The Joy of Repetition Really is in.... Me, It Turns Out

I was recently talking to a friend who’d been listening to my Drabbletober podcast (oh, hey, I have a podcast, did I mention? It had daily microfiction episodes every day in October, and will have bonus oddments if you stay subscribed.)

His main complaint was that I made the intro section 26 seconds long. Did I? I hadn’t even realised. Why on earth was he timing how long it takes me to play a few chords, introduce the episode, and tell you who I am?

If you’re a regular podcast listener, the answer may be obvious: your standard podcast player comes equipped with a “skip” button which skips forwards 30 seconds. So, when he skipped the intro, he also missed the very beginning of the actual story and, as a result, had to define a custom skip button - just for my podcast - that skipped forwards 26 seconds.

I am honoured, naturally. But also a bit bewildered. Because I listen to plenty of podcasts that have formulaic or repetitive sections and I never skip them. I find them welcoming, and comforting. Maybe I was led astray at an impressionable age by the “are you sitting comfortably?” and “today we’re going through the round window” of late-70s media, but I bloody love a good bit of repetition.

I’m always pleased to hear that the Elves are sitting round a table with their four favourite facts. I am not ready for an episode of The Modern Mann until Ollie has said “let’s go”. Frankly, Roman Mars moved his offices to “beautiful, uptown, Oakland, CA” - and thus changed his outro - several years ago, and I’m still not over it. Set up a bit of audio-furniture somewhere in your podcast, which you repeat every episode, and I’ll love you for it.

I like repetition in written fiction, too. The rather dated Just So Stories were a favourite with me as a kid. A story can easily get me on-side just by borrowing a device from one of those stories - something which is employed excellently by Seanan McGuire’s How the Maine Coon Cat Learned to Love the Sea. Someone mentioned Kate Atkinson’s brilliant Emotionally Weird the other day, and my first thought was the line that comes up over and over again, the way one character describes the cast of the book: we are as jumbled as a box of biscuits.

Do I love all forms of repetition? Of course not (and those podcasts that play the same custom ad at you three times in one episode drive me up the wall, too). The “repeat until funny” formula of many sitcoms largely leaves me cold. I would say “no one wants to hear the same thing too many times” - but I guess the devil is in the detail of how many times constitutes too many.

But, y’know, that’s why podcast players have skip buttons. I’ll just carry on not using mine.

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(The link to the Seanan McGuire story goes to a free-to-read version in Uncanny magazine, and you really should follow it, especially if you like Just So Stories. Or cats.)

(If the subject line is bugging you… it’s a misquote of Hot Chip.)

Changing Point of View: The Journey From Third to First

As mentioned recently, I had a lovely time at the UK Ghost Story Festival in Derby in February. I went to quite a few writing workshops, and learned some great new techniques for creating haunting images within my writing.

However, I think the single most useful moment came while listening to one of the authors’ speaker panels. Annoyingly, I can neither remember which panel, nor which author, or I’d credit them. Anyway, someone mentioned in passing that many scary stories are written in the first person, simply because it’s easier to create a feeling of immediacy, to make the fear more tangible, and to bring the reader more intimately into the story.

And I thought: yup. That’s what’s wrong with the story I’m writing at the moment. It’s third person. And it needs to be first.

Back in my hotel room that evening, I scribbled a note to myself (you can see it above!) and immediately switched to writing from my main character’s point of view. Everything went much more smoothly, and I no longer found myself battling so hard to convey what was happening. Around a month later (I have a day job, y’know) I finished the first draft. I began the process of typing it up, thinking I’d just change he to I as I went. After all, it was only the first few pages.

Nope. Firstly, it wasn’t. It was the first four thousand words of a nine-thousand-word first draft.

Secondly, it turns out that switching viewpoint is a lot more complicated than I’d realised. Very early in the story, our hero is in the process of lighting up a cigarette when someone shows him something amazing. He is appropriately amazed, and immediately runs off to do something. The third-person-omniscient viewpoint pulls back to show us his cigarette, dropped and forgotten on the floor.

This scene just does not work when translated to first person. A character can’t show you the thing that is left behind after he has left the room. He also can’t tell you about a thing that he has completely forgotten in his excitement because, by definition, he has forgotten it. He could, at a later stage, mention that he needs a smoke - but we are no longer in the moment.

Descriptions, too, needed to change. No-one, as a rule, describes themselves as looking pale after a shock. They might feel dizzy, or light-headed, or nauseous - but I’m reasonably certain I’ve never, after learning bad news, thought to myself “I look really pale”. An external viewpoint might mention someone speaking in a unpleasantly demanding tone, but I’d think it’s comparatively rare for anyone to describe themselves in that way.

Having populated my story with an inconveniently large number of characters, I found I needed to rewrite quite a lot of the dialogue. Keeping track of five people speaking is painful, but when the I of the story also has to keep track of who’s speaking… well, it’s still painful. It’s just different! Page four of the long-hand draft has a sad little note about how this was going to be quite some rewrite.

And it was! It is, however, much better for it (I think!) The lessons here are to think a little more clearly about the point of view you want before you start - and, if you do get it wrong, don’t mistake it for something you can “just” change as you type up!

The Terror of the Send Button

This afternoon I pressed send on an email, dispatching a story down the Intertubes to a magazine editor. There is nothing unusual about this - I do it all the time. However, it’s taken me several days to summon the courage to send this one.

Let us pretend that the magazine is called Great Stories, and that the editor is called Charlie. I’m a huge fan of Great Stories, and always look forward eagerly to their new editions. They’ve published some of my favourite stories in recent years, and have a reputation for championing both new and minority authors.

Earlier this year, Great Stories had a themed call and I thought: oooh. This story that is lurking around in a half-finished state might suit that. Well, if you looked at it kind of sideways and thought about the theme imaginatively, it might. And they did say they were open to all creative interpretations of the theme. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? I dug the story out, polished it up and pruned it down, and sent it off to seek its fortune.

Spoilers: it wasn’t accepted. However, the rejection came with a personal response from Charlie, who explained that they’d thought hard about whether or not to take it, but that they felt it wasn’t quite as good as it could be. They provided multiple pages of feedback and ideas, and suggested that - if I felt like making changes - I could re-submit a revised version.

Now, I’m aware that some people hate unsolicited feedback. I don’t. I love it, especially when it is constructive and interesting. I also assume that Charlie, who has been editing a well-respected magazine for years, knows what they’re talking about. If they say this would make for a better story, then I feel that is at least worth investigating.

I investigated. I scribbled. I wrote vaguely incomprehensible notes on the odd-shaped bits of paper you end up with after buying and cutting out print-at-home postage in the UK (my house is full of said odd-shaped bits of paper). And I inched towards a new draft. Towards a thing that might be a finished version 2.

Now, Charlie having said they're willing to read a revised version is absolutely no guarantee of anything. In all likelihood, the story will come back with a “nah, still not right for Great Stories”. But it feels like a chance. A single, mess-it-up-and-you've-missed-it chance.

And thereby hangs the terror. Have I made the story as good as it can be? Should I have done more? Followed Charlie's feedback more literally? Sending it too soon could mean blowing that chance

I “finished” my rewrite earlier this week, started drafting an email, then wussed out. Did I feel like the story was now perfect?

Nope.

Today, I read it through again. Tinkered with a few words. Decided that the word “distinctive” would look better with a c in it. Agonised a bit more about everything.

And hit send.

New Stories: "The Organist and the Old Man" and "Memories"

I have two new stories out and at large in the world!

The latest issue of Cosmic Horror Monthly contains my short horror story, “The Organist and the Old Man”. Issue 25 is now available for purchase (in either e-book or p-book format) from CHM’s website. This is the first story I’ve had published in a magazine that pays “professional” rates for stories, and I’m very proud of it.

Cosmic Horror Monthly is well worth reading, and this issue is packed full of good stuff. And it has tentacles on the cover. Everyone likes tentacles, no?

Also recently published is Edition 6 of The Quiet Reader, the magazine which describes itself as “born in a town called Solitaire, in the state of Quarantine in the country of 2020”. In it, you can read “Memories”, which is a rare example of me writing a story set entirely in the real world, with no supernatural trickery.

“Memories“ was the first story I ever had accepted for publication - but for a whole series of reasons I am unsure when and whether it was actually published. The Quiet Reader very kindly agreed to consider the story, despite its murky past, and I was delighted when they included it in their most recent issue.

Wanted: Elves

A couple of weeks ago I opened up the hard-backed notebook I use for long-hand first drafts of stories. In it, I found a piece of flash fiction that I didn’t remember writing - all complete and ready for editing. Also, a semi-finished drabble.

Admittedly, the cover of the notebook was covered in an unidentifiable and incredibly sticky substance, so it’s possible this was the work of some ectoplasm-exuding creature from the pit rather than a more benign Elves-and-Shoemaker situation. But really? A story’s a story. I’ll take what I can get.

I polished up the flash, dispatched it off to a highly-respected journal and… it got rejected, which somewhat spoils the fairy-tale narrative angle. I’ve also left the notebook prominently on the table at night since, with pencils, sometimes next to small piles of sweets or fruit, but the Ecto-Elves have not returned.

In all honesty, the story was in my handwriting. And, after reading it, I did have vague memories of having started it some weeks earlier*. But the experience of finding an unexpectedly-complete piece of writing is surprisingly joyful and I would like it to happen more often. I am, fortunately, catastrophically forgetful so this is easier to engineer than it otherwise might be.

The other element necessary for success - in this specific regard - seems to be writing a lot. I still need to work on that one. However, I suspect that a podcast I listened to recently might be quite helpful.

Thus far the podcast - The Writer’s Mind - has only one episode, but I’m hoping for more. In it, Sean Levin (of Writing Maps fame) talks through writing tips, techniques and prompts. Most critically, the podcast includes several five- or ten-minute silences for the listener to scribble out as many words as they can. These do not - or in my case did not! - end up as complete stories. But they are there as sections of description, ideas, and avenues-to-pursue for future-me to stumble upon.

There is an argument that I could just set aside a ten-minute slot each day to scribble furiously without Sean whispering into my headphones. I may also try that! Somehow, I find it easier to follow an instruction to do something that I do to issue it myself. If anyone has any similar tricks for causing writing to happen, I’d love to hear them. As it is, I shall be trying to litter my notebook with gobbets of words, like laying down wine for the future.

And if some of those pieces grow unexpectedly into finished works? Even better.

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* I never did work out what the weirdly sticky stuff on the book cover was, though. I cleaned it off and hoped for the best.

Looking For "The Drop" in Horror Fiction

Many years ago, when I was at university, I wandered into a room where a friend was looking at a picture. I don’t remember if it was a photograph, or an illustration in a book; it’s a sufficiently long time ago that it probably wasn’t on a screen.

Anyway, I looked over his shoulder at the picture: a fancy, black, metal gate. Across the gateway’s arch, large letters spelled out “Arbeit Macht Frei”. I looked at the picture, and I laughed.

(You may already be running ahead in this story; stick with me.)

My friend asked why I was laughing.

Well, I explained. I’d always thought that sort of attitude - the mindset that built gateways for The Poor Working Class and put Improving Moral Epithets over them - was peculiar to Victorian Britain. To the nineteenth-century mill- and mine-owners who, simultaneously exploitative and paternalistic, squeezed workers dry while espousing the merits of hard work, and self-improvement. The practice of putting these slogans on doorways and arches was something I’d always found grimly amusing.

And - now - apparently it wasn’t just Britain. Even in Germany, there had been equivalent factory-owners who probably disregarded safety and paid their staff a pittance even as the gateway promised that Work Sets You Free. I imagined the owners waffling into their handlebar moustaches and congratulating themselves on the excellent opportunities they afforded the local labourers. See, if you just work a little harder for a little less money, your opportunities will be endless! If you die poor, it is because you didn’t work hard enough!

My friend - whose Jewish father had fled Europe in the late 1930s, and whose aunts and cousins had not and had died in concentration camps - said to me: you do know that this is the gateway to Auschwitz?

No, I had not known.

“Arbeit Macht Frei” wasn’t another piece of Victorian-era hypocrisy. It wasn’t the pompous moralising I’d assumed. It was a sick joke, a lie to give hope to the doomed people for whom no amount of hard work would ever, ever make a difference.

I don’t remember what I said, or how I reacted. I do remember how I felt: a sudden, sickening drop as everything changed. But, of course, nothing had changed; nothing except my own viewpoint.

I don’t imagine I will ever write a story set in a concentration camp; I don’t know enough, and I don’t feel the stories are mine to tell. But that moment, that drop, is something I’ve been looking for in horror fiction ever since. The pinpoint sentence when a single piece of information causes everything to become different.

When the shadows resolve into a shape. When you find the killer’s plans and realise they are in your own handwriting. When you realise the calls are coming from inside the house.

It might be a twist ending, a single set-piece in which the entire world comes crashing down. It might be a series of tiny reveals throughout the story, a building, unsettling feeling of uncertainty. Both play into the big fear: that thing you know? that you’re certain of? it’s not true. The world is not how you think it is.

Those instants of realisation will always, to me, be the essence of good horror writing.

The Mathematics of Rejection

My last blog post Old Year / New Year included headline statistics on the number of stories I’d had accepted/rejected during the previous year. My last blog post was also rather a long time ago, because life doesn’t half get in the way sometimes.

However, to my great delight the post accrued a comment!

“How many unique stories did you submit in 2021? Would love to hear a bit more about e.g. how many rejections an accepted story had on average.”

— Bill

For reference, the total number of submissions made last year was 109, and the results stacked up like this:

The table is actually slightly different from the original, because a few of the submissions that were pending at new year have now un-pended. The acceptance rate is still inflated by having three pieces accepted for the same drabble anthology.

To answer the first question: the 109 submissions were to 77 distinct markets, and involved 42 unique pieces of writing. I don’t keep detailed records, but from eyeballing the list I think only 14 of the 42 stories/poems/drabbles/self-indulgent creative-non-fiction ramblings were actually written during 2021.

To answer the second, I figured I was going to have to learn a little more about Excel pivot tables.

And then there was a lot of swearing. And then I wondered why on earth I was faffing around with Excel when I am (in my day-job) a computer programmer who can trivially churn out code to do this sort of number-crunching. And then there was a lot less swearing and a lot more progress.

I’ll be honest, the outcome here surprised me:

Story	Rejections before Acceptance
Change	0
Christmas Elf	0
Glass / Desire Lines	0
Henderson	1
Jeremy Sleeps	1
Reveal	2
The Failed	1
The Fight	0
Time For Tea	0
Time To Move	0
Time To Think	0

My perception is that most stories go through multiple rounds of rejection before they’re accepted. However, we have several things affecting the data.

The Time… drabbles, Change, and The Fight, were written for very specific fiction calls or markets. Had they been rejected, they would likely not have been suitable for anything else, and would probably now be languishing in the place were stories go to moulder.

2021 is also not the entire picture. The story referred to here by its working title of Henderson was published as The Lady of Time by The Colored Lens in last Autumn. However, it was written some years ago, and had already been rejected 6 times before we even reached 2021. (Unrelated: the editorial staff at the Colored Lens are an absolute joy to work with. They also tend to offer pretty rapid response times, and constructive feedback. I highly recommend both sending them stories, and buying their magazine!)

The final problem with my results is the very obvious one: it’s a tiny sample size! Averages and so on can be really good tools for getting a handle on giant piles of data, but I do not, sadly, have a giant pile of acceptances upon which to commit acts of data science. Anyone trying to generalise from 11 stories may well not learn anything useful.

Extending it to all the stories I’ve ever had accepted (24 to date; not all have actually been published yet), then the average number of rejections is 2.8. However, I don’t think that’s a terribly helpful measure - stats fans may be interested to know that the median is 1. To put it more usefully: 10 of those published stories were accepted on their first try, but the most-travelled story was rejected 20 times before it was accepted. Among the stories that were not accepted first go, the average number of rejections is closer to 5. Note to self: acceptance on first submission is actually considerably more common than you think it is.

If I look at just the un-accepted stories, the picture gets a little strange. The average number of (all time) rejections for each unsold story is currently almost exactly the same, just below 5*. But the stories at the top of the rejections league are, by and large, the stories I think are my best. Why would my best stories accrue so many rejections?

Well… it’s my fault. Kinda. When I feel a story is particularly strong, I tend to send it to higher-profile markets. By that, I mean markets whose publications have a large circulation, or which are more highly thought-of, and which often (though by no means always) pay at professional rates. Sadly, everyone else does the same, meaning that these markets have a constant, high-volume slush pile of great stories and they can afford to be extremely choosy. Their acceptance rates are often below 1%** - and presumably even lower than that for unsolicited submissions - meaning that the rejections can rack up pretty quickly.

When I wrote my submissions-round-up-post for 2020, I closed it by noting that a piece I was very proud of had collected 10 rejections and just gone out for the 11th time. It remains one of my favourite things I have ever written, but it is kind of odd, and hard to categorise, and probably not for everyone. It was first submitted in August 2018 and, despite editors often saying nice things about it, it kept on coming back. It is, in fact, the piece noted above with a record-winning 20 rejections - and it finally found a home in early January (to be published later in the year). Sometimes it really is just a long slog to find a publication which wants the particular thing you have written.

* Actually now very slightly higher, due to a rejection having come in while I was drafting this!

** Most markets don’t publish these stats, but aggregators like The Submissions Grinder provide estimates.

Rejection

More than a year ago, I wrote about my practice of aiming for 100 submissions a year. In mid August 2021, I’m at 72 submissions, which is more or less on track. I’ve been trying to keep as many stories in flight as possible, and trying to keep a closer eye on markets’ schedules so I can plan what to submit, when, and to whom. I’ve also been sending stories to more high-profile markets (which tend to have higher volumes of submissions, and much lower acceptance rates).

The unfortunate and entirely-predictable consequence is that I get a lot of rejections. So far this year: 5 acceptances, 60 rejections, and 7 waiting-to-hear. Many of the speculative fiction magazines I read and submit to are US-based, so if their first-line readers are considering stories in the evening I will often see the responses when I (in the UK) wake up in the morning.

An email rejection is not the most energising start to the day! However, it’s a useful discipline for cultivating resilience. Putting your work out there is going to result in rejection, and learning not to take it personally is essential. It is all part of the process; it happens to everyone; many great works were rejected before they found a publisher. As a last resort, one can always mutter that the editor is probably an idiot anyway. (Disclaimer: I do not think editors are idiots. But I have been known to mutter it on occasion to make myself feel better).

What Does a Form Rejection Mean?

Receiving large numbers of rejections leads to a lot of rejectomancy. I first encountered that word in Metaphorosis Magazine’s guide to their own submission process, but their are plenty of other uses of it - including this essay on why it is broadly a terrible idea. The essay defines it as “the art of reading (too much) between the lines of a rejection”.

The most common form of rejection is the “form rejection”; a copy-and-pasted set of words that is sent out with almost every response. It might be incredibly brief and to the point. It might be complimentary, and suggest that you send something else. It might run to several paragraphs explaining that you should not take the rejection personally, it is merely one editor’s opinion, etc, etc. It will, however, contain nothing which relates specifically to your story, and will be generated by a submissions system or pasted in by a weary slusher for (almost) every rejection they send.

So there is no information to be gleaned from it. Surely?

Recently, I received a form rejection from a magazine I respect very much*, which said:

“We enjoyed reading this story, but unfortunately it's not quite what we're looking for right now. We hope to see something new from you soon!”

So far, so form-y. However! I have submitted to this magazine several times before, and previously have had rejections that look like this:

“We appreciate the chance to read your work but unfortunately this piece didn't quite work for us. We appreciate your interest in our magazine.”

I choose to take the change as a promising sign.

Conversely, a very encouraging rejection of one of the first submissions I ever made became, retroactively, somewhat less so when a later submission to the same market received a response which was word-for-word the same. The thing I had - at the time - taken as a “personal rejection” was, in fact, just a friendly and encouraging form. If it doesn’t specifically mention at least a detail from your story, it ain’t personal.

That does not mean it is without worth. Magazines are not just being nice to you, their rejections should be taken at face value. If they say they enjoyed your work, believe them. If they say they want to see more, then get on and send them something new.

What about personal rejections?

Personal rejections are sent out at wildly differing rates by different publications. Some magazines will (almost) always send a brief thought on the story, some have a policy of never doing so. Feedback - especially on how a piece can be improved - is always useful and always welcome. Even something very brief, like “the ending felt a bit flat” or “it feels a bit rushed”, can suggest an area for consideration. I recently had a piece of flash fiction rejected by a magazine that complimented the ideas behind the story, but added “you may need a larger canvas to present them”. Which is the sort of uh-oh, redo-from-the-ground-up idea that needs a lot of thinking about.

I don’t always act on the feedback - and certainly not straight away - but I find it helpful, and always appreciate anyone who has taken the time to include it. Even when the comments seem incredibly off-base they can be useful: why has this editor so badly misunderstood the story? what have I not made clear? You may need a break for some more therapeutic muttering about idiocy, but revisiting your work to see if their reading is a valid misunderstanding is then a route to improvement.

Some markets invite you to state whether you want their feedback, warning that you may get unfiltered, contradictory, or undiplomatic opinions from their readers. I always tick that box, if it’s an option - although it can at times feel brutal. A fantasy story I sent out came back with the response “not only isn't it fantasy but I don't think it's even a story”. I don’t actually intend to change that piece, but I think it was a valuable lesson in matching your work more carefully to the market.

But why? Why??

Of course, the question that any writer really wants to answer is “why?” Why did the editor reject this story?

The most cheering rejection experience I ever had came from one of my most favourite horror markets. An editor wrote me a lovely note telling me that they thought the story was very good, and a near miss, but that it was a little too "quiet" for their audience. On thinking about it, I understood exactly what they meant - and realised that perhaps I’d be better off sending the piece (which I’d been describing as horror) to markets that specialise in dark fantasy. This, to me, was the absolute gold-standard of rejection: it was encouraging, it gave me a very clear understanding of why the story wasn’t accepted, and gave me actionable feedback.

The most common reason I have seen given for rejection is a variation on “not a good fit for us right now” or “does not meet our needs at this time” - which is, unfortunately, not really actionable at all. Assuming you covered the basics of “fit”, and didn’t send splatterpunk to a market that requested gothic horror, then there is little to do but try again with something different.

On the other hand, I did recently receive a note from an editor which mentioned that “we found your work very compelling and it fit our style” - which was great, although sadly they also said it was “not right for us at this time”. I have no way of knowing whether the time is not right because they have just published a similar story, or because their next issue is shaping up around an unrelated theme, or because is it Tuesday and the editor just really dislikes Tuesdays. Mutter, move on.

The most disconcerting thing is the extremely positive rejection. I received a mail which read:

“This story really hit home, especially in the middle of a pandemic. The beginning of the story felt magical and I was caught up in the beauty and excitement of a new place. It took me to another world, and I really appreciated it!”

There was some extended muttering, at that point, specifically around the idea that if you are going to say “this story does not suit our needs at this time”, then the above feedback could at least include a “but…” in it somewhere. However, of all the pieces I’ve submitted I think this one has received the most wildly-variable feedback, so it was reassuring to know that at least one person enjoyed reading it.

Ultimately, in most cases, you will likely never know exactly why a story was rejected and too much rejectomancy really does seem like a bad thing. Read any feedback, note if the market invited you to send more work, learn what you can. Mutter a bit, if you need to. Then move on: revise it, submit it somewhere else, or set the story aside for later consideration. And remember that you are not alone. In that moment, there is doubtless another writer - probably not even very far away - feeling exactly the same.

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* all the rejections quoted here are based on real mails I have received. I’ve edited them for length, but not (I believe!) changed the substance. I have no wish at all to call out any market in particular for the way in which they send rejections.

Endings: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Endings have been on my mind recently. Last week, I noted down some ideas for a story about a monster under the bed. I could feel the shape of the story, the build up, the conflict between the two main characters… and then a bunch of loose, flapping half-ideas where the story’s end ought to be. I knew how the conflict was resolved, but it didn’t quite feel like a conclusion.

I tried to approach the problem logically: what does this character want? what is this story really about? how do we leave the narrator in a situation where she is able to actually tell this story? After a lot of muttering, and some swearing, I came up with something I thought would work.

I wrote the story, typed it up, edited it and took it along to my Writers’ Circle. (Technically speaking, it’s a Writers’ Triangle and right now - due to vacations and other commitments - it has been temporarily reduced to a Writers’ Line). The main feedback from the other end of the Line? This story ends in the wrong place.

Endings are really, really difficult. Worse, they don’t feel like they should be difficult. Once you’ve set up your world, your characters, and their situations and conflicts, you’ve done the hard part and you just need to write the story. Right? Sadly, that is not how it works - or at least, not for me.

Some years ago, I heard an interview with Lee Child in which he described how he writes each new Jack Reacher novel. He sits down with no ideas, works out the plot as he goes, writes until it is finished, then sends the whole thing to his editor. When his editor suggests that changing details, or switching events around, would make a better story, he says that yes, perhaps it would - but “that’s not how it happened”. (I suspect that this is the sort of nonsense editors will only let you get away with when you have well north of 100 million sales worldwide.)

To me, that is the cartoon idea of how a book gets written. One just sits down and writes it, no? Every author I’ve ever spoken to, heard speak, or read about, talks of writing, re-writing, editing, taking notes, despairing, re-re-writing, and slowly hammering their work into shape. Editing doesn’t just mean fixing the spelling and making sure all the apostrophes are in the correct places: it can involve huge structural change, adding and removing subplots, or reworking the whole direction. (It’s worth noting that Child was being interviewed by Karin Slaughter - whose novels also shift by the million - and she listened to his description of his writing process while shaking her head in disbelief.

When reading a novel, I am often willing to relax and enjoy the journey. If travelling through the book with the characters is a really fun experience, then I don’t actually mind too much about the final destination. The Starless Sea was still a delight to read; I loved hanging out with Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London even though I didn’t enjoy the way the plot concluded. But I don’t think a short story can get away with that; there simply isn’t enough of it. The reader expects - and deserves - a neat conclusion or a payoff at the end. There doesn’t have to be a twist (although a good twist is great) but there should be something that feels like a resolution.

A couple of months ago, a publisher sent me a rewrite request (if you’re not familiar with the term: they rejected my story, but said that they would consider it again if substantial changes were made. It is an invitation only, there is no implicit assumption that they will accept it if I make the changes.) They sent quite detailed feedback, but the headline news was we really like the story, but aren't happy with the ending. Would I consider writing a different ending?

The request threw me. The story I’d sent them was one where I had always been confident I knew how it ended. I had not been terribly sure how it was going to get there - which is why it had ended up almost novella-length. But the story had been written with the end clearly in mind, and every piece of the plot had been working towards that end. I simply couldn’t imagine how I could change it.

However, the feedback raised valid points and closely matched some earlier feedback I’d had, but chosen to ignore. The story as it stood had also received multiple rejections., so I got started. There was - predictably - a lot more swearing and muttering, and a couple of weeks later I had a new ending. It wasn’t a radical new direction, but there were substantial changes to events, and to characters’ motivations. Once I’d accepted the possibility of an alternative, it wasn’t actually as hard as I’d expected. Lesson learned: stories are more mutable than you think.

Sadly, even once I’d decided what was going to happen, I still had the problem of the literal end. The last line. Opening lines are important, because they grab a reader’s attention. Closing lines affect people’s perception of the story, and stay with them much longer than that really good bit in the middle. Once you’ve revealed the murderer, you still need the equivalent of “and they all lived happily ever after” to signal The End. Even if the outline is brilliant, the story will feel flat if the final sentences just, sort of, you know. Peter out a bit.

Halfway through writing this, working through my podcast backlog, I coincidentally reached the Start With This episode But How Does It End? It’s well worth a listen for a discussion of what makes for a good or bad ending, though sadly they concluded that there are few concrete rules - it requires a writer to identify the bit that just feels like the end. I shall be taking their advice and examining other people’s endings more critically - not to analyse the plot, but to see if I can learn more about what makes the final few sentences feel like a proper, satisfactory conclusion.

And will the novella with the re-written ending be accepted this time? I’ll let you know…

Where (and When) Should I Submit Christmas Stories?

 It is May; the sun is shining. I can hear birds twittering in the trees and the patch of wildflowers is just beginning to show its purples and oranges. Naturally, my thoughts are turning to Christmas.

I love a good Christmas - or wintry - story. During the dark months of the year, one of my favourite pastimes is curling up somewhere warm and cosy with a Christmassy horror story. I enjoy writing Christmas fiction and there are - ignoring the occasional Krampus anthology - remarkably few open submission calls.

Winter holiday-themed magazines or collections are not that common, and festive tales almost never crop up in the genre magazines that I read regularly. I wanted to know whether magazines who don't publish themed issues were open to festive fiction submissions. And, if so, what time of year is right to start submitting?

I wrote to a variety of magazine editors to find out whether "regular" magazines would consider festive stories. I'm writing here about Christmas, but the theory would apply to any other holiday, or special event.

I'm grateful to all the editors who replied, with especial thanks to Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, Hexagon, and The Colored Lens for taking the time to send detailed answers.

So, Would They Consider Christmas Stories?

Happily the answer is "yes"! It seems magazines are willing to consider Christmas stories, even if they don't publish themed issues.

Here are a few things to bear in mind.

The Story Has To Meet The Magazine's Guidelines

This should go without saying for any submission. Markets publish submission guidelines, and you should read them. And follow them.

Your story must meet any requirements for length, genre, or theme, and must fit with what the market usually publishes. It’s as simple as that, however awesome your story is. A tale of the jolly adventure Santa had with the Space Pirates is not going to cut it with any magazine that wouldn't want jolly tales involving Space Pirates the rest of the year.

I've never yet seen a market that explicitly says "do not send us holiday-themed stories" - but if they do, don't.

The Story Has To Stand On Merit Alone

If a magazine has no themed issue, then they have no special requirement for wintry stories. You're going to need to blow the rest of their slush pile out of the water in order to be considered - just as you would submitting any other piece.

This is something that almost all the editors who responded stressed: they'll read the story, and if they like it they'll accept it. Its Christmassiness is basically irrelevant.

Consider The Publishing Schedule

Pay attention to when the magazine is published. If it comes out annually, in June, then the chances of them wanting a Christmas story are lower. Dawn Lloyd, who edits The Colored Lens, pointed out that, although TCL publishes quarterly, their issues fall in October and January - neither of which is especially well-suited to Christmassy tales. Not having a December issue doesn’t necessarily mean a market wouldn’t accept festive pieces, but snowballs and sleighbells are likely a much harder sell at the height of summer.

If you have a particular magazine in mind, identify whether there is an issue that feels like it might be a good seasonal target, and shoot for that one.

Consider The Response Time

In order to aim correctly for your chosen issue, you need to know how the magazine organises its reading schedule. Does it having rolling submissions, or a strict window for each issue? If they read your amazing splatterpunk Christmas flash on Dec 24th, are they willing to hold it for a year, or have you missed the boat? (And if they offer to hold it for a year, are you willing to wait for publication?) Some markets advertise their process pretty clearly, or lay out their estimated timelines - but you'll already know that, since it will be in the submission guidelines. Which you've read, right?

For markets that do not do that, you'll need one of the handy sites which aggregates statistics about response times. I use the Submission Grinder (which I highly recommend - it's easy to use, and free) to see statistics about how long a market takes, on average, to accept or reject a story. If you're looking at one of the super-fast publications that typically responds within a week, you've got a lot more leeway than if you're submitting somewhere with an average response time of 6 months or more. Keeping an eye on the little graphs on the Grinder will also give you a good idea of whether a market clears its slush pile completely before each issue, or allows pieces to roll over for future dates.

As the editor of Hexagon Magazine put it: "...for an issue releasing December 1st, I am selecting my stories between July 15th and October 15th. This means that I am already selecting winter stories in summer/fall." Which is why, as spring sunshine finally starts to unfurl in the UK, I'm thinking about this problem. If you send an editor a story that aligns with the issue they're currently planning, you give your story the best chance it can have.

Should you query? Should you mention Christmas in your cover letter?

One of the questions I put to editors was whether they'd prefer people to query before submitting a Christmas story. On balance, most said "no". Again, the extent to which a market would prefer queries over "just submit it and we'll decide" is something that varies, and is frequently mentioned (you guessed it!) in the submission guidelines.

The general tone from almost all the editors' responses was that they would treat Christmas stories exactly as any other submission, and didn't require any special provisions. So no query, no reference in the cover letter.

However, Neil Clarke, of Clarkesworld, did raise an interesting point. He referred to his advice for cover letters, which suggests authors mention "if there’s a particular aspect to this story that pulls from your... personal experience (cultural, regional, temporal, etc.)", and clarified that "knowing whether or not the author of a holiday story has actually celebrated the holiday has some value to us, particularly when it's a holiday we haven't personally experienced ourselves."

TL;DR

In summary: No-one is categorically opposed to festive stories. Do your homework. Figure out which issue you're aiming for, and when the magazine might be reading for that issue. Make sure your story is fabulous. Send it.

And if you are actually an elf, slogging your guts out on Santa's shop floor? Probably mention that in your cover letter.