This Week’s Editoral Advice: Do Not Reply to Rejection Letters
Filed Under: SF Business, SF Podcasting, Writing Advice
This is still happening from time to time with my work for Escape Pod. I had kind of thought by now that arguing with an editor over their comments in a rejection letter was commonly considered a bad idea to be avoided at all costs, but I’m still getting these at Escape Pod. Let me put it to you all straight.
Nothing makes me more disinclined to purchase your work than you arguing with me about me not buying a story.
There are a lot of minor mistakes you can make as a slush writer. I overlook most of them. For instance, we get sent things as attachments when our guidelines call for them to be in the body of an email. I might mention it briefly to the submitter, but I don’t hold it against them much. There are so many differing e-submissions systems that I can understand why this happens. No big deal.
But when you decide to quibble with an editor over the points of his or her rejection letter, you’re crossing a professional line. You are entitled to your opinion. It’s a good thing if you have enough faith in your story that you will continue to send it out, because one editor’s opinion doesn’t amount to much, which is why I say my editorial comments are not intended as writing advice.
The main thing it will lead to is an editor not providing you any detailed feedback at all. We will simply write form rejections for your work from then on out. Because nothing is more annoying to me, at least, than someone deciding to bicker over a rejection. It’s not going to change our minds. It’s only going to make you look worse. So we’ll stop giving you points to quibble with. This is not good for you. We don’t want to do this.
It is a no-win situation for the writer.
So just don’t do it. Stick to creating your editor voodoo dolls and slagging us off to your cats. Take out your frustrations another way, even if the editor is dead wrong. It doesn’t matter.
And another thing– I would rather not see replies, even short thank yous, at all. It clutters up my inbox, which I work very hard to keep organized, and your continuing submissions with us is thanks enough. Tack what you want to say on to the cover letter of your next submission. I would prefer that.
Also, Machine Gun Submissions
Oh, and finally, one last thing– it does you no good to send me story after story after story when I’m reading them quickly, when you get rejected every time. You should cool it and wait a bit between submissions. Probably want to wait and let me forget about how I rejected 3 stories in an hour. Because I do notice, and I know other editors do too, especially with e-submissions at ‘zines with relatively fast turnaround times. Nick Mamatas even had a submissions limit. I’m considering implementing one if this keeps up. At the very least, you’ll stop getting such rapid replies.
What Is a Podcastable Story?
Filed Under: Podcast, SF Podcasting, Writing Advice
Greg Van Eekhout asks:
Thoughts on what kinds of stories translate well to podcasts and what kinds don’t?
First of all, full disclaimer. I am the managing editor at Escape Pod, the science fiction audio podcast. I’ve been doing this job for about 3 or 4 months now, and I am by no means an expert on to topic. I can only comment as to my personal tastes here. I reserve the right to change my opinion as I learn more about my job and what seems to work.
I can talk much more easily about what does not work well in podcasts. Here are a few things:
- Typographic weirdness, of the sort you would see in The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- Fiction that plays with formatting in some way–fake news report, branching dialogue, and so on. This would be great if we produced audio dramas, but Escape Pod approaches production in a very straighforward narrative fashion. I’d love to do more radio-drama style readings, and we have one coming up that was recorded live by Steve Eley at a convention. But the production that goes into a regular episode is difficult enough.
- Stories that have a lot of very short scenes and lots of jumping around in time.
The last one is the one I’m least certain about, but I find that stories that go back and forth in time can be a bit more confusing in audio format. On the page, it seems easier to organize the events into a chronological order, but when listening to a story, it is harder to do this. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s definitely something I pay attention to.
Okay, so what works particularly well? Here are some general ideas:
- A strong, unique perspective or voice. It’s my experience that some of the most popular EP episodes have been from a very unique character, such as a bomb dog or the AI that resides in a soldier’s helmet. These stories are often in first person perspective. That’s not to say that I find first person better than third person. First person coupled with a really unique and orginal voice stands out very well. Like it does in regular fiction.
- All the other, usual things that make a story good.
Other than the few things I think don’t work that are specific to the audio format, I use basically the same criteria for selecting a story in audio that I would for selecting in print. I have some restrictions unique to Escape Pod, such as length. I can’t tell you how many times I remember what I think would be a great story fo rthe podcast, only to look it up and find out that it was a novella. It’s something I’d like to see us do more of in the future, but I’d want to pay more for them and possibly serialize them over the course of two or more episodes. It’s something I think about a little when I have time.
If you listen to podcast fiction, what do you think? What kinds of stories really work well for you in audio? Try to focus on the things you think work particularly well, and cite specific examples if you like. This will make up for my rather underdeveloped list. If you have something critical to say about a particular podcast story, share it on the forums over at the ‘cast or send it to our feedback email, as a favor to me, please.
Michael Bishop and Starship Sofa
Filed Under: SF Podcasting, Speculative Fiction
Tony has put together a really special episode of Starship Sofa this week, with a reading of Michael Bishop’s story, written in memory of his son who was one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting.
From Tony over at Starship Sofa:
StarShipSofa narrates Vinegar Peace, a SF story wrote by Michael Bishop for his son Jamie Bishop who died two years ago at the Virginia Tech shooting.
Michael Bishop says:
I wrote “Vinegar Peace” — in August of 2007 — because I had to. Our 35-year-old son, Jamie, died on the morning of April 16, 2007, as one of thirty-two victims of a disturbed shooter on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Jamie, an accomplished digital artist who did lovely covers for four or five of my books, was holding forth in Room 2007 of Norris Hall in his German class more than two hours after his eventual murderer had slain two students in a dormitory on another part of campus. The administration failed to issue a warning — a warning that might well have saved many lives — in a timely fashion. However, some of its members secured their own offices and notified their own family members of this initial event; and so the worst school shooting in the history of the United States claimed our son, four other faculty members (including a man, Dr Librescu, who had survived the Holocaust and who held a table against his classroom door until all own students could escape), four of Jamie’s students, and twenty-one other young people in Norris Hall, not to mention the first two victims in West Ambler-Johnston dorm. Another twenty-eight students were wounded by bullets or injured leaping from upper-story windows. Some of these young people will live with their injuries the rest of their lives
All of the administrators, with the exception of a woman who later died of a stroke or a heart attack (a death that my wife and I can’t help but attribute partially to the stress of living with the mistakes of the President and the other Policy Group members), remain in their positions. So much for accountability, and so much for justice.
In any case, “Vinegar Peace” grew from this disaster and from a grief that I can’t imagine ever laying totally aside. Jeri and I mourn Jamie’s loss every day in some private way, and we think continually of all the other parents and loved ones of the slain and injured who will carry a similar burden with them until they die. We think, too, of the parents and loved ones of the dead and wounded from the United States’s optional war in Iraq, who long for their dead and who pray for their injured with an intensity not a whit different from our own. How ironic that our son died on American soil. How sad the wasted potential and disfigured lives resulting from violence everywhere. And forgive me the inadequacy of these remarks. Clearly, I wrote a story because I could not address either my outrage or my grief in any other way.
Mike Bishop
StarShipSofa is very honoured and humbled to be allowed to bring this story to a wider audience. I know I speak for the SF community when I say our hearts and prayers go out to Mike and Jeri and all the families who have to live with this grief every day.
StarShipSofa Show No 82: Vinegar Peace, or, The Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage
As Ever,
Tony
Meet the New Managing Editor of Escape Pod
Filed Under: Podcast, SF Business, SF Podcasting, Speculative Fiction
Big news of the year so far– recently, Steve Eley of Escape Pod asked me if I would like to come on board as managing editor of Escape Pod. I would handle story selection for the most part (with his input), and the behind the scenes production pipeline. He would still host the show and do readings and be the aweome guy that he is.
So I jumped at the chance. I consider Escape Pod to be the most important thing happening in SF short fiction today. It reaches audiences that the print magazines never reach. I am sad to lose a reprint market for my own work, but I feel I can make a big impact with Escape Pod on the genre as a whole.
I ask your patience as I sort out the slush pile. It’s fairly deep and backlogged, and I will be tackling it as quickly as I can. If you’re thinking about submitting something, wait 2 weeks, and then fire away.
The production pipeline is also very short. I am going to be grabbing and producing a couple of stories within the next several days. If you are interested in narrating and can help with a super-rapid turnaround time while I get ramped up, and have done this before before or even if you just want to get started, drop me a line in the comments. Cat Rambo, I’m looking (with pleading eyes) at you…. ;)
