The author, his writings, and his warped little mind.
At long last, “How Quickly We Forget” is up at Every Day Fiction. Please go by and have a read. The comments there are overwhelmingly positive so far. Read, rate, and comment.
I went for a brutal eight-mile (round trip) hike yesterday and now even typing is a challenge. Ouch. The falls were beautiful, but it was hard to appreciate them while dying of ouchiness. More updates when I return to civilization more permanently.
-Oso
I found a rejection waiting in my inbox when I got home. It was from Every Day Fiction.
Honestly, I’m glad the story got the boot. It was more of a scene from a teen horror movie than it was a real story. I wrote it and felt like I needed to do something with it. They were right to reject it. Drivel.
I seldom feel like this when reading over a rejected story. I sometimes think, “That could be better; I’ll fix it before I send it anywhere.” But it is rare that I turn my nose up like this.
It was a themed contest entry and it rolled out of my head. I will keep it in my what-was-I-thinking file along with the story about the doctor that turns into a horseman of the apocalypse, the one with sprites that make you stumble in the woods, and other ideas that were picked too green or perhaps even should have been composted.
I’ve run short of finished stories to submit places. “Poison Inside the Walls” has a new version up at Baen’s and will likely be my next WotF submission (unpleasant subjects aside). I need to do something with “The Will of Roshambo” but I’m not sure what. I may try to cut it to flash length; it may work better. My untitled sound story needs an ending and a deep-tissue rewrite. I have that Festival of the Naked Man story to start. Time and I just aren’t getting together well this summer.
Mourning cut our camping trip short.
My wife’s grandfather passed away yesterday. Viewing tomorrow, funeral Thursday. We packed up and came home so we could be part of the farewell.
J.W. was 96 and liveda good life. He was lonely; his wifeis in a home with Alzheimer’s. His body just gave out on him. He got to see the people who loved him before he passed. How many of us will be able to say that?
He was atough but sweet old man who will be missed, but he’s in a better place now. We will see him again one day. For now, we remember his best moments and prepare to finish our journeys without him.
If this blog has been quiet the past few days, it’s because I’m camping. No internet in Tennessee State Parks. (Imagine.) This post is a result of a daytrip home to drop off the dogs. Two dogs and a toddler proved too much for my wife and me. My in-laws were there, but they left when my wife’s grandfather fell ill (condition TBA). So the pups will be visited three times a day by one of my wife’s former students. We’ll miss them, but it frees up some good time with our bitty! It should also liberate some time for me to write.
Anyway, I’ll give an update when I get back.
I am very unhappy.
I received my copy of The Rejected Quarterly today and found more than a few librties taken with my story. I understand that a little editorial discretion is to be expected, even appreciated, but there comes a point where the author will become offended.
It started with small stuff. A paragraph split into two paragraphs, a narrative aside comment grouped into quotation marks (a if spoken aloud…by the wrong character). I took those in stride; they really just changed the perspective of the story. But then…
In a fairly complex part of the story, where the protagonist explains the root of his psychological problems, twenty-eight words were completely omitted. It ruined the logic of the story. The printed version makes no sense. That reflects on me (assuming anyone reads TRQ). They didn’t ruin a masterpiece, but it was a clever story that comes across a lot less clever when you start scratching your head and saying “what did I miss?” You missed twenty-eight words.
Why did they do it? The splice point makes sense from a bad-typesetter perspective, but I sent an electronic copy of the story that should have been pretty much cut-and-paste. It seems as though the cut was made in order to save the story from spilling over onto the next page. If they needed twenty-eight words cut, I could have cut from several different places, just sectioning out a joke or a POV reaction. It’s too sloppy to be an attempted edit. It was simply sloppiness and is unacceptable.
I am furious and embarrassed. I had intended to buy copies of the issue as gifts for my mother and maybe some other people. No longer. I don’t expect to apply there again. I wonder if others have had this experience before. I have not shared my displasure with the editor yet; I’m not sure how to approach it. All I know is that I’m unhappy.
-Oso Enojado
I’m not talking about sending The Clash to college, I’m talking about the use of improper punctuation.
Were you paying attention? I just did it. Very first sentence. (We’ll discuss fragments in another post.) The two clauses in that sentence are both independent an thus should be joined by a conjunction (and/but/or/a few others) or a semicolon. But I used a comma. What kind of vandal does that make me, desecrating the laws of punctuation like that?
Renni Browne and David King, in their book Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, suggest that using commas in the place of conjunctions or semicolons (in small doses) can lend some modern sophistication to a story. They especially seem to advocate the use in dialogue, but it follows by extension that character thoughts might also benefit from such comma usage. They claim it better represents the rhythm of human speech.
“Don’t worry about it, she’s only sixteen.”
“Try the blue ones, they taste like cotton candy.”
He pushed the engines harder, the entire ship started to shake.
In these examples, a semicolon is probably the “correct” punctuation mark to use. Do the commas detract from the meaning? I doubt it. (Full disclosure: the first sentence is from the book, the other two are mine.) They could even be independent sentences with periods where the commas are. That might make the sentences seem choppy (and hence the paragraph or even a scene). It’s a convention I try to pay attention to when I read. I tend to like it, though semicolons and I are still well acquainted.
I carry the convention a bit further. For instance, I occasionally leave out commas between independent clauses joined with a conjunction. This was pointed out to me in a recent critique. While the critiquer suggested the offense was widespread, this was the sentence used to illustrate:
Her son would remain a [drug] dealer and she would continue to supply him.
I confess, there should definitely be a comma in front of the and. But. (Wow, how’s that for a fragment? Too much?) The point of this part of the scene was to express the main character’s resgnation to the fact that she has fallen into a perpetual cycle that she can’t escape. The thoughts are supposed to be droning and a bit muddled. I feel like the run-on sentence here portrays that feeling pretty well, kind of a punctuation poetry. I’m not great with poetic devices like alliteration that could probably do something similar (I try on occasion). I just think it works. It can also work to express when a character feels rushed or anxious.
To me, this falls in the same category as starting sentences with conjunctions and ending sentences with prepositions. I wouldn’t do it in a dissertation; I find it acceptable — even beneficial — in fiction.
Am I an expert? Interesting question. I have no degrees in English (or any other language), literature, creative writing, needlepoint, poetry, or juggling. I have no professional publishing credits. I have never held a job as any sort of editor. I’m not even very good with chopsticks. So who am I to say these things are okay?
Then again, I do have more published SF stories than any English teacher/professor I ever had (that I know of, some might lead secret lives). I can, of course, point to a thousand examples from true professionals (but those big-wigs can get away with anything). And who is more qualified than me to declare what belongs in my fiction? Oh yeah, editors.
Will an editor reject my story because it needed a semicolon instead of a comma? I hope not. They might even decide I didn’t know the difference between a semicolon and a comma and still request a rewrite, perhaps even asign the editing chore in-house. More likely they would decide the story was pretty good and buy it if it was close enough that punctuation was the deciding factor.
I’d like to think that some editors (not likely all, but some) would hop on board with Browne and King and find sophistication in the punctuation (or at least appreciate the rhyme). I have a fairly significant mastery of the rules of grammar and thus use these non-standard forms intentionally (or at worst subconsciously). I consider them a strength in my writing. I just need to find editors who agree.
It might be wise to reserve these non-standard techniques until after the reader is hooked. Wouldn’t it suck to have a story nixed by a slush reader because I missed two commas and a semicolon on the first page? Or have an editor open an e-submission in Word and see nothing but green squiggles?
So I will continue to dabble in the dark arts of non-standard punctuation when I find it to my benefit. I’ll go through a story or two tomorrow with an eye for this specifically; overuse can minimize the effect, after all. I encourage people to do the same, even watch for it in stories I critique to see if I can find a reason they chose a given style. (I probably miss some intentionals and over-rationalize mistakes.)
For the record, I encourage my reviewers to point out any fishy punctuation they find in my stories. I may not have done it intentionally or I may not realize how often I’ve done it. Never break a rule you don’t know and you always need to know when yyou broke a rule.
-Oso
I’m so excited! I have two stories coming out this month. My issue of The Rejected Quarterly with “Excuse Me” is out soon. In fact, I should get my contributor’s copy any day. Apparently these bookstores carry TRQ, or you can buy a copy directly from their website. The rejections themselves are often enough to warrant the cover price. I’ll have a full sales pitch for them once I’ve seen the issue.
My story, “How Quickly We Forget” hits Every Day Fiction on July 29th (my anniversary, as it turns out). Be sure to read it and give me lots of stars. You should be dropping by EDF anyway; their supply of flash fiction is perpetual and delightful.
Read Me!
I just read a Clarion Update from Rochita and it helped me understand that I may not have been ready for Clarion West.
I don’t doubt that my writing is up to snuff for the workshop (I wouldn’t have been waitlisted if it weren’t). What I may lack is a certain level of self-awareness. What kind of fiction do I do best? What do I enjoy writing about most? What is it I bring to stories that no one else can? I suspect that the workshop is supposed to help me find those answers, but it’s been a while since I even asked those questions.
The questions I’ve been asking recently have been “How can I make this story better?” or “How can I turn that into a story?” or even “Why can’t I finish this !@#$**! story?” The answer to some of those questions may be to abandon them and try something else, something I need to write rather than want to write. What stories are really mine to tell? Ideas are cheap. Any idiot can come up with an idea for a story. I need to do a better job of finding the right idea for me.
I think that is what I’m supposed to be working on right now. For instance, I think my military clone novel (Honor by Proxy) is a great idea and may be my best chance at selling a novel. However, I am far from a military expert. That doesn’t mean I can’t write the story, but it may mean I need a new direction. While my YA space novel (untitled) will undoubtedly draw on my more immediate expertise as a close observer of children (teacher). I don’t yet have my characters polished for that one, so it keeps skidding to a halt every time I try to work on it.
Am I well-suited for YA writing? I don’t know. I’ve sold two stories to youth-themed publications (“Faerie Belches” and “Brother Goo”). Time will tell.
I need to reorganize my projects, set some deadlines, and bring order to my chaos. (It can still be chaos, just scheduled and catalogued chaos.) I have eight months (+/-) to raise my game and become part of the class of 2010. Right now “Poison Inside the Walls” seems my strongest submission candidate (and likely my next WotF entry), though “Secondhand Rush” (my current WotF entry) seems a good second. I might be able to use both. But ideally I’ll create something between now and then that eclipses both.
Scott W. Baker .net 