Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a submission and why?
AP: The most practical and perhaps useful answer is that FFO’s current group of slush readers seems to favor speculative stories with well crafted characters that end on a positive note.
On a more abstract (and personal) level, I look for narrative authority. What could be more delicious than surrendering to a masterful storyteller? If a writer can achieve such authority, then everything else falls into place or becomes irrelevant. For this to happen, the story needs integrity. It must hold together as a complete, coherent entity and it must be told with absolute honesty and conviction. I'm shoving a lot under this criterion but when I reflect on the diverse stories that have moved me, this is the common feature.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a submission is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
AP: No story, and by this, I mean it lacks change (more on this in #3).
Content: Stories that have too much gore, violence, explicit sex, and are relentlessly dark, negative, and hurtful. These may be perfectly good stories, but they're a real tough sell for this crowd (see my answer to #6).
Bad writing: I'm shocked at the number of typos I encounter (and we're only talking 1000 words here). I let one or two slide, but some submissions have had missing words or phrases. Bad grammar and syntax are also common. Sometimes this is a stylistic choice, but bottom line, if I can't understand what you are saying or if it hurts my head to parse, I'm going to get frustrated. Purple prose will also get a story rejected. On a subtle level, if the diction feels inaccurate or imprecise, I'm likely to pass. Oh, and this isn't technically bad writing but is important: We automatically reject stories that aren't formatted correctly. We don't even look at them. Well, sometimes I peek.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
AP: Character is more important, but it’s a tough call between that and #3. I define “story” as change, and here's where I'll explain my answer to #2 (and for those who are curious this definition is based largely on Robert Mckee's text "Story").
A story is meaningful change in character brought on by a change in the environment. The environmental change could be as subtle as the character waking up one day, getting a latte spilled on him for the umpteenth time, and deciding okay, that's the last straw. And then the story is triggered – the character responds to the first stimulus by changing, which creates a reaction in the environment, which in turn creates a reaction in the character, and so on. In sum, these events become plot. By meaningful, I mean the change must guide the character to some experience or conclusion that resonates with the reader and is predicted by the story (but not predictable).
Character trumps plot because a well developed and nuanced character reacts to the environmental stimulus in such a direct, specific, and unique way that the next part of the story falls into place. This is how I define a "character driven story".
Stories that lack, well, story, often have a framing issue. We get a lot of vignettes and descriptions. These are often lovely, often literary, but they aren’t stories. In these, the character change has already happened off screen; the character is simply following through on that change. But the story itself has already happened.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a submission?
AP: Sometimes. If the story is otherwise excellent but just not right for our publication (it's too violent, too explicit, etc) I'll let the author know.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
AP: I'm what you could call a "level 2" slush reader. Once the slush reading team I’m assigned to votes, I sort out which stories will move on to the final winnowing round (which are read by all readers). My primary responsibility is to identify stories that reflect FFO's editorial vision and will entertain our readers.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
AP: What does a rejection mean? The only thing it means for certain is that that story wasn't right for our publication at that time. We reject great stories all the time -- we have to. This could be because we already just published a story about zombies on a spaceship. It could be because of content (FFO shoots for a PG-13 rating). At some point it comes down to personal taste. The story just didn't tickle enough of our readers the way they like to be tickled.
But it can mean that the story has issues and may get rejected by other publications, and based on the answers on this blog, it seems most editors are looking for very similar things (though they may define them differently – that’s where taste comes in). So a rejection can mean your story could benefit from workshopping and a revision.
Thank you, Anne. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
3/29-Six Questions for Cameron Eigner, Founding Editor, -ality
Showing posts with label Flash Fiction Online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flash Fiction Online. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Six Questions for David Steffen, Slushreader, Flash Fiction Online
Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
DS:
A. Immersion, This is easily the biggest factor in my enjoyment of any fiction, by an order of magnitude. It's all about point of view (POV). The stories that I enjoy the most are the ones in which I forget that I am reading a story because I have sunken so deeply into the POV that I feel that I understand why they make the choices that they make, and feel like I played a part in that.
Not surprisingly, this is also one of the hardest things to pull off. There are certain writing techniques that can help and those that can hurt. First and foremost, though, is what I call the "narrative lens". You want your reader to use the text as a lens to see through the eyes of the characters, and the reader should know everything pertinent that the character knows. A few bullet points for how to attempt this:
I have gone on about this topic at greater length, with illustrative examples, in an article I wrote called "Through Another's Eyes: The Narrative Lens".
B. Arc. In short, something needs to happen. This might seem obvious, but there are a great deal of stories that come through my slush where nothing happens. Ideally, there will be two parallel arcs: a character arc and a plot arc which should be closely tied together so that the character changes as the events pass.
C. Tension. Even if you have immersion and you have an arc, the story may still not hold interest. You need some kind of tension to keep a reader's interest. The good news is that tension can be any kind of tension, from the tension of trying to survive a deadly situation, to trying to keep a marriage together. Some questions to help find the tension:
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
DS:
A. Stagnation. Okay, so I cheated a little bit. I meant this is the inverse of "Arc" from the last question. But I don't think this can be overstated. Something has to happen. There has to be an arc. If you are just describing a society but nothing happens, that is not a story. If there are no characters, that is not a story.
B. Unoriginality. The more original story is, the more likely it is to stand out, for better or worse. If you write something that sounds like a 20 year old D&D campaign, it's probably not going to go anywhere. It could even be a good campaign, but if there are a million other stories like it out there, what's to make it stand out? The worst culprit for this are serial killer stories. At the Drabblecast, I think about 1 in 4 stories has a serial killer protagonist. And guess what, they kill people, the end. Girl falls in love with a vampire. etc... There are some stories that have just been done to death, so unless you have something new to add to it, try to find something novel.
C. Therapy. I have seen way too many stories that seem more like writing for therapy than writing for entertainment. Generally they take the form of a protagonist who is supposedly faultless and has been wronged by the world, and usually ends up getting their own back in some way, usually by killing people, or otherwise harming them (again, the serial killer thing). Too often, I get the impression that the author is trying to work through some deep-seated hostility. If this is true, I am very grateful that they have merely written about killing their wife/son/daughter/grandma/co-worker/boss, rather than taking action. Writing CAN be a very useful therapy tool. But please, please, don't send this therapeutic writing to my slushpile. Consider sharing it with a therapist to work out your troubles--there is no shame in that.
D. Incomprehensibility. Hey, look a 4th answer. Guess who gets an F in reading comprehension? I'll justify it because my A answer was a bit of a repeat, so I didn't want to cheat you out of your 3 novel answers. Anyway, this one seems like a no-brainer, but it's pretty important. If I don't understand what's happening in a story, I won't like it.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
DS Of those, the MOST true is "Plot is more important than character." That's not to say that character is unimportant, not at all. The reason I answered that way is that I can enjoy a story with very little character--a lot of "golden age" SF has very little in the way of character, it's all about the ideas. Asimov's "Last Question" for instance, is a very idea-oriented story. There are people in it, but no one that's a really fully-fleshed mind, they are just workers who move along the plot. But I really enjoy the story anyway, because the ideas are so neat, and the story is told in an entertaining way. On the flip side, a story with characters but no plot is terribly terribly dull, because nothing happens. I have read some published stories advertised as "literary" fiction that is along these lines, and I can't stand it. No matter how interesting the character is, I will not like a story with no plot.
Ideally, the best stories will have plenty of both. A nice juicy plot will give you plenty of opportunity to develop and reveal your characters.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
DS: Sometimes, when I feel that I have something constructive to say. I'll be much more inclined to do so in cases where I thought a story was close to being good, if just one or two things were tweaked. Then I feel it's worth it to offer information to help the author bridge the gap.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
DS: My responsibilities as a slushreader are fairly straightforward--pick out the stories that I would be proud to publish. Stories that, if I read them in a magazine, would make me want to read more issues of that magazine, and more stories by that author. And, if I really like a story, to be an advocate for stories that I feel are the best of the best, to convince others why that story is particularly good.
An editor's responsibility are much broader: to take the inputs from their slushreaders (if they have any) and choose a set of stories that fit their publication. To balance the style of each issue, and determine the ideal order of the stories. Often editors will wear many hats as well, dealing with the financial aspects of the publication, layouts, etc.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
DS: "David, how did you get to be so talented and charming and good-looking?" To which my answer would be: "It's a mystery, Jim. I guess it just comes to me naturally."
But seriously, I have no idea. I would've happily answered other questions, but I left my mind-reading device in my other pants, and I can't know what questions you should've asked without it.
Oh, I guess it could be a question like "How do you find the time with everything else in your life?" One reason why I read slush for FFO and Drabblecast is because they have guidelines that ask for nice short stories. FFO only accepts submissions less than 1100 words, Drabblecast less than 2500. When I have a spare ten minutes, I can easily flip through a few quick stories at this rate, vote on them, and then go back to my other activities.
Thank you, David. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/22-Six Questions for Ian Chung, Editor, Eunoia Review
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
DS:
A. Immersion, This is easily the biggest factor in my enjoyment of any fiction, by an order of magnitude. It's all about point of view (POV). The stories that I enjoy the most are the ones in which I forget that I am reading a story because I have sunken so deeply into the POV that I feel that I understand why they make the choices that they make, and feel like I played a part in that.
Not surprisingly, this is also one of the hardest things to pull off. There are certain writing techniques that can help and those that can hurt. First and foremost, though, is what I call the "narrative lens". You want your reader to use the text as a lens to see through the eyes of the characters, and the reader should know everything pertinent that the character knows. A few bullet points for how to attempt this:
- Choose your setting/character descriptions to show what your character would notice, as well as vocabulary, and emotional responses. A warrior will react differently to many things than a seamstress.
- Don't have your character withhold important information because you think this will make for a great twist. When I realize that this character has been withholding information from me, the immersion is lost in a flash, and will probably never be regained. That doesn't mean the character has to reveal every detail of their entire life, but anything pertinent should be on the table.
- Keep the author invisible--Anything that draws attention to the author is a bad idea. This can be a variety of things from purple prose to overuse of metaphors to improbable coincidences in the narrative. If I, as a reader, think of the author at all while I'm reading, then my immersion has been broken.
I have gone on about this topic at greater length, with illustrative examples, in an article I wrote called "Through Another's Eyes: The Narrative Lens".
B. Arc. In short, something needs to happen. This might seem obvious, but there are a great deal of stories that come through my slush where nothing happens. Ideally, there will be two parallel arcs: a character arc and a plot arc which should be closely tied together so that the character changes as the events pass.
C. Tension. Even if you have immersion and you have an arc, the story may still not hold interest. You need some kind of tension to keep a reader's interest. The good news is that tension can be any kind of tension, from the tension of trying to survive a deadly situation, to trying to keep a marriage together. Some questions to help find the tension:
- What is the source of the conflict? The conflict in most stories can be boiled down to a few basic types: person vs. self, person vs. person, person vs. nature, person vs. self, person vs. supernatural. I admit, these are simplistic labels, but they might help you decide where the driving tension is originating.
- Why should I care about what happens to this character? If I have no reason to care about a character, then I probably won't care what happens to them. This doesn't mean that all characters have to be likeable. If I hate a character and I want to see them die a horrible death, that is caring what happens to them.
- Where in the story does the tension begin? I've read many stories where the story starts in the wrong place. For 1000 words, a character will ramble through their dull daily life, and then suddenly some amazing event happens that drives the rest of the plot. For a short story, unless their everyday life is wildly entertaining, this story started too early. Your average slushreader has already given up by the time the tension arrives. Some writers suggest starting the story at the inciting incident, the event which fires off the plot arc. Often, this is good advice, but keep in mind it may not be best for every story. Sometimes the reader needs a little background information before the inciting incident even makes sense. But in the preliminary portion, make sure that there is something to keep the reader interested, whether through character interaction, strange setting, humor, etc...
- Where does the tension end? Likewise, if the tension ends and then the story drags on and on, a reader's going to be likely to get bored. This isn't as much of a problem as the beginning, because the beginning is where most slushreaders will drop out, but it will still hurt your chances.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
DS:
A. Stagnation. Okay, so I cheated a little bit. I meant this is the inverse of "Arc" from the last question. But I don't think this can be overstated. Something has to happen. There has to be an arc. If you are just describing a society but nothing happens, that is not a story. If there are no characters, that is not a story.
B. Unoriginality. The more original story is, the more likely it is to stand out, for better or worse. If you write something that sounds like a 20 year old D&D campaign, it's probably not going to go anywhere. It could even be a good campaign, but if there are a million other stories like it out there, what's to make it stand out? The worst culprit for this are serial killer stories. At the Drabblecast, I think about 1 in 4 stories has a serial killer protagonist. And guess what, they kill people, the end. Girl falls in love with a vampire. etc... There are some stories that have just been done to death, so unless you have something new to add to it, try to find something novel.
C. Therapy. I have seen way too many stories that seem more like writing for therapy than writing for entertainment. Generally they take the form of a protagonist who is supposedly faultless and has been wronged by the world, and usually ends up getting their own back in some way, usually by killing people, or otherwise harming them (again, the serial killer thing). Too often, I get the impression that the author is trying to work through some deep-seated hostility. If this is true, I am very grateful that they have merely written about killing their wife/son/daughter/grandma/co-worker/boss, rather than taking action. Writing CAN be a very useful therapy tool. But please, please, don't send this therapeutic writing to my slushpile. Consider sharing it with a therapist to work out your troubles--there is no shame in that.
D. Incomprehensibility. Hey, look a 4th answer. Guess who gets an F in reading comprehension? I'll justify it because my A answer was a bit of a repeat, so I didn't want to cheat you out of your 3 novel answers. Anyway, this one seems like a no-brainer, but it's pretty important. If I don't understand what's happening in a story, I won't like it.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
DS Of those, the MOST true is "Plot is more important than character." That's not to say that character is unimportant, not at all. The reason I answered that way is that I can enjoy a story with very little character--a lot of "golden age" SF has very little in the way of character, it's all about the ideas. Asimov's "Last Question" for instance, is a very idea-oriented story. There are people in it, but no one that's a really fully-fleshed mind, they are just workers who move along the plot. But I really enjoy the story anyway, because the ideas are so neat, and the story is told in an entertaining way. On the flip side, a story with characters but no plot is terribly terribly dull, because nothing happens. I have read some published stories advertised as "literary" fiction that is along these lines, and I can't stand it. No matter how interesting the character is, I will not like a story with no plot.
Ideally, the best stories will have plenty of both. A nice juicy plot will give you plenty of opportunity to develop and reveal your characters.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
DS: Sometimes, when I feel that I have something constructive to say. I'll be much more inclined to do so in cases where I thought a story was close to being good, if just one or two things were tweaked. Then I feel it's worth it to offer information to help the author bridge the gap.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
DS: My responsibilities as a slushreader are fairly straightforward--pick out the stories that I would be proud to publish. Stories that, if I read them in a magazine, would make me want to read more issues of that magazine, and more stories by that author. And, if I really like a story, to be an advocate for stories that I feel are the best of the best, to convince others why that story is particularly good.
An editor's responsibility are much broader: to take the inputs from their slushreaders (if they have any) and choose a set of stories that fit their publication. To balance the style of each issue, and determine the ideal order of the stories. Often editors will wear many hats as well, dealing with the financial aspects of the publication, layouts, etc.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
DS: "David, how did you get to be so talented and charming and good-looking?" To which my answer would be: "It's a mystery, Jim. I guess it just comes to me naturally."
But seriously, I have no idea. I would've happily answered other questions, but I left my mind-reading device in my other pants, and I can't know what questions you should've asked without it.
Oh, I guess it could be a question like "How do you find the time with everything else in your life?" One reason why I read slush for FFO and Drabblecast is because they have guidelines that ask for nice short stories. FFO only accepts submissions less than 1100 words, Drabblecast less than 2500. When I have a spare ten minutes, I can easily flip through a few quick stories at this rate, vote on them, and then go back to my other activities.
Thank you, David. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/22-Six Questions for Ian Chung, Editor, Eunoia Review
Monday, March 12, 2012
Six Questions for Pat Dey, Slushreader, Flash Fiction Online
Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
PD: A fresh idea, or a new take on an old concept. I want to be intrigued, amused, challenged, given insight into someone else's world, a brief escape from this world.
Stylish writing. Not necessarily the literary kind, maybe not even grammatically correct, but prose that draws me in, that matches the milieu and its characters, creates atmosphere, that delights in the telling of the story.
Hope. I love reading about winners, people who overcome big challenges and little ones, or at least start.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
PD: Not credible. I love SF, especially the incredible kind. But I have to be willing to suspend disbelief. The story has to hang together with an internal logic. No matter how daft its ideas, the incredible bits have to be consistent. The characters, their motivations, reactions, behaviours, too, have to make sense, even if “sense” in their world is nonsense.
Everybody dies, or MC kills everyone off or, even worse, commits suicide. (I sometimes think the writer needs counseling, or a shoulder to cry on, not publication.)
Abstract info dump, or a lecture pretending to be a story. I want to be drawn into the action, with a character I care about, a problem to deal with that's interesting and an ending of hope.
There's a fourth which bears mentioning, for the stories that avoid the first three. Short stories often have a surprise ending; it's part of their charm. But if it's a complete surprise it fails. It has to be foreshadowed, a hard technique to master but immensely powerful because the surprise feels real: one feels “Darn, I didn't see that coming – but I should have, could have, might have.” And that's a satisfying ending.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
PD: I would have said plot more than character when I was younger. Then, one of my favourite authors was Asimov, often criticised for his shallow characters. I didn't care because I loved his informed speculation about where science might take us ... and was no doubt shallow myself.
Perhaps because I'm older, and have read all the SF there is to read (or so it sometimes seems) I'm more likely to be attracted by interesting characters. Plot remains vital, as is a strange milieu (I'm still drawn to SF more than anything else) but it's more important that the characters deal with their problems and interact with each other and their world in a manner that's engaging. I like to feel they're my friends while I'm reading. I love it when, because of the strange milieu, somebody does something surprising yet completely in character: the Harry Potter stories are full of such delights.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
PD: (Suzanne, FFO's Editor, summarises comments from us slush readers in the rejection letter.)
I teach adults for a living; I'm naturally inclined to offer comments. They'll often appear negative because, to save time, I won't bother saying things like “The fact that I'm commenting means there's something in your writing I want to encourage.” I'll try to summarise what worked, and what didn't. I often want to say, “You really ought to workshop this story before submitting it, to get the bugs out.”
I won't comment when the author demonstrates respect neither for me nor himself by not bothering to learn the basics of writing. Common symptoms include careless spelling, grammar or punctuation, no hook, juvenile profanity, 2nd person POV that jabs its finger at me, or quasi-literature buried in pompous prose.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
PD: Consistency. When I buy a Gardner Dozois anthology of SF I know exactly what I'm getting: a well-informed selection of stories, some in the traditional Golden Age hard SF or space opera style, others more modern, softer science, even challenging subject matter. It'll be a roller-coaster of strange worlds, there will be something for everyone, lots of variety, some duds and a few gems, all firmly centered on speculation, nicely written with believable characters and milieus. I feel as though he knows me, a million like me, and how to entertain us.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
PD: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
The slush pile is huge. Statistically, the chances of getting published are remote. But it's astonishing how much of it is bad. Bad. I mean, really bad. For a decent writer, the chances of getting published are better than you might think. Trouble is, writing's hard.
So learn the craft of writing. Read three books, no more, on writing. Re-read your favourite stories but this time with craft and technique in mind. Then learn by doing: workshop your stories online at Hatrack River or Critters, or in meat-space with a local writing group. Not only is having your work critiqued a great way to find out what works and what doesn't, by critting other people's work one learns more about one's own writing. Read potential markets: find out what they like. Before submitting, either workshop the story or get someone you trust (in terms of taste and honesty) to read and crit it: revise it once or twice but not twenty times, for you'll lose the passion you had when you first wrote it. Put it to one side for a while, then read it with a fresh mind. Read and write, and read and write, and then do it again.
Thank you, Pat. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/15--Six Questions for Jacob Uitti, Managing Editor, The Monarch Review
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
PD: A fresh idea, or a new take on an old concept. I want to be intrigued, amused, challenged, given insight into someone else's world, a brief escape from this world.
Stylish writing. Not necessarily the literary kind, maybe not even grammatically correct, but prose that draws me in, that matches the milieu and its characters, creates atmosphere, that delights in the telling of the story.
Hope. I love reading about winners, people who overcome big challenges and little ones, or at least start.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
PD: Not credible. I love SF, especially the incredible kind. But I have to be willing to suspend disbelief. The story has to hang together with an internal logic. No matter how daft its ideas, the incredible bits have to be consistent. The characters, their motivations, reactions, behaviours, too, have to make sense, even if “sense” in their world is nonsense.
Everybody dies, or MC kills everyone off or, even worse, commits suicide. (I sometimes think the writer needs counseling, or a shoulder to cry on, not publication.)
Abstract info dump, or a lecture pretending to be a story. I want to be drawn into the action, with a character I care about, a problem to deal with that's interesting and an ending of hope.
There's a fourth which bears mentioning, for the stories that avoid the first three. Short stories often have a surprise ending; it's part of their charm. But if it's a complete surprise it fails. It has to be foreshadowed, a hard technique to master but immensely powerful because the surprise feels real: one feels “Darn, I didn't see that coming – but I should have, could have, might have.” And that's a satisfying ending.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
PD: I would have said plot more than character when I was younger. Then, one of my favourite authors was Asimov, often criticised for his shallow characters. I didn't care because I loved his informed speculation about where science might take us ... and was no doubt shallow myself.
Perhaps because I'm older, and have read all the SF there is to read (or so it sometimes seems) I'm more likely to be attracted by interesting characters. Plot remains vital, as is a strange milieu (I'm still drawn to SF more than anything else) but it's more important that the characters deal with their problems and interact with each other and their world in a manner that's engaging. I like to feel they're my friends while I'm reading. I love it when, because of the strange milieu, somebody does something surprising yet completely in character: the Harry Potter stories are full of such delights.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
PD: (Suzanne, FFO's Editor, summarises comments from us slush readers in the rejection letter.)
I teach adults for a living; I'm naturally inclined to offer comments. They'll often appear negative because, to save time, I won't bother saying things like “The fact that I'm commenting means there's something in your writing I want to encourage.” I'll try to summarise what worked, and what didn't. I often want to say, “You really ought to workshop this story before submitting it, to get the bugs out.”
I won't comment when the author demonstrates respect neither for me nor himself by not bothering to learn the basics of writing. Common symptoms include careless spelling, grammar or punctuation, no hook, juvenile profanity, 2nd person POV that jabs its finger at me, or quasi-literature buried in pompous prose.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
PD: Consistency. When I buy a Gardner Dozois anthology of SF I know exactly what I'm getting: a well-informed selection of stories, some in the traditional Golden Age hard SF or space opera style, others more modern, softer science, even challenging subject matter. It'll be a roller-coaster of strange worlds, there will be something for everyone, lots of variety, some duds and a few gems, all firmly centered on speculation, nicely written with believable characters and milieus. I feel as though he knows me, a million like me, and how to entertain us.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
PD: What advice would you give to aspiring authors?
The slush pile is huge. Statistically, the chances of getting published are remote. But it's astonishing how much of it is bad. Bad. I mean, really bad. For a decent writer, the chances of getting published are better than you might think. Trouble is, writing's hard.
So learn the craft of writing. Read three books, no more, on writing. Re-read your favourite stories but this time with craft and technique in mind. Then learn by doing: workshop your stories online at Hatrack River or Critters, or in meat-space with a local writing group. Not only is having your work critiqued a great way to find out what works and what doesn't, by critting other people's work one learns more about one's own writing. Read potential markets: find out what they like. Before submitting, either workshop the story or get someone you trust (in terms of taste and honesty) to read and crit it: revise it once or twice but not twenty times, for you'll lose the passion you had when you first wrote it. Put it to one side for a while, then read it with a fresh mind. Read and write, and read and write, and then do it again.
Thank you, Pat. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/15--Six Questions for Jacob Uitti, Managing Editor, The Monarch Review
Monday, March 5, 2012
Six Questions for Suzanne Vincent, Editor in Chief, Flash Fiction Online
Flash Fiction Online publishes stories from 500-1,000 words containing "strong, interesting characters, plots, and (to some extent, at least) settings." Read the complete guidelines here.
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
SV: First and foremost, I'm always looking for stories with memorable characters; and more than simply memorable--characters who are well-drawn out, who I can empathize with, and who are well-suited to leading me into the story with them. I equate a story to a party. I, as a reader, have been invited to the party, but I'm much more likely to enjoy myself immediately at the party if I have someone I know and am interested in to show me around. So if the author uses a few lines to introduce me to the main character and help me care about what he's doing and why, I'll be much happier to keep reading about him, and, therefore, much more likely to consider the story for publication. Some of my favorite stories are ones in which the author succeeds in interesting me in a story, through the main character, in the very first sentence.
Secondarily, I look for something different, something unique about the story that makes it stand out from the thousands of other submissions we receive yearly. I'm not talking about gimmicks. I'm talking about something within the story itself that hasn't already been done hundreds of times before. Which means authors should be reading our magazine (and other story sources) so they're not submitting something redundant. Be aware of publishing trends. After the success of Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series, for example, we were inundated with good-guy-vampire stories. Personally, I wouldn’t lose sleep if I never saw another vampire story again. On the market front, if an author sees that I’ve just published a story about scarecrows it wouldn’t be a good idea to send me a scarecrow story, because I'm not likely to publish another story about scarecrows again soon afterward. It's also a good idea to Google those lists of 'What we see too often' that many magazines have available.
Thirdly, I'm looking for writing that sparkles! Being able to write coherently is one thing, but being able to put words together in such a way that the prose SINGS is another. But singing prose isn't going to sell a story by itself. Otherwise we'd publish a lot more literary fiction. It’s really mostly icing on the cake, but it’s icing that’ll sell a well-made cake.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
SV: Aside from cardboard characters, redundant storylines, and bland prose, I'd say we reject an awful lot of stories because, simply put, they're not stories. Our magazine publishes stories, not synopses, not fragments, not plotless slices-of-life. We crave a clear plot and a clear resolution--which isn't easy to do in 1000 words or less.
We also reject too many stories over guidelines issues. We (as is true of every market) have our guidelines for very specific reasons, and an author is going to make me unhappy with him if he doesn't show he is considerate of MY time by reading and strictly adhering to the guidelines. You know, we're actually one of the more forgiving professional markets on guidelines issues. Most pro markets won't even give a story a sideways glance if the author has failed to adhere to guidelines. Automatic and instant rejection.
But in the end, most stories are rejected because they just don't turn my crank. Every editor, no matter who he/she is, has his own personal tastes, and oftentimes I reject a story just because I don't really like it that much, because I have some personal bias against its content or style or point of view. This is true of every editor. I can’t help that I don’t particularly like curry. If you put a dish of curry in front of me, I’m not going to like it. But there’ll be someone else out there who’ll LOVE it! It’s the same with stories. Submitting stories is a game of roulette, really. You spin, you send, and if you're very lucky you get the right story on the desk of the right editor at the right time. The good news is, if you don't give up and keep playing, you're bound to win eventually.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
SV: For our purposes at Flash Fiction Online, plot and character are of equal importance. We've rejected a lot of beautifully-written stories with interesting plots because the main character is two-dimensional, and we've rejected a lot of stories about fascinating characters because the plot is incomplete or uninteresting. Besides, they both serve important functions in any story. A plot makes for something to be interested in, but the character gives us a reason to care about it.
Personally, I tend to feel the same way. In my spare time, I look for books/stories with fascinating plots and well-written characters—both.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
SV: Sometimes. We have a three-tiered selection system. The first round, no. We really wish we could, but we don’t have the time to give personal comments to seven or eight hundred authors each month. Authors should realize that most editors and editorial staff members out there don’t do this as a day job. We have to fit it in with all our other personal, professional, and family responsibilities. So, no.
However, at the second tier, my staff team leaders have the option to give personal comments if they wish. We’re more likely to be helpful to first-time authors who are just getting their feet wet in the submission rat race, or to authors whose stories were well-received but just didn’t quite make the cut.
At our top tier—our winnowing round—all authors receive comments based on staff discussion about each story.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
SV: I’m going to frame this in an ‘I expect myself…’ format:
First and foremost, I expect myself to be true to my word. This means that I’ll be trustworthy, but also that I’ll expect authors to heed my word. If I say I’ll reject your story because it’s shorter than our guidelines allow, I’m going to reject your story because it’s shorter than the guidelines allow—end of story.
I expect myself to be fair. A good story is a good story, no matter who wrote it. I’ve rejected stories by pro authors and accepted stories by first-time authors based solely on the story itself. Our mission at FFO is not to further the careers of anyone. Our mission is to publish amazing stories, no matter their source.
I expect myself to be polite and respectful in all my dealings with authors and the public. Mind you, I will only stretch so far. I’m not hugely tolerant of snarky, conceited authors—like a recent author with numerous publications who submitted a 260 word poem to our 500 to 1000 word fiction market (remember my comments about reading guidelines) and replied “…good luck to you…in finding something half as good.” Um. Wow. I asked her not to bother submitting with us again.
I expect myself to work tirelessly in searching through the endless haystack seeking the sterling silver needles, the absolute gems of short-short fiction. And, in the end, that’s why I do this job. It’s what makes it all worthwhile. That moment when I open a story file, start reading, keep reading, get to the end and smile or wipe away a tear or sit breathless and awestruck. I suppose it’s the same kind of high that keeps people pumping nickels into slot machines.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
SV: What’s the best piece of advice you can share with new authors?
Work. One of my favorite quotes is from Jack London, who said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Good writing takes work. It takes practice. It takes study. It takes determination. It takes persistence. The same apply to getting published. I won’t promise you that you’re going to be the next JK Rowling. In reality, not everyone’s cut out to be an author, just like not everyone’s cut out to be an American Idol. Some just don’t have the pipes, even though they believe they do. But there is no such thing as a successful author who has not done (and who does not continue to do) these things.
Thank you, Suzanne. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/8--Six Questions for Kristin Roahrig, Editor, Lissette’s Tales of the Imagination
SQF: What are the top three things you look for in a story and why?
SV: First and foremost, I'm always looking for stories with memorable characters; and more than simply memorable--characters who are well-drawn out, who I can empathize with, and who are well-suited to leading me into the story with them. I equate a story to a party. I, as a reader, have been invited to the party, but I'm much more likely to enjoy myself immediately at the party if I have someone I know and am interested in to show me around. So if the author uses a few lines to introduce me to the main character and help me care about what he's doing and why, I'll be much happier to keep reading about him, and, therefore, much more likely to consider the story for publication. Some of my favorite stories are ones in which the author succeeds in interesting me in a story, through the main character, in the very first sentence.
Secondarily, I look for something different, something unique about the story that makes it stand out from the thousands of other submissions we receive yearly. I'm not talking about gimmicks. I'm talking about something within the story itself that hasn't already been done hundreds of times before. Which means authors should be reading our magazine (and other story sources) so they're not submitting something redundant. Be aware of publishing trends. After the success of Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight series, for example, we were inundated with good-guy-vampire stories. Personally, I wouldn’t lose sleep if I never saw another vampire story again. On the market front, if an author sees that I’ve just published a story about scarecrows it wouldn’t be a good idea to send me a scarecrow story, because I'm not likely to publish another story about scarecrows again soon afterward. It's also a good idea to Google those lists of 'What we see too often' that many magazines have available.
Thirdly, I'm looking for writing that sparkles! Being able to write coherently is one thing, but being able to put words together in such a way that the prose SINGS is another. But singing prose isn't going to sell a story by itself. Otherwise we'd publish a lot more literary fiction. It’s really mostly icing on the cake, but it’s icing that’ll sell a well-made cake.
SQF: What are the top three reasons a story is rejected, other than not fitting into your answers to the above question and why?
SV: Aside from cardboard characters, redundant storylines, and bland prose, I'd say we reject an awful lot of stories because, simply put, they're not stories. Our magazine publishes stories, not synopses, not fragments, not plotless slices-of-life. We crave a clear plot and a clear resolution--which isn't easy to do in 1000 words or less.
We also reject too many stories over guidelines issues. We (as is true of every market) have our guidelines for very specific reasons, and an author is going to make me unhappy with him if he doesn't show he is considerate of MY time by reading and strictly adhering to the guidelines. You know, we're actually one of the more forgiving professional markets on guidelines issues. Most pro markets won't even give a story a sideways glance if the author has failed to adhere to guidelines. Automatic and instant rejection.
But in the end, most stories are rejected because they just don't turn my crank. Every editor, no matter who he/she is, has his own personal tastes, and oftentimes I reject a story just because I don't really like it that much, because I have some personal bias against its content or style or point of view. This is true of every editor. I can’t help that I don’t particularly like curry. If you put a dish of curry in front of me, I’m not going to like it. But there’ll be someone else out there who’ll LOVE it! It’s the same with stories. Submitting stories is a game of roulette, really. You spin, you send, and if you're very lucky you get the right story on the desk of the right editor at the right time. The good news is, if you don't give up and keep playing, you're bound to win eventually.
SQF: Which of the following statements is true and why? Plot is more important that character. Character is more important than plot. Plot and character are equally important.
SV: For our purposes at Flash Fiction Online, plot and character are of equal importance. We've rejected a lot of beautifully-written stories with interesting plots because the main character is two-dimensional, and we've rejected a lot of stories about fascinating characters because the plot is incomplete or uninteresting. Besides, they both serve important functions in any story. A plot makes for something to be interested in, but the character gives us a reason to care about it.
Personally, I tend to feel the same way. In my spare time, I look for books/stories with fascinating plots and well-written characters—both.
SQF: Do you provide comments when you reject a story?
SV: Sometimes. We have a three-tiered selection system. The first round, no. We really wish we could, but we don’t have the time to give personal comments to seven or eight hundred authors each month. Authors should realize that most editors and editorial staff members out there don’t do this as a day job. We have to fit it in with all our other personal, professional, and family responsibilities. So, no.
However, at the second tier, my staff team leaders have the option to give personal comments if they wish. We’re more likely to be helpful to first-time authors who are just getting their feet wet in the submission rat race, or to authors whose stories were well-received but just didn’t quite make the cut.
At our top tier—our winnowing round—all authors receive comments based on staff discussion about each story.
SQF: What do you consider to be the primary responsibilities of an editor?
SV: I’m going to frame this in an ‘I expect myself…’ format:
First and foremost, I expect myself to be true to my word. This means that I’ll be trustworthy, but also that I’ll expect authors to heed my word. If I say I’ll reject your story because it’s shorter than our guidelines allow, I’m going to reject your story because it’s shorter than the guidelines allow—end of story.
I expect myself to be fair. A good story is a good story, no matter who wrote it. I’ve rejected stories by pro authors and accepted stories by first-time authors based solely on the story itself. Our mission at FFO is not to further the careers of anyone. Our mission is to publish amazing stories, no matter their source.
I expect myself to be polite and respectful in all my dealings with authors and the public. Mind you, I will only stretch so far. I’m not hugely tolerant of snarky, conceited authors—like a recent author with numerous publications who submitted a 260 word poem to our 500 to 1000 word fiction market (remember my comments about reading guidelines) and replied “…good luck to you…in finding something half as good.” Um. Wow. I asked her not to bother submitting with us again.
I expect myself to work tirelessly in searching through the endless haystack seeking the sterling silver needles, the absolute gems of short-short fiction. And, in the end, that’s why I do this job. It’s what makes it all worthwhile. That moment when I open a story file, start reading, keep reading, get to the end and smile or wipe away a tear or sit breathless and awestruck. I suppose it’s the same kind of high that keeps people pumping nickels into slot machines.
SQF: What one question on this topic do you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
SV: What’s the best piece of advice you can share with new authors?
Work. One of my favorite quotes is from Jack London, who said, “You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” Good writing takes work. It takes practice. It takes study. It takes determination. It takes persistence. The same apply to getting published. I won’t promise you that you’re going to be the next JK Rowling. In reality, not everyone’s cut out to be an author, just like not everyone’s cut out to be an American Idol. Some just don’t have the pipes, even though they believe they do. But there is no such thing as a successful author who has not done (and who does not continue to do) these things.
Thank you, Suzanne. We all appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
NEXT POST: 3/8--Six Questions for Kristin Roahrig, Editor, Lissette’s Tales of the Imagination
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