A brilliant concept - sort of.
I did a little experiment. I took someone else's WW mystery story that sold (it was well over a year old) and I copied it. Not word for word, but I copied the style, the pacing, the number of characters, how the detective thought. Everything. But I changed everything. If the deceased was a male, mine was a female. If the story took place in the country, mine was smack in the middle of the city. If the plot included a greedy developer who wanted to build a housing project, mine wanted to build a casino. If the killer used poison, my killer smothered the victim. The only thing I kept the same was the type of clue; that only the real killer could know some detail. I kept it because WW uses it so often, I figured they were comfortable with it. So ... same story but a different story.
It made it past the first readers. But it got rejected by Johnene.
So much for that bright idea. But it was worth a try.
19 comments:
Wow. It's hard to know exactly what they want in a mystery. At least you tried, and your story did make it to Johnene. Keep on trying, Jody. That's all I can say to any writer who is trying to make it to the printed page. I am fresh out of ideas for both mystery and romance stories. What do you have out right now? I've got two, one of each.
@ Joyce. Wellll... it was a longshot but I thought the story caught Johnene's eye for some reason, so maybe it's a winning combination of 'stuff'.
I got two mystery rejections this week from WW. They both made it to Seattle. I only have one story out now, a romance. I'm not sure if you remember but I wrote a romance with a ghost in it last November and I was talking about 'should I wait until Halloween?' on this blog. But the consensus was to
go ahead and submit. So I did, on Nov 25th. So far.. no rejection letter.
I have three more mystery rough drafts that I need to polish and send out to get some more stories in the pipeline, but I'm on vacation at the end of the month, so it's going to have to wait till February.
I just dragged my submittal book out... I have 37 submissions out there waiting for an answer. The oldest one was sent in August, the most recent was sent today.
I'm like the mouse in the picture. :)
Well, Jody, that is an interesting exercise. I am surprised it didn't sell, considering that most of the little "mysteries" are repeats of basically what they have already published.
You never know, do you? I do not consider myself a mystery writer, but both of the stories I sent to WW were sent on to Johnene...and rejected. I just sent another one yesterday. See what that one brings.
You don't have 37 stories at WW, I take it. Are they just out there in the ether?
I find the "romances" so much easier to write. Not easier to sell, though.
@ Mary Jo. Let me clear that up, I don't have 37 different stories, I have a bunch of stories that I've submitted to 37 different places. For example my story DVR Madness is out to nine different magazines. Besides WW I'm waiting to hear from mags like Upstreet, Fast Fiction, Real Simple, Stoneslide, Story Houston, The Weekly News, Best, You, Three Penny Review, Chicken Soup, The Quip, the New Yorker, Glimmertrain, Clarksworld, Saturday Evening Post, and Ladies Home Journal.
Many little sticks build a big fire. :)
So, out in the ether. Go get 'em, Tiger.
Absolutely right, Jody, the more irons you have in the fire, the greater your chance of success. Just one small note about Fast Fiction, the Australian mag - there's another new fiction ed there now, called Katherine Davidson. I'm thinking that maybe Nikki was only standing in for a time until a replacement could be found for Anthony. Mary Jo and I are now reworking those subs we sent last year that didn't sell and resubmitting them. Maybe a fresh eye will view them differently...
That was me, Chris, above. I forgot to type in my name!
@ Chris
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to go see if I have a story I can resub. :)
Jody, do you send the same story to multiple pubs? Do you check guidelines to see their policy on that? The literary journals are all different. I've tried Glimmer Train and The New Yorker, too; in fact, I start with them because they pay so much (don't know how much TNY pays, but I'm sure it's tops) and work my way down.
@ Tamara
I do look at their guidelines. I start with the top paying magazines. If they say NO simultaneous subs ... then I don't take the chance and I wait for them to get back to me. But for the magazines that pay under $100... I send the same story out to many at the same time. As a practical matter, and this is a business we're in -- this business of writing and selling, you can't wait 3-4 months for a magazine to get back to you with a no thank you so you can then send your story out again to someone else. Many times they never get back to you. If I've submitted to more than one venue and a story sells, I contact the others and let them know.
It's a risky strategy tho', Jody. I mistakenly did it with a small press mag in Canada (now defunct) and with Fast Fiction in Oz. They both accepted the story, the smaller paying Canadian one first. So then I had to contact both fiction eds and explain what had happened. Fortunately they were both okay about it and the story appeared in the two countries just weeks apart, but it gave me a few worries for a while though. The Canadian ed strongly urges writers to spread their work far and wide but with Fast Fiction I could have ended up losing a valuable market. Asking an editor to disregard a story he or she might have been preparing to use could mean you blot your copybook with them for future subs. I certainly wouldn't simultaneously sub to several mags in the same country.
@ Chris. It is always best to err on the side of caution. I hear you and agree it could be a risky business. Fast Fiction takes 90 days to respond, but they do pay pretty well. They're in my list of magazines that I try first. I've yet to sell to them, but I keep trying. Sooner or later I'll get the tone they're looking for.
A lot of magazines allow simultaneous subs so that makes it easier to spread a story around.
IMO professionalism needs to run both ways. They can't expect an author to sit tight on a story for 90-120 days. This isn't a hobby, it's a business. Frankly, they need us more than we need them. We're the talent end of the deal. Without writers, fiction magazines wouldn't have anything to print and they would all have to go home and find another job. I'd like to be treated a little better, not like I'm the red-headed step sister begging for crumbs.
It was the same when I shopped my book around. Harlequin took 18 months... I'm not kidding ... to finally give me a rejection. I can't wait a year and a half and then send it out to another house. I'd be in my grave before someone publishes it. I held on with Harlequin because they were my first choice and I wanted them. I had an agent with that book, and it made the first two cuts at HQ, but didn't make it at the end. But that wait taught me a lesson. Get out and promote your work. Don't let your fate lie in one pair of hands. After that I adopted a different strategy. So far I haven't burned any bridges, but I've also learned there are more bridges a little further down the river where I can cross.
If a magazine black lists me, so be it. They go out of business all the time and new ones start up. I'm rolling the dice.
You're right, it's a pain having to wait so long for the verdict on your short stories, but it's the sheer volume of submissions the magazines receive that causes the delay. I think it's generally accepted that novels are a different kettle of fish when it comes to submission. You've invested months, if not years, into your 80,000+ words and sending the synopsis and first three chapters to several companies at once is the norm. Telling them in your cover letter that you're subbing the work to other agents and publishers means they also know that there's the potential of a rival bidder. Quite an incentive to get in touch pdq if they like it.
I currently have three mini mysteries and one romance (not my thing but the cash is too good to pass up and I could end up surprising myself) out in the WW bin awaiting a response. I have learned with magazine article writing....Don't submit elsewhere unless rejected or if you request to withdraw your query thinking another mag will go for it quicker. If they have to make last minute changes because of a writer shopping around....my future acceptances would be nonexistent. Ideas flow constantly....create new stories and submit to ONE at a time. Just my advice from experience.
I agree, Michael. I do sub simultaneously to mags in different countries but only if the rights they ask for are specific to their country, not if they want all rights. I never sub simultaneously to several mags in the same country. If an editor has to make last minute changes to their pages because a writer has pulled the plug on a story they are never going to use that writer again. With markets so few and far between, why risk it? I keep a spiral notepad by me in which I make a note of where the story has been subbed and the date it went, and I update it every time work gets rejected or accepted, so it can either be sent out again or marked as no longer available to submit to America/Canada/UK/Oz, etc. It's too easy to forget where stuff went and inadvertently submit it again.
@ Chris. When you say UK/Oz... what is Oz?
Australia, Jody. That's one of the names we have for it, anyway (just don't mention the cricket).
@ Chris. Um... 'the cricket'? To me that's a bug. That's a sport, isn't it?
This is one of the things I find fascinating about our friendship. I don't always know what the heck you're talking about. :)
You're not alone in that, Jody, most folks don't know what I'm talking about half the time - the dog gets me tho', so that's fine.
Yes, cricket is a sport, very slow and gentle - bat and ball, stumps, boundaries, wickets, tea, deckchairs, polite applause. Often gets rained off for days on end. Well, it does when it's played here in England on a summer's day. Maybe that's why the Aussies are so good at it, all that sun means they actually get to play the thing. Like golf, it has a language all its own. LBW, daisy cutter, out for a duck, legover (yes, really) silly mid on, etc. It's a foreign language to most of us. We had a very famous cricket commentator who used to regularly get the giggles when he was commentating on matches, and on one occasion we had two players on the pitch, one called Peter Willie and the other Michael Holding. At one point in the match this commentator came out with the now classic line, The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willie. The airwaves were full of the sound of stifled giggles for several seconds after that.
Post a Comment