Tag: Baen’s Bar

The lift I needed

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

I confess, despite knowing the late speculative element made “Glow Baby” a WotF long shot, the flat rejection left me wondering about the story’s quality.  After all, it was the second story I submitted to Clarion SD (along with “Leech Run”) and was soundly rejected from Strange Horizons.  Of course I know how tough the Clarion competition is and SH is a tough market (what pro market isn’t?).

I wasn’t really down on the story, but I was questioning.  I needed feedback deeper than a form rejection.  I thought about sending it to OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, or Asimov’s, but even a close call there might warrant no more than a dismissive strip of paper or email. I had already passed the story through Critters and OWW seemed unlikely to produce many more useful gems (my two stories there have accumulated only two reviews each).  So where to go?  The bar.

Baen’s Bar, to be exact.  I hadn’t put anything there in a month or so.  I’m still hammering the kinks out of “Leech Run” based on their suggestions.  My other Bar graduate, “Secondhand Rush” is in the bin for WotF’s third quarter.  So I posted GB late last night and sat back to await comments.

While I value comments from every Bar Fly, the slush editors are always the comments I tremble over.  Gary Cuba sounded off on GB today.  Like the post title says, it was the boost I needed.

I won’t plaster his comments here, but I will share a quote or two.  First he said he wanted to stop reading after 200 words, then 500 words, then after 1000…(gulp), but he didn’t.  Why not?  He wasn’t sure; maybe it was “some sort of subtle tension” or “just the quality of the writing, which [he] thought was very good”, or “the slow but incessant churning of a millwheel, cracking husks of wheat, revealing more and more of the protag’s character (as well as her aunt’s) via her old memories” (my favorite), or the setting, or something else. Whatever it was, he did read to the end.  He felt the last half was “super” and liked the ending and the story as a whole.

I would go so far as to say that this may be one of those rare stories that stick with me for a while.

He agreed with something I decided a while ago: this story must be accepted in (pretty much) the form it has achieved.  The beginning can’t endure a lot of hack and slash or even reconstructive surgery.

One other thing Gary mentioned was that he thinks the story falls into the horror genre…”the best kind of horror”.  This was news to me, though others had suggested it brushed the edges.  I intend to leave “Glow Baby” at the Bar for a while, but I may eventually have to start seeking a horror market for it.  I don’t usually read horror, let alone write it, so I’m not sure where I might place a subtle horror story like this.  Market suggestions are most welcome.

In the meantime, I guess it’s back to the keyboard.  These stories aren’t going to write/edit/critique/rewrite/outline themselves.

-Oso

“Secondhand” reception

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

“Secondhand Rush” made its appearance at Baen’s Bar a few days ago.  Edith Maor was, as always, right on top of things and provided comments within hours of posting it.  She had some good points that really strenghtened my story.  She seems to have a habit of disliking my characters.  Either I really need to work on likeability or Edith and I just disagree.  It happens.  But when I disagree with an editor of a professional magazine, especially a gatekeeper like Edith, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I also seemed to have been too subtle in a few places.  The ending made reference to something only mentioned at the story’s begining in passing.  I built up the emphasis and made the end reference more direct.  I also clarified a minor character’s involvement (Axel) and made him a touch more important.

The biggest change was to the protagonist.  He was subtly afraid of death in the original (despite being a bit of a daredevil) but without cause.  In the rewrite, [SPOILER ALERT!!] he has multiple sclerosis.  The illness doesn’t change the plot much but changes the reader’s perception of it.  This came primarily from a reviewer questioning how desperate Chang was. It also came a little from Edith’s plea to make Chang more sympathetic.  I know she didn’t mean “pitiable”, but it came from the same place.  Chang isn’t pitiful at all (how many pitiful people climb the exterior of the Statue of Liberty?), just defiant of his illness.

Anyway, I really think this rewrite is a winner, probably 90% of the way to publishability.  If Baen doesn’t want it, WotF is probably the next stop.  I think it will fit their tastes well, based on some past winners I’ve read.  But if I really knew these kinds of things, I’d be writing those stories anyway.

I highly encourage aspiring writers to join Baen’s Bar even if they aren’t ready to post there.  Izanobu can vouch for the benefits of lurking.  Looking at the short, blunt editorial comments left to other authors by the slush editors is enlightening, as is viewing the progression from one iteration of a story to the next.  Pages load a little slow; that’s my only complaint as it impedes my lurk-and-browse technique.

-Oso

Rewriting and revision

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 7 Comments

As I mentioned in a few posts, I’ve been rewriting an old gem I found on my hard drive from at least five years ago, probably more. I think I just finished that rewrite, at almost exactly midnight on May 2nd.  I’ll probably want to edit more in a few days, but I’m pretty pleased with the results.

I didn’t cut the massive opening sequence I had considered axing.  It seemed to start kind of slow, but it was more the fault of excessive wordiness than anything else. Maybe I’ll stick it in Baen’s Bar to get some feedback.

In ways, “Secondhand Rush” is simpler than “Leech Run” which got slapped around.  It’s simpler in that the protagonist’s motivations are perfectly clear from the beginning.  His needs are simple, his life is simple, his goal is simple.

The story’s structure, however, is oddly complex.  It violates Jordan Lapp’s rule that a first person POV story should have no scene breaks.  I, in fact, jump periodically to other characters to eavesdrop of their conversations.  The story wouldn’t work without miranda7 and LucAs [sic] popping in and out.  It’s the nature of the narration that it happen that way.  Trust me, it works.  Some people may not like it, but it works.

miranda7 and LucAs also converse a lot like my students do with text messages.  It’s a byproduct of their living situation (they are downloaded into computers for immortality).  It may make their dialogue tough to read, but it’s always short blurbs and it fits the story.

I’m proud of this little creation.  Sad that I shelved it so long ago.  It wasn’t ready for the public and I wasn’t ready to fix it.  I’m curious to see its reception.  If I don’t declare otherwise here, I’ll have “Secondhand Rush” up in Baen’s Universe Slush by the end of the weekend.

In related news, I have put my Critters membership on hiatus.  I still love Critters, I just don’t have time to keep up my crit count.  That, and I’m considering joining the “sff online writing workshop”, maybe next month when school is getting out for the summer.  (Tarcie, I haven’t forgotten.)  Hopefully I’ll have another story ready by then.

Glow Baby update

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I got my rejection from Stange Horizons today.  I expected it from such a tough market.  49 days it took.  Not bad.

This TykeLight from MOBI inspired "Glow Baby".
This TykeLight from MOBI inspired "Glow Baby".

I want to squeeze “Glow Baby” in under the wire for the second quarter WotF contest.  I believe the deadline is Tuesday.  I’m trying to brush it up, maybe hint at the speculative portion earlier in the story than where it currently shows up on page four, solidify the ending.  I’m not sure how it will fare, this being a story for select tastes, moreso than “Leech Run” that pulled my first HM.

I’ll let everyone know if it gets out in time.  It should since it’s no more than a day worth of editing I need.  This was one of my submissions to Clarion SD (and we know how that went with the whole close-but-no-cigar response).  We’ll see.

On a related note, I am leaving “Leech Run” alone for a while.  I can’t remember if I declared that already or not.  Anyway, it’s the only story I subbed to CW and if by some miracle I end up there, it believe it will be critiqued.  I’d hate to spend a lot of time and energy fixing a story before subjecting it to that amount of feedback.  I have modified it a lot based on the comments from Baen’s Bar, but a whole scene needed reworking in the middle.  I plan to adjust it this summer, be it through CW advice (in some parallel universe) or on my own while CW is going on without me.

Okay, enough from me.  I have editing to do.

-Oso

Sent out two

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I went ahead and sent “Brother Goo” to Cricket today.  Duotrope suggests it will be 3-6 months before I hear back.  I’ll miss that story while it’s gone.  If it gets rejected, I’ll have to strongly consider a rewrite.  I haven’t posted my full version (submitted slimmed down version) to Critters for review, but I will.  There seems to be no rush.

I also posted “Leech Run” to the slush mesage board at Jim Baen’s Universe.  It’s a neat idea, posting stories to a password protected page (so there is no technical publication…same as Critters does) to get comments from readers.  Editors also peek at the stories, requesting rtf files from stories they find particularly promising.  I’m running it through the “Introducing” bracket, basically contending with other writers that haven’t breached pro level markets.  If you are a Baen’s Bar member, you can give it a read and post some comments, especially if they are helpful comments.

At any rate, I’m keeping my top-end stuff out there.  Even a blind fisherman gets a nibble or two, right?

-Oso