors who saw promise. Then started submitting again, but still wasn't there, etc etc. It's a cycle of learning and growing and expanding as an artist.

Also, get some readers who are JUST readers and not writers. It makes a difference in feedback.

V1c said:

The question I have, after reading all this, is do you just need to vent and not really want help? Because these two pages seem to have gone in circles. If you're not finding what style is like yours 'out there' then read more. Seriously. And submit more. Throw the net wider and wider. There are SO many magazines out there, it's just up to you and your search terms in Google, basically.

Heck, I've had readers and professors and everyone tell me my work is difficult, then I get an editor who says the same thing followed by a 'yes' because THAT editor, THAT person sees 'difficult' as a good thing.

Then there's the pull back to improve more thing. I remember in college using 'my voice is just SO different' as a crutch, a salve for rejection. Really, I just kinda sucked and didn't understand tone and voice (not saying you don't, I was a horrible whiny holier than thou undergrad - basically - a teenager). So I took a breather and decided to actually listen to the professors who saw promise. Then started submitting again, but still wasn't there, etc etc. It's a cycle of learning and growing and expanding as an artist.

Also, get some readers who are JUST readers and not writers. It makes a difference in feedback.

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What I wanted were precise lists with actual names of actual magazines to submit to. Because for the most part I had been searching on google for places to submit to and I would get these long lists of out-of-date magazines in which 90% of them were defunct, and the ones that were still around strictly published extremely depressing slipstream. I do not write extremely depressing slipstream at all, so when that's all I could find I got very depressed. So some people gave me lists now, and some of those magazines I had never heard of before. So I thank those people who did give me those lists and I'm off to submit, I don't know about tonight, but maybe tomorrow because right now I'm really tired and I feel like if I try to submit something now I'll screw the application up. If you have any list of named publications I should look up for submitting things that are more tongue-in-cheek I would be very happy to hear those from you, too.

Melinda Moore said:

When I got serious about publishing in the short fiction market, I noticed there were many fewer stories about fairies and dragons with happy endings than there were slipstreamy stories with sad endings or at best meh endings.

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This happened to me too. When I first started to look properly into short fiction, most of the published work I read tended towards magical realism and drama with a very small d--IMO missing the crucial sensawunda. What I like to write is the opposite of this. I shrugged and decided that my style was probably more suited to novels than to shorts, and focused my efforts that direction.

I have noticed that the style of published shorts seems to include many more of the stories I like to read than even a few years ago. What that tells me is that when I shrugged and gave up, others were still writing those stories and sending them out. I've learned from that to write in my own style--but focus on improving my craft--and let the markets take care of themselves.

I've also found that when I look carefully at the stories that are winning awards but that aren't in a style I personally enjoy, I'm starting to be able to figure out what it is they're doing right. They're still not what I'd choose to read, or write, there's a high level of craft I can appreciate and learn from. Something I think of a breadth, rather than depth, of story, that I didn't have the skill to even see not long ago. This has immensely improved my own writing when I take it back to what I love.

Sorry so long a post, guys. I'm still figuring this out as I go along.

Glad to hear the creativity is seeping back, Zanzjan.

Edged the novel-ish up over 42k yesterday. Struggling to find time to write in the midst of the legal mess, but making some progress anyway.

Hoping to send a couple of stories back out today, if I can find a market for them. (Which is more a question of looking through The Grinder than "OMG! There's no market for this!" Even though I do that too, sometimes.)

Aggy, tired (I started off with "right" instead of "write" in that second paragraph)

I let my writing linger for a couple of years. About two years ago I got kicked in the ass by a member here. Since then I've finished one book and co-written three others (as of last Sunday. The first of which is in my sig line, btw.) And, I'm almost on track to finish another that has sat in my desk drawer for years, probably by August.

For the one I finished I ground through Publisher's Marketplace, culling first for agents representing the genre(s) the book is in. Now I'm culling that list by researching them: "Are they still repping that?", "Have they sold in the 12-18 months.", and the more ethereal "Do they feel like a fit?"

My goal is to query 3-5 a week to start, if it looks like my query is solid, based on feedback, I'll up that to 5-8. I'm in week three.

That's awesome, Williebee! I've got my fingers crossed for your querying process. (Are you using QueryTracker at all? They were very helpful for me in finding agents to query.)