Living the Fictional Dream

Have you ever had a market that you just couldn’t figure out? You think you’ve nailed what they want in a story, and yet you still get rejected?

One of the reprints I submitted last night was to a fairly big name podcast market. This particular market emphasizes fantasy fiction, and it’s one that, from the first time I learned about it, I’ve wanted to write for.

Everyone always says to figure out what a market wants, you have to read (or in this case, listen to) past issues. Well, I’ve done that. I’ve listened to quite a few issues.

Theoretically, any type of fantasy is fine, but I’ve noticed that the market has a bias more toward stories with a more literary style. Stories that I would label magical realism instead of fantasy (a slim difference, true, but one that can be seen).

But, this market does publish stories of a more typical fantasy nature, too. On occasion.

Since audio markets take reprints, when I first discovered the market, I peppered them with all my previously published fantasy stories, one after the other, as soon as the rights returned to me. No takers. None of them even garnered more than a form rejection.

So, I calmed down a bit and decided to wait until I had the perfect story. There was one out there — I just had to wait until it completed it’s run in its current publication, per the terms of the contract. Somewhat impatiently, I waited. I consider this particular story one of my best — perhaps the best, or at least in the top two.

And then, finally, it was time, so I bundled it into an email and sent it of, feeling sure that this was the one.

It wasn’t.

So I haven’t sent them anything else until last night. I had another fantasy story that I really thought was right up their alley. They’ve published other stories with a similar feel to them (not the same plot, but just that quality). And since the story was written in the second person, I thought it would be perfect for audio. Now, granted, it was flash and this market, while accepting some flash, goes in more for short story length. But I thought there was a shot…

But again, no. (At least this market is super fast about sending rejections!)

**sighs**

Part of me starts to wonder if the editors at this market are biased by previous publications. I mean absolutely no disrespect to any market when I say this, because I love and enjoy every single market that I’ve been published in. But perhaps, if you’re the editor for a market that regularly receives reprints that were originally published in professionally paying publications, you get used to that and don’t want to seriously consider a story originally published in a market that publishes stories for merely a token payment or **gasp** for free.

I suppose, though, the truth is that my work, no matter how much I like a particular piece, just doesn’t resonate with the editors of this publication. Considering how much they will pay for a story, they probably get tons of submissions (which makes the 1-day response rate all the more impressive!). The more a market pays, the more fierce the competition to get into it is, and as much as I might have liked those particular stories (and as much as the editors of other publications liked them), maybe my writing just isn’t on the level yet of getting into a professional publication.

So, what this means to me is that I need to work harder. I need to hone my craft and keep putting it out there in the world. Writing is one of those things that you can’t improve on without practice. You have to have a germ of talent and a glimmer of an idea, but the rest of it — it’s practice and honing.

It’s good to have a goal, right?

It’s been a good day in the writing arena. No, I didn’t actually write anything (fickle, fickle muse!), but I made other progress on my writing to-do list.

Last night, I submitted two stories — my first ones for 2009. This afternoon, in what has to be the fastest response on record (woo-hoo, Frank!), one of them was accepted. “Dinner for Three” will appear in a future issue of A Thousand Faces.

“Dinner for Three” could loosely be considered a sequel to “Bridge Club” (Editor’s Choice in ATF issue 6), so it’s fitting that it will appear in the same magazine. Also, I just love ATF because of its awesome superhuman fiction — if you haven’t read the latest issue, you should give it a go.

Then, this evening, I pulled out two more reprints and submitted them, as well. Go me! Making progress in 2009.

Have a great night everybody!

While on vacation in Sedona, I read two novels by Karen Macinerney — her “tales of an urban werewolf,” Howling at the Moon and On the Prowl. This series is about a werewolf named Sophie Garou who lives in Austin, Texas. Sophie has lived all of her life trying to keep her “hairy problem” a secret from everyone she knows, and juggling her normal life as an auditor with wolfsbane tea and a mother who owns a magic shop and is a little psychic.

Overall, I enjoyed these books (thanks to writing group mate Sandra who loaned them to me!). They are fun urban fantasies with a strong female character. There are also charsimatic male characters (including a male werewolf named Tom and Sophie’s human boyfriend, Heath), and interesting supporting cast, like Sophie’s witch mom and her best friend Lindsey.

One facet of these novels is a mystery that has to be solved by the end of the installment. I wouldn’t call them mystery novels — the urban fantasy is much stronger with these stories as far as genre goes — but the mystery is there as a supporting element. Especially in the first book of the series.

In Howling at the Moon, Sophie’s mother is accused of murder, and she has to figure out who really did the dastardly deed. By the end of the novel, we have a suspect in hand, thanks to Sophie and Lindsey’s sleuthing, so it should be case closed. And it is, as far as the mystery goes.

However, at the end of the novel, I was unsatisfied with the conclusion of said mystery. We did meet the murderer earlier in the story, so it wasn’t completely out of nowhere, but said murderer was never on the list of possible suspects. Not even a tiny blip on the suspect radar. The only reason Sophie is tipped in the right direction was because she stumbled upon something magical, and her mother, who didn’t use that kind  of magic, sent Sophie to a different magic shop to find information. It just randomly happened that the magic shop Sophie visited happened to be run by a relative of the murderer.

The whole thing felt very random and happenstance. If Sophie had gone to any other magic shop in the whole city, she wouldn’t have been able to solve the mystery.

I think the mystery would have had a more satisfying conclusion if the muderer had been on the short list of suspects in the first place. As it was, Sophie spends a lot of time running about after suspects who are all red herrings, and even when the murder victim gives them a clue from his ghostly state, the clue turns out to be bunk — unrelated to his actual death.

I don’t want to be too harsh on the books, because I thought they were an enjoyable read, but my issues with the mystery in book one started me thinking about how mysteries are not a plot element that you can toss into a story willy-nilly. To make a mystery truly satisfying to the reader, you have to do the work. A twist ending is only awesome if, once you get the twist, it shows the whole rest of the novel in another light. All the clues have to be in place. A mystery is not satisfying if it comes out of left field.

Did you watch the premier of Dollhouse, the latest bit of television by the incredible Joss Whedon, last Friday night? If not, what were you thinking? At least set the DVR/TiVo/VCR! C’mon… it’s Joss! It also stars Eliza Dushku, who is both an amazing actress and gorgeous.

If you haven’t heard about the show (and Joss and Eliza alone aren’t enough to pull you in), here’s the concept. A mysterious company has developed a system that allows a person’s mind to be completely wiped and reprogrammed with another personality. By what seems to be nefarious methods, the company has assembled a group of “dolls” (a.k.a., actives) who, if you have enough money to pay for it, can literally be whoever you want them to be.

In the first episode, Echo (played by Eliza) is both a guy’s weekend dream date and a negotiator specializing in the return of kidnapped children. And, in between the two, we meet Echo herself. Echo seems quiet and bidable, but there is a glimmer of intelligence behind that passive face, as she questions her doctor about injuries that she no longer remembers getting and stumbles upon the rather painful looking creation of a new active. We even got a couple of brief glimpses of Caroline — the woman Echo was before signing up with the company — an idealistic college graduate who wanted to change the world and got involved in something that turned out really, really badly.

This role will give Eliza a ton of room to stretch her acting chops, as she goes from role to role as an active. The thing that makes Echo stand out from the crowd, though, is that she’s beginning to remember things from previous incarnations. For example, the negotiator remembered something that only Echo should have known. So, it seems as if eventually Echo’s questioning nature will take a more investigative turn.

In addition to Echo, we have a group of interesting characters peopling the Dollhouse world. Her handler is a new guy (possibly an ex-cop). He wants to right wrongs, but the company just wants him to get Echo back in one piece and, if possible, get what the client wants done completed, as well.

There is also a mysterious person from Caroline’s past who’s trying to find her. This mystery person might or might not be the FBI agent played by the guy who was Helo on the new Battlestar Galactica who is investigating the existence of the company that everyone else thinks is rumors and myth.

The snippy little computer programmer who makes the personalities for the actives is appropriately despicable. He cares more about the work than the human beings/actives involved. Though, I thought there could be a potential ally there — I guess it depends on what Echo does.

Amy Acker plays an intriguing character who serves as the actives’ physician. The first thing you notice about her are the sinister scars that mar her face. Did she used to be an active herself? She obviously knows some of what is going on, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she used to be an active and when her scars/injuries made field work impractical, she was implanted with the medical knowledge so she could continue to be useful. Or, is there some other reason that she took the job deep underground in the bowels of the company? It could go either way at this point.

And the head of the company (or at least the highest ranking member we’ve seen so far) is a hard-as-nails woman who seems to care only for turning a profit. But, come on — it’s a Joss show. She must have some deeper motivation that that!

The first episode was a bit of an information dump, I will admit. There was a lot of back story and set up to get through, as well as a lot of characters to meet. But I really enjoyed the premise of the show, and I think it has great potential. If FOX actually allows the show a chance to flourish, I think Joss can develop it into something exciting (of course, this is FOX we’re talking about here, so I’m not holding my breath).

Not to be too much of a fangirl, but I have high hopes for anything Joss writes. His characters are always so multi-layered and his plots so intricate, whether they are on television, in a movie, or in a comic book. I would love to be as good of a writer as Joss Whedon when I grow up!

So, if you missed out on the pilot last week, you should definitely tune in tonight. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Yikes! I really need to make the time to go through all the rejections I’ve gotten since NaNo and find more markets to resubmit those stories to. Poor little stories… I’ve been neglecting you!

The other thing I need to do is write some prompts. No one has written one for my writing group’s monthly prompts contest this month. It would be the perfect time for me to swoop in, bang out 5 prompts, and take home a $10 prize (and, thus, earn back the money I donated to the prize pool for the year).

The good thing about the prompts contest is that when I write 5 prompts for the monht, I usually get at least one or two flash pieces that I can shape up into something marketable. “The Mad King,” “The Dragon Thief,” and “Honor Bound” are all flash pieces that I wrote based on the prompts contest and subsequently published — and there are others in my submission queue. “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight” also came from a prompt, but that was a prompt we did at a meeting, as opposed to the monthly contest — though the same principle applies.

Of course, to be crowned the February winner, I’d have to write 5 prompts in 10 days… Pressure! And the problem is, I can be really picky about my prompts. I don’t like them too specific, but they also have to engage my muse — and my muse has been very fickle as of late.

Oh, and speaking of prompts, if you’re in the market for some, you should check out my writing group mate Stephanie’s blog. She’s been posting a prompt of the day for a while now, and there is some fun stuff there.

Last night, with an unexpected windfall of birthday money (woo-hoo!), I picked up a couple of new books. One of my guilty pleasure series had a new release — Envy, book three in the Luxe series. Think Gossip Girl, but set in 1899 - 1900.

This series is interesting to me for how it combines “the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite” with the historical elements of the dawn of the twentieth century. Also, can you beat that cover art? The girls with the cascades of ruffly dresses are fairly spectacular. Only possibly the iconic images on the Twilight books beat out Luxe for cool covers.

This is fun, guilty pleasure reading. I don’t know that I’d recommend it to the world, but if you enjoy historical romance you’d probably enjoy these books.

But, on to my main point. Last night, while reading Envy, I noticed that the author tends to fall back on certain body parts in her descriptions. Foreheads are a big thing for this author — all the girls had smooth foreheads, large foreheads, sweat glistening on their foreheads, or hair sweeping becomingly across their foreheads…

And the other body part mentioned repeatedly was the girls’ clavicles. One girl had masculine clavicles. Dresses were always baring clavicles. And once, a guy actually thought specifically about how lovely a girl’s clavicles were.

Isn’t that odd? First of all, how often does one actually think about clavicles specifically. I notice necklines and busts and a woman’s form in general, but I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever looked at someone and thought, “Wow, what nice clavicles she has!” Foreheads, also, while I notice them as part of a person’s face, not a big seller on their own.

The thing I learned from this is that, while it can be interesting for an author to use something unique (or, perhaps, little used is a better term) when describing people in their stories, a little of this goes a long way. Give one character good clavicles, one character a lovely forehead, and leave it at that. A unique, defining characteristic can be a great way to make one character stand out in your readers’ minds, but when it’s clavicles, clavicles everywhere, it gets kind of absurd!

Yesterday, while Stephen and I were driving home from Sedona, my flash piece, “Honor Bound,” was the story of the day at Every Day Fiction. Go on over and check it out. Voting and/or commenting is always appreciated!

I wrote this story as part of my writing group’s prompts contest last year. Jens submitted a prompt to the group challenging us to write an action scene, but it couldn’t be only an action scene — he challenged us to do it with emotional heft and weight, as well. I think it was my favorite prompt of that month’s contest.

It’s a challenge to write fantasy in the flash format. You can never give quite as much detail as you want to the world and the background. But, in a way, that can be fun, as well. It’s a challenge to give just enough details to clue your readers into what’s going on, but leaving enough wiggle room that they can fill in the blanks themselves, with what they bring to the reading.

So, if you read “Honor Bound,” I’d love to know what you think. Leave me a comment and let me know.

All the stories I have out on submission right now are ones that I sent out before NaNo last year. And some of these are ones that I sent out back last summer and have yet to hear back on — the kinds of submissions that you start to think you’re never going to hear back on.

This morning I actually heard back from one of those markets, and it was a real bummer. Well, rejections are always a bummer, but in this case more so than usual.

Why, you ask? (Or, if not, I’m going to tell you anyway!)

The market actually wanted to publish my story. It’s little ghost story that I wrote back when my writing group was doing the Story Every Day contest. I’ve liked this story since I first wrote it — it was my favorite thing I wrote during those two weeks of madness. Sadly, it has yet to find a home. And this time, it almost did!

The reason I hadn’t heard back yet was because they weren’t sure they were going to be able to continue publication of their ‘zine, so they didn’t want to have me sign a contract until they were sure. And, as luck would have it, it turns out they will not be able to continue publication. So, I got an apologetic “we liked it but…” rejection.

Now, there is some comfort in the fact that they liked it, don’t get me wrong. And I’m grateful to them for telling me what happened instead of just sending a form rejection after all this time. That was nice of them (though a little note a few months ago saying they were considering it or something would not have been amiss).

But ARG! How frustrating. I was so close to having it published, but due to bad timing it is not to be.

While I’m on vacation, one thing on my to-do list will have to be rounding up the most current drafts of all the stories that have been rejected since NaNo (and the ones that are out at markets who did not reply to my query notes!) and send them out to new places. Maybe I’ll be lucky and get a hit.

My little ghost story almost got a hit this time. Maybe the next market will be the one!

The other night, I had the most vivid dream. The dream was a scene right out of a story — a sci-fi/fantasy story (a story with mythical creatures set on an alien planet, to be specific) with some crazy world building.

The scene centered on two characters, male and female, having an interaction that changes both of their lives completely and irrevocably. The guy was a bit of a scoundrel (but with a good heart underneath) and the girl was sassy.

The scene grabbed hold of my imagination and wouldn’t let go until I wrote it down, which I did yesterday. That’s the first thing I’ve written since the holidays, so it felt good.

Sadly, the scene does not stand on its own. It seems that there is more to come in this duo’s story. But if I’m going to continue it, I’m going to have to do some serious world building. It might work as a short story, but part of me wonders if this is more a novel idea. I guess it would depend on what kind of plot developed for the hero and heroine.

My one concern is that the mythical creatures that this story/universe would center around is a type that already has at least one book series written about it. Well, there are actualy tons of novels written about this type of mythical creature, but there is one in particular that takes this type of creature into a more sci-fi twist. I wouldn’t want to come off as being derivative.

Then again, there are only so many ideas/creatures/plots out there in the world. Everything is derivative of something. In my opinion, it’s the trappings that you put on the story elements that give the story its unique personality and its own twist, that feeling of freshness. I can think of three mystery series right now that all deal with cats, and each one has a totally unique feel (thought Midnight Louie rules!). And I don’t even have to get started naming all the vampire books that are out there.

I may start playing around with this idea more seriously while I’m on vacation. I always find that vacations are a great time for writing. I get so much work done then… something about being in a new place, I suppose. Or not being at work!

In other news, when I went over to Every Day Fiction to read today’s story, I saw that “A Million Faces” is back on the top ten stories of all time list. Isn’t that wild? Talk about out of the blue… I wonder what happened. It’s the last one on the list, so I’m sure it won’t stay up there very long, but it gave me a happy to see it there again. I think this is the third time that it’s been up there. “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Kinght” is number 1 on the top stories list for the past 30 days, too, which is also cool.

Hope everyone has a lovely and productive day!

Every Day Fiction has released its table of contents for February, and it looks to be a very good line-up this month. I’m excited to read a lot of these stories, including ones writting by K.C., Kevin, and Gay!

And you’ll also be able to read my story, “Honor Bound,” on the 15th. What fun! It should be an interesting follow-up to Valentine’s Day. Stephen and I will actually be driving home from Sedona that weekend, so I don’t know when I’ll be able to post the link to the story, but I will do it as soon as I have regained Internet access.