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| Posted By : Flint - 10/15/2005 12:09 AM | After reading issue 1 of flashing swords, just after its release, I thought I’d write a story of my own. I wasn’t totally new to writing at this point as I’d written a few stories in the area of superhero fiction. Anyway, after much thought and typing I finished my piece: “Gods of The Deep”. I submitted to Howard and waited. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting to be accepted, but I was certainly hoping. After a while I received my reply which said that I had some interesting ideas but my pace was off. I accepted this as fair comment, although I couldn’t see it myself, and sent the story to The Sword Review. Once again I was rejected but this time it wasn’t so much pace as the mixture of stories within the story. One comment said that there was a decent story in there but it took a bit of work to find it.
After being rejected twice I had a good think about all of the reasons and although I could sort of see the problem, I couldn’t really. As far as I was concerned it was all relevant and vital detail. I’m happy to say that I realised the people who had read my story probably knew more than me so I waited for enlightenment—it came this morning.
It’s been months since I looked at the piece but for some reason, on a rainy Saturday; with a head foggy from red wine, I decided to see if it was worth messing with. I’d only read the first two pages when it was all so very clear to me. I’d been trying to write a short story whilst dreaming of a novel; I spent one big paragraph filling in detail on a bloke who is totally irrelevant to the story. The first two pages could have been summed up in a few sentences and then the real story could have flowed. What I’d written was a short story and buried it under plot and character detail for an imagined novel.
The really interesting thing is that it’s taken this long for the penny to drop. Thank god I don’t suffer from: “You’re all fools not to see my genius!”
This writing lark really is interesting; I like it!
Flint aka Paul McManus
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| Posted By : Rob Santa - 10/15/2005 3:49 AM | Paul, that's why my editing process takes months, so that I'm not so familiar with the writing that I can't see the flaws (and, oh yes, there's always flaws). I clean up the manuscript as best I can then set it aside for several weeks. Every time I come back to it - EVERY time - I wonder what it was I was thinking and give the story a sound thrashing. When I'm editing a manuscript immediately after I create it, I do so with a scalpel. But after I set it down for a few months, I edit it with an axe.
Good luck with your writing.
Rob Santa |
| Posted By : Flint - 10/15/2005 6:02 AM | It looks like I'm in good company then!
Flint aka Paul McManus |
| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 10/15/2005 9:36 AM | That certainly has happened to me, that I couldn't figure out myself what wasn't working with a story. It is good to have peers, or in my case a very smart wife, to keep you honest.
"It's a Living" Byzarium--- coming in November!
"Voice of the Spoiler" and "An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" Now appearing in The Sword Review
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net |
| Posted By : John Hocking - 10/15/2005 11:07 AM | Good job staying the course, Flint.
The thing that bothers me most about writing is that I can hammer out a piece that really seems as if it's captured the mental vision that led me to pick up my pen in the first place.
Then I'll look at it, maybe a day or a month later, and be stunned at how inadequate it is.
It isn't the fact that I didn't write as well as I wanted that gets me. I'm afraid that's a given.
It's the fact I deceived myself into thinking that I did.
I gotta re-work it, show it to someone else, re-work it, read it aloud to myself and then re-work it again.
And maybe the story ends up somewhere near where I wanted it to be.
Maybe. |
| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 10/15/2005 11:14 AM | Yeah, very seldom does a story get anywhere near the Platonic ideal livning in the cave of our heads.
"It's a Living" Byzarium--- coming in November!
"Voice of the Spoiler" and "An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" Now appearing in The Sword Review
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net |
| Posted By : TRtheJ - 10/15/2005 3:11 PM | Yes, it is a problem with me, too, I have found with my first submission to Flashing Swords last fall, this feeling you've got it right after the "final" draft is done. Howard sent it back with some good comments, some of which focused on areas that'd worried me a bit, which I sat on 'til mid August when the urge came to give my story a reread/rewrite. Within a week I'd rewritten it, trimming here, trimming there and correcting the story's weakest scene. (I resubmitted it, but have yet to hear anything.)
Anyway, I think I have learned a lesson from this, the same as you all. Don't rush it! |
| Posted By : Red Viper - 10/15/2005 4:54 PM | Guys: The critique group at swordandsorcery.org is a very useful resource. The best thing about the group, to me, is the fact that it consists of people fluent in the genre. They know the conventions of s-and-s, they know the cliches, so they can tell you if you're not cutting it -- and they won't spend a lot of time trying to make your s-and-s read like something by the Brontes.
The sessions consist of five writers, supplying three stories each according to a schedule. So far, the discussions have been lively and helpful. I believe the stories I've shared with the group came out better than they were before. When S.C. Bryce starts signing people up for the next group, consider joining. It'll be a big help to your writing, and you'll get to read a lot of fun stuff, too.
Red Viper, aka Steve Goble
Current and upcoming stories: "The Redemption of Calthus," in Flashing Swords now; "Gram's Gift," in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9, out now; "The Grey Mother" and "The Bloated Curse," upcoming in Flashing Swords; "The Hungry Bottle," upcoming in Sword's Edge |
| Posted By : erazmus - 10/15/2005 5:07 PM | The most annoying thing about this is it makes deadlines tough. And its much more annoying after you've made a sale, see your work n print, and only then see all the things that would have made the story so much better.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine coming Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises |
| Posted By : Jay Stevol - 10/15/2005 6:25 PM | | I sometimes wish I could just wipe my mind clean after completing a work. Maybe hypnotism is the answer... |
| Posted By : MichaelEhart - 10/15/2005 6:31 PM | quote:
I sometimes wish I could just wipe my mind clean after completing a work. Maybe hypnotism is the answer...
Beer
"It's a Living" Byzarium--- coming in November!
"Voice of the Spoiler" and "An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" Now appearing in The Sword Review
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/ |
| Posted By : Jay Stevol - 10/15/2005 6:35 PM | | Hmmm. Then I might not have enough functioning braincells for the rewrite. Either that or I think that thish here shtory iss the besht damn shtory in the wooorrrlldd. *vomits on keyboard* |
| Posted By : Flint - 10/16/2005 3:14 AM | It's great to see so many responses. I particularly liked Rob Santa's comment:
"When I'm editing a manuscript immediately after I create it, I do so with a scalpel. But after I set it down for a few months, I edit it with an axe."
That really seems to sum it up.
Flint aka Paul McManus
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| Posted By : baritsu6 - 10/16/2005 7:31 AM | flint, keep on pluuging away, we all be reading your stuff one day---ralph
ralph grasso |
| Posted By : Flint - 10/16/2005 9:50 AM | | Thanks Ralph! |
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