Written by Chuck Rothman

Index

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?
2. When do I need an agent?
3. How are agents paid?
4. Where to I find information about agents?
5. How do I choose an agent?
6. How do I contact an agent?
7. How do I create an outline and sample chapters?
8. What happens if I don’t get an agent?

1. What is an agent and why do I need one?

   An agent is a writer’s business representative. His job is to market your book, negotiate a deal with the publisher, keep track of rights sold, and generally handle the business end of things so that the author can concentrate on writing.

   You may not need an agent. If you write poetry, or short fiction, or articles, you don’t. Agents only handle book length manuscripts — fiction and nonfiction. It’s not worth their while to handle shorter works.

   Even if you write books, you may not need an agent. There are two main advantages that an agent can offer you when it comes to marketing:

   • A good agent knows what editors are looking for. He can target your manuscript more effectively; an author has to send it out hit or miss, wasting time on editors who are overstocked and missing windows of opportunity. Generally, it will take a good agent less time to sell a manuscript than it would take if you did it yourself. However, if the agent can sell the novel, there’s a good chance you can sell it, too. Conversely, if the novel is no good, no agent is going to be able to sell it.
   • Many publishers don’t accept unagented submissions. Or, more commonly, they allow an agent to send the entire manuscript, while limiting unagented submissions to outlines and sample chapters. You’re more likely to sell if the editor reads the entire book.

   The main advantage of having an agent is not in marketing a novel; it’s when you find a publisher willing to publish it. A good agent is an expert in negotiating contracts. She knows what clauses to ask for, which are harmless boilerplate, and which seemingly innocuous ones are invitations to disaster. A good agent will know how to get you the best possible deal. Unless you are in the publishing industry, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to negotiate a contract that gets you the most money possible while protecting all your rights.

   (Some people think that a lawyer can replace an agent when it comes to this. However, few lawyers specialize in the type of contracts publishers use. In the words of editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books, every time an author used a lawyer to negotiate with Tor, the author was left “skinned and bleeding.”)

2. When do I need an agent?

   The first thing you need to do is write a book-length manuscript. Unless you have the book in hand, an agent won’t be interested. He needs something he can see; without a manuscript, there’s no knowing if you can write anything that’s worth the agent’s time to try to sell.

   When the manuscript is done, you can start contacting agents. But don’t let the search for the agent get in the way of your search for a publisher. You’re perfectly welcome to start marketing the book yourself, if you want. It’s up to you.

   If you do send the book out, and get a call from the publisher that they’re interested, this is the perfect time to find an agent. Indeed, some publishers will even recommend you get an agent before there’s any negotiation; they’d much rather deal with a professional. It’s said that, if you do get the call from a publisher, you automatically say, “I’ll have my agent contact you” — whether you have an agent or not. If you call agents and tell them about the offer, they will often jump at the chance to take you on. After all, it’s a quick way for them to make a buck. The hardest part has been done; all they have to do is negotiate a contract, which means they (and you) will be paid in a couple of months, not several years.

3. How are agents paid?

   Agents are paid by publishers. Usually, when they sell your book, the check is written out to the agent. The agent then takes his percentage of this amount and sends you the remainder. Most literary agents nowadays take 15% of any money paid you; a few still stick with the old rate of 10%. (Screenplay agents are required to only charge 10%.) If the agent sells your book to a non-North-American publisher, they usually take 20%, since they often work through a subagent.

   Some agents also pass through charges for expenses to their authors. This can happen in different ways. Most commonly, an agent will pass along charges for “extraordinary” expenses. These include charges for such things as Express Mail, Special Couriers, and other items that are not the usual part of doing business. Regular postage and copying costs are not extraordinary. Agents generally deduct these expenses from any money due you. In other words, if you’re paid $1000 for your novel, and the agent spent an extra $15 for Federal Express, you’d be paid $835 instead of $850.

4. Where to I find information about agents?

   There are many sources, of varying degrees of reliability. The best is to ask a published writer about her agent. If the writer likes the agent, ask if the agent is taking clients. If so, contact the agent.

   Writer’s Market and Literary Market Place list agents in their yearly volume. Check out the agent entries, looking for people who represent authors in your field of writing. Look for names of clients and recent sales.

   You can find ads for agents in Writer’s Digest. However, many of these are for sham agents who take money and do little to advance your career. I would strongly urge you to look elsewhere. Good agents don’t take out ads to find clients.

5. How do I choose an agent?

   This is the hardest question to answer. Anyone can call herself an agent. Scams are common; the pages of Writer’s Digest are filled with people who claim to be literary agents, but who have never sold a book in their life. Even among legitimate agents, one agent may be perfect for you, but all wrong for someone else.

   The first step is to eliminate the scams. The quickest way is to stick to one invariable rule:

   Never, under any circumstances whatsoever, pay money to an agent.

   If you follow this, you automatically eliminate the frauds. A fraud is out to get your money. A few years ago, scam agents charged “reading fees.” Lately, as word has slowly gotten out that this is the sure sign of a ripoff, the same agents are charging for “expenses.” Sound plausible, but the reality is that legitimate agents don’t ask for money in advance for any reason.

   If you send money to an agent in advance, there’s no guarantee she’ll do anything other than cash your check. A legitimate agent doesn’t get paid unless she sells your novel; a fraud isn’t going to go to the bother.

   Other signs to be wary of:

   • Agent asks you for money up front. Yes, I know I just said this, but it bears repeating. Do not pay any agent, and especially don’t pay anything in advance merely to have him represent you.
   • Agent won’t give you the names of his clients and recent sales. Always ask for this. A legitimate agent is all too happy to recount his successes; most send out press releases whenever they sell a book. A fraud won’t tell you (usually citing “confidentiality”), because it gives you a handle to track him down (and because he often has no recent sales).
   • Agent recommends an editorial service. Be very wary here. Real agents either like your manuscript or pass on it; if it’s close, they may ask you to revise it yourself. There is, however, a common scam where the agent recommends an editorial service. There’s a good chance the service is paying the agent a kickback to make that recommendation. (Note: probably the most notorious of these editorial services is a place called Edit Ink. Don’t even consider any agent who mentions Edit Ink.)
   • Agent has contacted you. Agents don’t need to go out of their way to find clients. But it’s quite common for frauds to buy mailing lists of writers and go fishing. Unless you have published something, or otherwise have a reputation as a writer, no real agent is going to contact you out of the blue.
   • Agent’s contract has a time limit. Agents used to work on a handshake basis, but nowadays even good agents often have contracts. But legitimate agency contracts are open ended: the continue until either party decides to quit. Frauds set a time limit, since this allows them to ask you for a further fee for “expenses” or “representation.”
   • Agent claims sales to a vanity press. A vanity press is one where the author pays to be published. No real agent would even consider sending a manuscript to one (how could they make any money, if the publisher isn’t going to pay?). Some agents do recommend vanity presses, most likely because they are getting kickback from the press (how else do they get paid?)
   • Agent asks you to put up your money in advance. What I tell you three times is true.

   If an agent does any of these things, go somewhere else. There is little chance any agent who has these policies will be any help at all to you, and could do great damage to your career — with you paying for the privilege of having them ruin you. It’s just not worth it.

   For more information about how agents work, check out this article by Dan Perez.

6. How do I contact an agent?

   Once past this hurdle, the question becomes one of nuances. Does the agent seem interested in having you as a client? Does she have some sort of vision for your career? What do her other clients think of her?

   Most agents do business by mail (a few by e-mail). The first thing to do is to send a query letter. The query letter should introduce you to the agent. Explain that you are looking for representation for your completed book. Describe the book in general terms (i.e., it’s a science fiction novel), but don’t summarize the plot. Mention any publishing history (if you have one, if not, say nothing) or any background information that might indicate a relevant area of expertise (if there’s nothing directly relevant, leave this out, too). Keep the query letter short (if it’s more than one page, it’s way too long). Be sure to include a self-addressed stamped envelope for a reply. Send it off.

   A question that crops up is whether you can query several agents at a time. It all depends on what you’re comfortable with. It’s generally acceptable to send off multiple query letters, so if you want to go that way, do so. However, once an agent asks to see your manuscript (or more likely, sample chapters and an outline), you should send it to that agent alone, and to none other until he says yes or no. If you get a second request, wait until you hear back from the first agent before sending it along (it isn’t necessary to tell the second agent it’s out somewhere. Just say nothing until you’re ready to send it to her).

   Incidentally, your agent hunt can be separate from the hunt for a publisher. You can send the book out to editors while agents are deciding; if the book sells, call the agent who is currently considering it. Note, however, that an agent often wants to market the book from scratch, and has a slight preference toward a book that has yet to be rejected.

7. How do I create an outline and sample chapters?

   These are essential to selling a novel. Most agents (and publishers) want to see these instead of a full manuscript (note: if at all possible, it’s best to find a way to send a full manuscript. But be careful: doing this when the agency/publisher doesn’t allow it may mean that your book will not be read. You can break this rule, but be prepared to suffer the consequences).

   The sample chapters are always the first chapters of the book. Usually the first three, but if you’re writing extremely short chapters, send the first 50-60 pages (don’t stop in the middle of a chapter). The idea is to give the editor/agent an idea of your ability to write.

   An outline runs around 20 pages and describes the action in the book. It is usually written in the present tense (our hero kills off all the soldiers, but the princess is kidnapped by the Grand Vizier). Include any particularly important lines of dialog and all important scenes as you lay out the plot and all subplots.

   Some agents prefer a synopsis to an outline. This is shorter (5 pages) and is more of an overview. Needless to say, either your outline or your synopsis must be well written and interesting.

8. What happens if I don’t get an agent?

   There’s no reason you can’t market your novel yourself. There are a few hurdles, but it’s eminently possible. It isn’t the end of your career, so just keep on plugging. Sooner or later, it will click for you.

—

Chuck Rothman has been writing SF since way back in the previous century, with stories in Asimov’s, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy, the current issue of Space and Time, and dozens of other magazines, some of which are still publishing.  He lives in Schenectady with his wife, poet Susan Noe Rothman, daughter Lisa (just back from the Peace Corps), and cat Lightning.  He is looking for an agent.

Copyright © 1998 by Robert A. Metzger. First published in the Summer 1998 issue of the Bulletin of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Interstellar space travel. We dream about it. We write about it. Science fiction writers have come up with all manners of interstellar travel, ranging from multigenerational arks, to wormhole generating warp drives that can spit you across the galaxy in a blink of an eye. As wondrous and amazing as all these approaches may be, most suffer from a very fundamental problem.

Traveling for long distances, over long periods of time, can be a colossal pain in the butt. You can never pack all your stuff. You always forget something. Did you lock the door? Did you turn off the iron? You forgot to say good-bye to Aunt Mildred, who will be dead by some 12,000 years when you return due to relativistic effects. And then there is that library book you forgot to return.

What to do?

The answer should be obvious. Just take it all with you.

I’ve got a solution, one that I consider very practical. My method does not require any magic physics – the ability to go faster than the speed of light, or jump about the galaxy by way of Star Gates. No. I am going to use good old fashion basic rocket science. Metzger’s Rocket Science Law #1 says that momentum must be conserved (some of you with a historical fetish and knowledge of obscure ancient scientists might recognize this as Newton’s Third Law of Motion – for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). If you throw something out of the back of your rocket ship with mass m1 at a velocity v₁, then the momentum of this exhaust is just the product of these two components – m₁v₁. As a result, your rocket ship will be propelled in the opposite direction of the exhaust, and with the exact same momentum. This means that if your rocket ship weighs m₂, then the velocity of your rocket will be v₂ = m₁v₁/m₂. It’s as simple as that. If the mass of what you threw out is the same as your rocket, then you will move at the same speed as the rocket fuel (but in the opposite direction). The heavier the rocket, the slower you go.

You now know everything you need to know about rocket science.

Now back to my discussion about taking it all with you.

Forget all this business about building really big spaceships, or hallowing out asteroids and strapping on big fusion engines. No. The ideal solution is to simply move the entire planet. If you want to travel the 4 light years to Alpha Centauri, then just move the Earth those 4 light years. That way you don’t have to pack your bags.

It all goes with you.

Now there is one little problem with this plan. We depend on the Sun to keep everything running on this planet. Without the Sun we’d all be popsicles by the time we moved Earth out past the orbit of Mars. Well, the answer to that problem is obvious. We’ll need to take the Sun with us.

What the heck, let’s just move the entire solar system.

And here is the really beautiful part of this plan. You don’t have to do a single thing to planet Earth. Unlike the case in which you try to move the Earth, you don’t have to drain the oceans to get enough hydrogen to run the big fusion reactors needed to move the planet (which would probably occupy all of Australia and a sizable chunk of Europe). If you move the Sun, the Earth, along with all the other planets, just come along for the ride by way of gravitational attraction.

So all we have to do is move the Sun.

First, we need some sort of engine, something to heat up our fuel so it is moving really fast when we blow it out of the back of the engine (remember Metzger’s First Law). Well, we are in luck. The sun is the perfect engine. In fact that’s all it is. It’s one big fusion reactor. And the really amazing part is that it is almost all fuel. There is very little overhead. If and when we ever build a fusion reactor on Earth, the thing will probably weigh in at several thousand tons and be able to fuse a few micrograms of hydrogen. Not a very efficient use of mass. The sun is 78% hydrogen by weight, all of which can be used for fusion to generate energy.

What else does the sun have? It is in possession of some really intense magnetic fields. And that is a good thing, because we can take advantage of those fields. Here is where I wave my future technology wand. I will speculate that in the not too distant future (100 to 1000 years) that we can perturb the magnetic fields in the sun. And why would we want to do that? The reason is that if you take a hydrogen atom (which consists of a proton and an electron) and ionize it (remove the electron from the proton), what you are left with is a positively charged proton and a negatively charged electron. Forget about the electron (it weighs some 1835 times less than the proton), and use the proton as the mass which you are going to shoot out of the Sun. It will be no problem. If you shape those magnetic fields right, the positively charged proton can be shot out of the Sun moving at nearly the speed of light. It’s just like a particle accelerator.

Proton propulsion.

We’ll need a lot of protons.

The sun weighs 2×10³⁰ kilograms (a 2 followed by thirty zeros), while a single proton weighs in at 0.167×10^-26 kilograms (that is 26 zeros before the decimal place). However, that is for a proton which is sitting still. If you get it going near the speed of light (3×10⁸ meter/sec) then its mass increases (special relativity). For this little example, let’s assume that we can use those magnetic fields to push the proton up to 99.9% of the speed of light. In that case, the proton’s mass has increased by a factor of 22 and now weighs in at 3.74×10^-26 kg. Well, shooting one relativistic proton out of the sun is not going to move the sun very fast by Metzger’s First Law. In fact, its velocity is going to be 5.61×10^-48 meter/sec. This is definitely not very fast. In fact, at this speed, if you wait 10 billion years, the sun would have moved some 10^-30 meters, or roughly one-billion-millionth of the width of an atom.

This is not what I would exactly call interstellar travel distances.

Obviously, what we need are more protons being shot out of our proton propulsion system. Let’s make it easy on ourselves, and say that we would like to get the Sun moving at 20% of the speed or light – .20c (that’s a good value – fast, but not so fast that the Sun’s mass increases very much due to relativistic effects). So by Metzger’s First Law, to get the Sun moving at .20c we would need to shoot out a mass moving at the speed of light which weighs .20 times the weight of the sun. That sounds bad. If we threw away 20% of the sun’s mass some bad things might happen on Earth. The gravitational tug on Earth would lessen, and our orbit would slip further out. Also, the energy output of the sun would lessen (it’s now got less fuel burning). Both these effects would really cool down the planet (perhaps that would be a good thing if we hadn’t yet addressed global warming). But fortunately, since our protons are now so heavy (because they’re moving at 99.9% c, and their mass has increased by a factor of 22), we need to roughly throw out only 1% of the Sun’s mass as long as it is in the form of these heavy protons.

Not so bad.

So here is the plan.

We turn on our proton rocket engine, and keep the exhaust pointed in the opposite direction from Alpha Centauri (you need to remember that the sun is rotating on its axis once every 25 days at the equator, so we need to keep shifting the location of our proton exhaust to take this into account). Let’s accelerate at a very gentle 0.01 g – that is only 1/100 of the gravitational force that we feel on Earth (by contrast astronauts may pull any where from 3 to 10 gees when launching from Earth). After one day of accelerating at that low rate, the Sun is already moving at 18,000 miles per hour. What we need to do is keep accelerating until we cover 2 light years distance (the half way point), and then turn the direction of our proton exhaust by 180°, so that we can then decelerate back to zero velocity over the next 2 light years (quite some braking distance). So the question is, how long does it take to cover those 2 light years, and what is your velocity when you reach that point? The equations are really easy:

D = .5AT²
V = AT

Where D is the distance covered (in this case 2 light years which is 1.86×1016 meters), V is the velocity of the sun when you reach 2 light year mark, A is the acceleration (which for 1/100 of a g is 0.098 m/s²) and T is the time in seconds. Performing those calculations (I will leave that as an exercise for the reader), it turns out that the 2 light year distance is covered in 19.5 years, at which point the velocity of the solar system will be just .2c. Isn’t that handy, since I have already showed you that by Metzger’s First Law we can get the solar system moving to .2c by throwing out 1% of the sun’s mass, just as long as the proton exhaust is moving at 99.9% of c. During our 19.5 year outbound acceleration we are tossing protons out of the sun at a rate of 6.6×10²⁰ kg/sec. That is a lot of protons (actually 1.77×10⁴⁶ protons/sec). Once we reach the halfway point and turn the direction of the proton engine, it takes another 19.5 years to bring the sun to a stop right in the neighborhood of Alpha Ceauri. Total trip time is 39 years, and you’ve used up 2% of the Sun’s mass.

39 years is nothing – half of a human lifetime. And remember that you never even had to leave home. Once you get to Alpha Centauri you can explore, take pictures, visit the locals, colonize, do whatever you’d like. You can refuel the sun by gobbling up whatever gas giants you might find there, or by siphoning off a bit of the local Sun’s mass. And then you can be on your way to the next solar system that you’d like to explore.

Make it a 3 million year trip – the scale of time during which proto-humans evolved into us. If you arrive at a new solar system every 50 years, then the human race will have explored some 60,000 solar systems and traveled 240,000 light years during those scant 3 million years.

240,000 light years!

The diameter of our galaxy is only 100,000 light years. During those 3 million years you could travel from one end of the galaxy and back again. And after all that exploring, perhaps the human race would be ready to make the big jump to neighboring galaxies. Andromeda is only 2.2 million light years away. So what if it takes us some 11 million years to get there. That is just a blink in geological time.

And what does it matter, because we will have never left home.

And think about this. Why stop at merely moving the Sun. The same approach could be used to move entire galaxies. We all know that the universe about us is expanding, all these distant galaxies hurtling away from us, all this motion an artifact of the Big Bang. Perhaps not an artifact of the Big Bang. Maybe the resident big brains of our universe have converted the galaxies into massive spacecraft, and they are just going on a little outing to visit the neighbors.

NEWS YOU CAN USE

Fuse This

Fusion reactors in science fiction are as common place as Star Trek novelizations – all pretty much the same thing, based on the same premise, using the same old tired technology. Fusion reactors come in two flavors – get a big plasma chamber, add monster superconducting magnets to hold that plasma in, and then push the temperatures and pressures high enough (trying to build a little sun) and atoms fuse together, throwing off some energy. The other approach is to bombard a small pellet of fuel with some mighty laser/ion beams, and as the pellet implodes due to the shockwave generated, the atoms in the pellet fuse together, throwing off some energy.

That’s how it’s typically done in science fiction.

And that’s also how it’s typically done in the real world. No, at the moment there are no actual fusion reactors producing more energy than they consume, but things are getting close. In the next ten years a monster called ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) which will cost $10 billion may be built, and may just produce more energy than it consumes. ITER follows the old tried and true approach of building a little sun by getting a plasma as hot and dense as possible. Other folks at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory are about to break ground on the NIF (National Ignition Facility) and will give the laser implosion approach a go around.

Those are the two politically correct approaches.

Those are the two which fill our science fiction futures.

But those futures may not come to pass. A few new things are on the fusion horizon. I’m not talking about cold fusion in test tubes, or someone selling snake oil and fusion reactors from the back of a van. This is real.
The Z Machine (1). Forget all those liquid helium cooled superconducting magnets to hold your plasma in. There are other ways to generate a magnetic field. Any time electric current flows through a wire, it generates a magnetic field. What researchers have done at Sandia National Laboratories is to send an enormous blast of electricity through an array of parallel wires – enough electricity to vaporize the wires, transforming them into a plasma, which in turn gets compressed by the magnetic fields generated by the current flow. Compressed plasma gets hot – in this case 1.5 million degrees. Right now the experimental Z machine can produce about 20% of the energy, 40% of the power, and 33 to 50% of the temperature required for nuclear fusion to produce more energy than it consumes. As a bonus, this machine produces X-rays in the 200 terrawatt range (that is million-million watt), more than enough to X-ray every set of teeth on the planet.

Xenon droplets (2). You might think that 1.5 million degrees is hot, but compared to what physicists at Imperial College in London have heated up, the Z-machine might as well be spitting out ice-cubes. By hitting a microscopic droplet of xenon atoms (with about 2500 atoms) with a laser beam, the electrons are torn from the xenon atoms forming an electron cloud which then absorbs energy from the laser. This energy is then transferred to the xenon ions (a xenon atom which is missing some electrons), heating them up to temperatures as high as a reported 940 million degrees, which is 30 times hotter than the core of the sun.
There is more than one way to fuse a cat. Let’s see some creative fusion reactors.

Strange Sightings

A strange sighting which I’ve recently heard about is that of flying frogs (3). These frogs are not flying about by way of some mutant flapping wings. It’s nothing that complicated. These frogs use diamagnetism to perform this feat. When a diamagnetic material is placed in a magnetic field, the electrons orbiting the atoms within the material have a tendency to line up, generating a magnetic field which opposes the field that it’s been placed in. And just what materials are diamagnetic? Almost anything if a large enough external magnetic field is applied.

This includes frogs.

A consortium of researchers from such prestigious institutions as The University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands, the University of Sao Carlos in Brazil, and the University of Nottingham in England used a powerful solenoid magnet (think wires wrapped around a pipe), and placed a frog inside the center of the magnet.

The magnet turns on, and the frog floats.

They’ve also reported success with grasshoppers, plants and water droplets.

The race has begun. I’m certain that it is only a matter of time before monstrous solenoid magnets are installed in Disneyland or Las Vegas (the line between those two continues to blur) so guests may float about. If those two locations are a bit too alien for you, then consider some distant planet with a magnetic field so powerful that the resident aliens can float within it.

Another strange sighting has been reported by Marcus Chown (one of our fellow SFWA members) in a piece he wrote about the trouble when animals come into contact with the Tevatron particle accelerator at Fermilab (4). As expected, there are any number of roasted raccoons, rodents and reptiles which squirmed their way into the facility in search of warmth and then get toasted on megavoltage equipment. Nothing all that weird there. The real weirdness has to do with the 40 buffalo which live at Fermilab. They scamper about the grounds. Some of the locals believe that the buffaloes are very sensitive to radiation and that the labcoats at Fermilab use them as an early warning system. Other rumors deal with a mutant 4 meter tall buffalo which has taken a few too many protons to the chromosomes.

Hello, let me talk to Chris Carter of X-Files.

Look Ma, No Engine

Getting a person, or a piece of equipment into orbit is mighty inefficient. You either need to strap on some huge solid rocket boosters and fuel tanks onto the spacecraft, or put the payload on top hundreds of feet of fuel and engines which will be jettisoned on the way to orbit.

What you need to be really efficient is a rocket without an engine or fuel. Just make the whole thing payload. Well, a group of scientists at the USAF Research Laboratory’s Propulsion Directorate at Edwards AFB, and at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, have succeeded in launching a vehicle which has no engine or fuel.

You haven’t heard about this breakthrough?

The craft weighs 50 grams and it has reached altitudes as high as 14 feet.

Well, the technology is not quite at the point where you can line up and buy a ticket to launch yourself into Earth orbit, but this still represents a breakthrough. How this little spacecraft works is that a 10 kW pulsed laser is aimed at an annular chamber at the bottom of the craft, where the laser beam is focused, and then bursts the air in that region into a plasma, which in turns explodes away from the rocket, creating thrust. Plans call for the laser-based projectile to reach an altitude in excess of 3000 feet in 18 months. Eventually, an orbital concept would use a ground based laser to heat air while the craft is still in the atmosphere, and then onboard gas when in space.

No engine required. (5)

Turbolution

Turbolution is my word, so please be sure to mention my name when you pick up your Hugo for the story which features this little technology gem. Evolution is a drag. It works so, so slow. Yes, if a species gets the crap knocked out of it for a few million years, and manages not to go extinct in the process, then said species may grow 25% larger and sport a new set of fangs to defend itself.

What we need is turbolution – something to allow a species to evolve in an afternoon. Well, thanks to group working at the Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics at the University of Sussex, they may have opened the door to turbolution. Consider a typical species which can reproduce itself in five years. In one million years that means you’re looking at 200,000 generations. Not too bad – hopefully something new can evolve in that amount of time.

Now, consider if you are not operating in the organic world, but instead, in the inorganic world – in this case a world dominated by Silicon. These researchers are using a special type of Silicon chip to study turbolution – a field programmable gate array (FPGA). This is a piece of Silicon hardware which can be rewired by software into a nearly infinite number of different types of circuits. One moment the circuit is a modem, and the next it is an amplifier.

As an example, suppose you want to build a circuit in which its output is run into to a speaker, and you want the speaker to say “Hello Dave, this is Hal”. How would you design such a circuit? I don’t know, and with an FPGA and turbolution you don’t need to know. Just start off with a few thousand transistors randomly wired together, and use an audio comparator to check its output to your desired one. Try it 100 times. The ten which come closest you keep, and the other 90 you toss out. You then take the 10 close ones and have the computer randomly rewire some of the transistors. You try another 100 times and again pick out the ten best. You run this process as many times as needed until your circuit tells you what you want to hear.

How long would it take to run those 200,000 generations? The chip can be reconfigured in a matter of milliseconds. The real time is consumed with each version of the chip being allowed to babble for the 2 seconds it needs in its attempt to say “Hello Dave, this is Hal”. So if it takes 2 seconds for an attempt, how long does it take for 200,000 attempts (remember that for the organic it took 1 million years). I’ll do the math for you. It would take 4 days and 15 hours! This improves on organic evolution by a factor of nearly 80 million.

Think about what this means. Build a brain in hardware that can direct its own evolution, and you will find that if it was able to burp and recite Nursery rhymes on Monday morning, that come Friday afternoon, it will have ignited its own Big Bang and become the God of its own universe. (6)

Tabletop Black Holes

Here is a bit of Physics 101 for you. The word power is used all the time, and quite often used incorrectly. Power is defined as the time rate at which work is done, or the amount of energy consumed in a unit of time. A 100 Watt light bulb delivers 100 Watt of power, and in the process it burns up energy at a rate of 100 joules per second (that is how one defines the unit of energy measurement – joules). So who cares? If you burn this energy at twice the rate, then you would have a 200 Watt light bulb, but of course, if you had a fixed amount of energy, it would only burn for half as long before that energy was used up. The faster you use it, the greater the power, but of course that power lasts for a shorter amount of time. Energy is conserved.

Again, so what?

If you take a modest amount of energy, but use it up extremely fast, then for that brief moment, you can generate some fantastically large powers. This is how a new generation of extremely high power lasers are being built, lasers which fire their pulse of energy in times which are measured in femtoseconds (which is one million-billionth of a second – 10-15 seconds). These lasers are now capable of producing power of 1015 Watt, which is a fantastic power level, even though the total energy dissipated is comparable to that burned by a 1 Watt light bulb in 1 second. But in this case that modest amount of energy was burned so incredibly fast. Again, and for the last time, so what? Well, during that femtosecond time interval, so much energy is packed into so short a time and in such a small volume of space, that any charged particles trapped in that region would experience the accelerations, and the electric/magnetic fields that, a particle would experience close to the horizon of a black hole.

Think about that the next time you flip on a light bulb.

Remember to turn off the black hole when you leave the room. (7)

BITS AND PIECES

• Still outlining that 27 volume Mars epic, and want to make sure that you have the latest data before you start terraforming? Then I suggest you check out a special issue of Science which has every detail of the recent Pathfinder mission. (8)
• The University of Tokyo has developed the first biomechatronic robot, by interfacing a cockroach with a robot, in such a manner that the cockroach’s nerve impulses run the robot. Great – a robot which tries to burrow under the refrigerator when the kitchen lights come on (9).
• Another vermin tale. Having trouble routing the latest high speed cable through your business or home? No problem, just call up Rattie. Wearing a harness to pull a nylon string and computer cable behind her, this rat can get the job done. She doesn’t even mind working around asbestos. (10)
• How many elements are there? In the prenuclear days the periodic table ended at element 92 – uranium. Today, atom smashers have pushed the number of elements up to 112. But most of these superheavy atoms are extremely unstable, decaying into lighter weight elements within a few milliseconds. However, theory predicts that element 114 may be quite stable. And what might one make with a stable superheavy element which has never before existed? How should I know? You guys are members of the SFWA – you figure it out. Oh yes, element 126 might be even more stable than 114. (11)
  1. Ivars Peterson, “The Z Machine,” Science News, Vol 153, January 17, 1998, pg. 46.
  2. Jeffrey Winters, “Cluster Bombs,” Discover, January 1998, pg. 52.
  3. Corinna Wu, “Floating Frogs,” Science News, Vol 152, December 6, 1997, pg. 362.
  4. Marcus Chown, “Reckless Raccoon’s Big Day,” New Scientist, December 20/27, 1997, pg. 56.
  5. Paul Proctor, “Laser Thrust Flies,” Aviation Week and Space Technology, September 29, 1997, pg. 15, and Aviation Week and Space Technology, November 3, 1997, pg. 19.
  6. Clive Davidson, “Creatures from Primordial Silicon,” New Scientist, 15 November 1997, pg. 30.
  7. Gerard A. Mourou et al, “Ultrahigh-Intensity Lasers: Physics of the Extreme on a Tabletop,” Physics Today, January 1998, pg. 22.
  8. M.P. Golombek et al, “Overview of the Mars Pathfinder Mission and Assessment of Landing Site Predictions,” Science, Vol. 278, 5 December 1997, pg. 1743.
  9. Philip Yam, “Roaches at the Wheel,” Scientific American, January 1998, pg. 45.
  10. Toni Feder, “Rat Wires Schools for the Internet,” Physics Today, January 1998, pg. 51.
  11. Richard Stone, “An Element of Stability,” Science, Vol 278, 24 October 1997, pg. 571.

Bob Metzger received his PhD in electrical engineering from UCLA in 1983. He spent 10 years at the Hughes Research Labs in Malibu, California, building high-speed electronic devices and trying to beat obnoxious atoms into submission. He is currently on the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta GA, where he now attempts to beat both obnoxious atoms and students into submission. He writes a science column for Aboriginal SF, and his fiction has appeared in Aboriginal, Weird Tales, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Amazing, and Science Fiction Age. His novel Quad World was published in 1991 by Roc. His e-mail address is rametzger@aol.com.

When I was thinking about a metaphor, I was envisioning how authors are a lot like blacksmiths who tire endlessly, crafting and perfecting beautiful swords. So, in this post, I’d like to ask the question: Do you know how to sell your sword?

Let’s say that outside the town of Fantasie, you are a blacksmith who has just created a magic sword. This sword is the only one of its kind and it is (in a word) gorgeous. You know that once the word gets out, everyone will want to buy your sword. After months of negotiating and contracts with the local magistrate, you now find your magic sword is being sold at Ye Olde Sword Shoppe. Unfortunately, the magistrate tells you that in order for you to continue being a blacksmith, you need to sell a certain amount of swords. Unfortunately, this means you’re going to have to help sell your sword to the local townsfolk.

So, the first thing you do is go to Ye Olde Sword Shoppe to talk about your sword. The store is only open from dawn to dusk, so you schedule your talk right around the dinner hour. You post a few notices and pick a certain item on the sword to talk about. Then, when you get into the store, you realize that there’s a lot of darn swords. How are you ever going to be able to sell yours? “It’s magic!” you nervously tell the few people who’ve shown up to hear you talk. “It’s a one-of-a-kind, unbreakable sword!” One of the readers pipes up from the audience and says, “Right, because we haven’t heard that one before!”

Okay, let’s pause for a second. Obviously, I’m talking about author readings and signings. Walking into a bookstore is very, very intimidating because let’s face it: there are an awful lot of other books for readers to buy. (It’s also pretty intimidating to sit next to a best-selling author, believe me.) In order to sell your book, though, you need to give people a reason to buy it. Usually that means that you have to learn how to describe your book in a way that will appeal to a broad audience, but it can also mean connecting with your audience in a personal way. Some authors use humor; others provide readers with the so-called “elevator pitch” like “This sword is Excalibur meets Kusanagi.” In this one-on-one relationship, the seller has more control over cultivating the sale, because they have total control over the environment the customer is in. Additionally, you can physically hand the book to your readers, which is something you can’t do online.

Of course, retail is also a bit more complicated because some companies make the products they sell and some don’t. In this case, the sellers at Ye Olde Sword Shoppe know a thing or two about how to present the swords to their customers and how to discount them in the store. Unless you’re the store owner, you don’t have that level of control, which is why many people are advocating online marketing to boost awareness and increase sales. Let’s get back to Fantasie and see how this might work.

Remember when I told you that in the town of Fantasie the stores were only open from dawn until dusk? Let’s say a plague hit the town and the town magistrate decided to quarantine the townspeople. Now, instead of walking to town, the townspeople can sit at home and browse whatever stores they want to at any time through a magic window (e.g. the internet). Ye Olde Sword Shoppe notices a change in their business, because now they can “see” (via website analytics) when customers “come” to their store, what they’re looking for and how quickly they leave, etc.

The online sales cycle is a very passive one for retailers, because no matter how much any store owner may try — the seller is not in control. The buyer is. At a convention, for example, organizers will help facilitate traffic and flow based on the physical layout of the hall. For any website, a reader can access that store from any page because of something called natural or organic search; not “just” the home page. Now, sales just got a lot more complex. Online, the buyer can also easily leave any website to compare factors like pricing, shipping, availability and reviews with the touch of a button. That level of research takes a lot more time if a buyer has to drive around town.

Because online and offline sales cycles are so different, the same types of marketing efforts that you might do offline don’t necessarily translate well in an online environment. The only way you are going to understand what works and what doesn’t is through patience and testing. This, to me, is the biggest mistake I see most authors making. The natural tendency is to either overcompensate by banging that “buy me” drum all the time, or undercompensate by hoping a reader will “discover” them just by being online. However, online marketing is not “just” about sales: it’s also about getting people to perform a desired action. Without the right web analytics data, it is also very challenging (nigh impossible) to see a one-to-one correlation between your marketing efforts and your book sales. However, there are things you can do to help facilitate those sales. In my next post here on the SFWA blog, I will provide you with a checklist of things you can do for your web presence to ensure that your readers are getting the information that they need.

Do you have some tips or recommended links to share for your fellow authors? Be sure to post them in the comments below. Until next time, ask yourself how you’re going to sell your beautiful sword!

About the Author

Monica Valentinelli is the content and web analytics manager for the digital sheet music retailer and publisher Musicnotes.com and the project manager for the horror and dark fantasy webzine Flamesrising.com. Monica is an aspiring novelist working on revisions for her first novel; she has several non-fiction, short fiction and game writing credits to her name including her recent guest blog post for Crackle.com about Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Devil’s Night, which is a Free One-Scene SAS for White Wolf Publishing.

To read more about Monica, visit her blog located at www.mlvwrites.com.

So you open a search engine–Google, let’s say–and type “publishers” into the search box. Here’s what you get.

The two top nonsponsored listings are for Random House and HarperCollins–big names that you may recognize. You navigate through their websites for submission information…bummer. In your genre, they won’t look at any manuscript that doesn’t have an agent.

The sponsored listings look a lot more encouraging. Instead of “Agented submissions only,” they say things like “We Want to Read Your Book!” and “Get your book published today–the industry leader for new authors!” and “The only choice for new authors.” There’s just one problem. Of the eleven listings, ten are for fee-based publishers (though you may not realize that right away, since some are less than candid about the fact that you have to pay) or self-publishing services. The eleventh is for a “publisher search” website that includes no real publishers, only vanity publishers and self-publishing companies.

Suppose, instead of Googling “publishers,” you’d Googled “book publishers.” Here’s what you’d see, and it’s just as bad. Of the nonsponsored listings, Random House is first…and PublishAmerica is third. Again, there are eleven sponsored listings–ten for fee-based publishers or publishing services, and one for another faux publisher search website, this one registered to Author Solutions, parent of self-publishing services AuthorHouse, iUniverse, Xlibris, Trafford, and WordClay. Guess which publishers it suggests?

Just about any general search you may do–”novel publishers” or “find a publisher” or “getting published” or “how to get published”–is fraught with similar perils. Of course, the search pages also throw up helpful links–to Absolute Write, or Publishers Marketplace, or Publishers Weekly, or Harold Underdown’s tongue-in-cheek but very helpful how-do-I-get-it-published quiz. But I’ve gotten enough email over the years to know that many inexperienced writers look no farther than the highly-visible sponsored links.

All of which underscores the need for caution on the Internet. (Yes, I know I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s such a consistent issue for the writers who contact me that the point can’t be made too often.) Don’t get me wrong–I love the Internet, and can’t imagine my professional life without it. It’s an invaluable research resource, offering unprecedented access to a treasure trove of information, enabling knowledgeable writers to fine-tune their agent- and publisher-quests as never before. For new writers, however, it can pose substantial hazards, since there’s at least as much bad information as good–not to mention all the people who want to sell you something that may not be good for you. Even so-called professional resources aren’t always reliable–the writing and editing question forums at LinkedIn, supposedly a place for business and professional networking, are absolute pits of bad advice and misinformation–and as for writers’ message boards, it’s a good idea never to forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.

Unless writers are able to filter the information they find online, they’re at risk of making bad decisions or falling victim to predators. In other words, writers need to know something about publishing before they start searching for publishers (or agents). Rather than plunging in and attempting to learn on the fly, it’s a much better idea to first take the time to build a knowledge base. There are many ways to do this, and it doesn’t have to be tedious. My blog post, “Learning the Ropes,” offers some suggestions.

Trust me: it’s one of the best investments in your future career you’ll ever make.

Let’s start by identifying the three pitfalls that most new readers fall into.

1. Volume
2. Speed
3. Droning

Volume

Many readings simply aren’t loud enough.  You can’t rely on every venue having a microphone or good acoustics.  Fortunately, your body knows how to be loud. The trap that people fall into is that they talk to the person closest to them, the front row.

Try this experiment.  Step outside with a friend and have them walk to the opposite side of the yard or street.  Now say, “Hello! How are you?”  Your body will automatically make all the adjustments necessary for your voice to carry across the street.

The same is true when reading.  Speak to the back wall of your space, not to the front row.  If you are loud enough, you should hear a slight bounce as your voice hits the back wall and returns to you.

Speed

Many readers go so fast that their words become jumbled together.  The problem is that for the listener, this is the first time they’ve heard the story.  The analogy that I use is this: Imagine that you’ve got a mountain cabin. The first time you drive to it, you think, “This is the twistiest road in the world! I’m going to die!”  And then gradually, you get used to it.  A year later, a friend follows you home and they are driving so slow. That’s because they are behind you thinking, “This is the twistiest road in the world! I’m going to die!”

You are familiar with your text. This is the first time the listener has heard your words. Unlike printed stories, they can’t ask you to stop and repeat yourself.  You need to speak slowly enough that they can understand you.

An ideal speed is about150 words per minute. It’s easy to figure out how fast that is by taking a cutting that’s 150 words and timing yourself. I’ll warn  you, that it will feel like you are speaking about half the speed you think you should.  Keep at it.  When you get into performance, you will speed up whether you want to or not.   Adrenalin.

Droning

Humans are animals and as such there are certain things we’re hardwired to do.  One of those is tuning out sounds once we’ve identified them as not a threat.  Droning or speaking in a monotone, sends a signal to the brain of the listener that this is a sound without information.  They will, despite their best intentions, lose focus on what you are saying.

Again, trust your body because it knows what to do.  Remember that the written word was created to record spoken language. When you are reading a story aloud, you are a storyteller.  The way you tell as story to friends about an incident in your daily life is probably totally different from how you read. It shouldn’t be. Use the same animation and pacing that you would use when relating a spoken story when you are reading a written one.

So that’s how to avoid the biggest pitfalls of reading.  But what about going to the next level? How do you make your reading exceptional?

The Basics

The first place to start is with your selection. When you pick a story or an excerpt from a novel, make certain that it is something that is suitable for being read aloud and fits your voice. So, what makes something suitable?

Primarily you’re looking for a small cast of characters. The more characters you have, and the narrator counts as one, the harder it will be to vocally distinguish between them. Unless you’re Mel Blanc, four characters, including narrator, is probably your safe upper end. (This will vary, obviously.) Within that cast, it will be easier if your characters are disparate in terms of type. For instance, a woman and a man are easier to distinguish than two women.

Second, you want a self-contained scene, so that the audience gets a beginning, middle, and end, even if it’s part of a larger whole. Now, if you are doing a reading to sell your book there is something to be said for ending on a cliffhanger, but make sure that it’s really a cliffhanger and not just a random stopping place.

Third, language that lends itself to an almost onomatopoeic sense. Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories were written specifically to be read aloud. He uses rhythm and onomatopoeia to make really dynamic sentences that are just plain fun to read–he’s also writing for children. But an extreme example is sometimes useful, eh?

Really, what you want are words you can linger over and play with. Read this out loud and try to bend the words. “He jogged to the train station, three blocks from his house.” There’s not a lot you can do with it.

On the other hand, “…they ate wild sheep roasted on the hot stones” you can do a lot with. “Hot” for instance isn’t a true onomatopoeic word because hot makes no sound, whereas “sizzle” does. Make sense? But it’s a word that you can twist in a lot of different ways.

Try saying “hot” thinking about the following definitions and make the word mean something different each time.

• Sweltering
• Very sexy
• Spicy
• Tense

Try the same thing with “wild,” which is a great word.

So, you’ve found a selection with a small cast of characters, in a self-contained scene, with an almost onomatopoeic sense. Those are stories that will sound good read aloud, but are you the right person to read the story? Does it suit your voice?

If it’s a first-person story, you really, really need to be the same gender as the narrator or your audience will have a hard time getting past the audio cues. Even in third person story, you need to be aware that the narrator voice will often echo the thoughts of the Main Character, so picking a section where the gender matches will be easier on the audience. There are people who can get away with cross-gender roles, but it’s not easy. Know your limits.

Character Voices

The human voice is very flexible and we’ll look at the ways you can manipulate it. Remember though, that the voice uses muscle and you can strain it just as easily as an ankle. Pay attention and stop if anything hurts.

Your basic tools are Pitch, Placement, Pacing, Accent and Attitude.

Pitch is fairly self-explanatory. To check your range, hum from your highest to your lowest note. Of that, you probably mostly use the middle when speaking. While it can help color a character, it isn’t a good idea to rely on pitch alone to distinguish between characters, simply because you use more than one note while speaking.

Placement – There are several resonators which affect the tone of the voice. Put one hand on your chest and the other hand on your nose. Now hum through your range again. As you do, you’ll feel your chest vibrate at the low end and your nose vibrate in the upper middle. These are both resonators.

The facial mask has several other resonating cavities, which you mostly notice with a sinus infection. Ever wonder why you sound nasally with a cold?

You can move the voice from the front of the mouth to the back of the throat. Broadly speaking Russian tends to be at the back of the mouth while British English tends to be very forward.

Let’s, start with the nasal resonator, because it’s easiest to find.

• Hold your nose, say, “Nnnnnn” and try to get your nose to really buzz.
• Now remove your hand and try to talk, keeping your voice as nasally as possible. Use the phrase, “What did you say?” as your experimental phrase.
• Try adjusting the pitch while keeping the nasality.

A little bit of nasality can be used to make a “brighter” sound.

Next we’ll move to the back of the throat. Open your mouth in a yawn. Let your soft palate rise. Try to talk. Does it feel like your voice is at the back of your mouth? Again, play with pitch. Placing your voice at the back of your throat can make a “darker” sound.

Now, we’re going to move a series of consonants from the back of the mouth to the front. As you do this, pay attention to where your voice feels like it is during the “aaaah” portion of each consonant sequence. It will be subtle.

The series runs like this. Guh, guh, guh, guh, Gaaaah, Kuh, kuh, kuh, kuh, kaah, (I’m not going to write them all out, I’ll give you the consonants and you can figure out the pattern.) G, K, D, T, B, P.

Reverse it, moving from Puh to Guh.

Try saying our test phrase, “What did you say?” at each “location” in the mouth.

Roughly, and very loosely, that’s placement.

Pacing – This covers everything from how quickly a character speaks to the types of rhythms they use. Is their voice quick, but fluid or is it staccatto. Slow and halting, or does it drawl?

Reminder: Generally speaking, always speak slower than you think you should when reading.

Attitude – You can tell on the phone if someone is smiling, right? Technically, it’s a combination of the things we’ve already talked about, but fundamentally it’s about attitude. If you know your character, you’ll know how they speak.

Take the phrase, “What did you say?” Say it as if you are angry. Now, curious. Disbelieving? Great. Now say it like you’re a parent and a kid has just talked back to you. That is attitude. Attitude is your friend.

Accent – Chances are, this won’t be something you need to deal with. If you do have a character who has an accent for God’s sake, make sure you can do it convincingly. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone butcher an accent, it will destroy the credibility of your story faster than you can say “Run fer the hills.” There are a lot of tapes that deal with learning accents for actors. If you’re going to do it, do it right

So, those are the basic tools. The nice thing about character voices is that you can be fairly subtle. Most of the time the Attitude and Pace will be enough. If you can affect Placement, that’s even better. What you are looking for is a voice that is distinct from the other voices and appropriate to the character. Of course, which of these tricks you use for each voice depends on the character for whom you are speaking.

Narrating

Narrating is at once the easiest part of reading aloud and the hardest. It is the easiest because you don’t have to worry about character voice or distinction–or do you?

You do. That’s why it’s one of the hardest parts. The narrator is a character in your story and is the one that needs to connect to the listener. The voice needs to be distinctive enough that when you say a line of dialogue and then return to the narrator, the audience recognizes the voice. At the same time, it cannot distract from the story by being so distinctive that it overshadows the words.

The initial instinct is to use your own voice. This is a good instinct, but I’m going to suggest that you use a specific form of your natural voice. When we’re talking, there’s a number of different shadings that happen with our voice most of which have to do with Attitude. Your voice changes, subtly, depending on whether you’re talking to your mother, your boss, your lover, or answering the phone.

Your phone voice is a really, really useful voice. It will probably sound professional, fairly neutral, and slightly more modulated than your hanging-with-chums voice. You know the one I mean, right?

So let’s take that voice out for a spin. I’m going to give you a chunk of text to play with from Ray Bradbury’s The Fruit in the Bottom of the Bowl. Read this silently first.

William Acton rose to his feet. The clock on the mantel ticked midnight.

He looked at his fingers and he looked at the large room around him and he looked at the man lying on the floor. William Acton, whose fingers had stroked typewriter keys and made love and fried ham and eggs for early breakfasts, had now accomplished a murder with those same ten whorled fingers.

He had never thought of himself as a sculptor and yet, in this moment, looking down between his hands at the body upon the polished hardwood floor, he realized that by some sculptural clenching and remodeling and twisting of human clay he had taken hold of this man named Donald Huxley and changed his physiognomy, the very frame of his body.

Here are very rough, basic rules to start with.

1. Speak slower than you think you should. As you become more familiar with text you will naturally speed up. This is the first time your audience has heard the words. You should be painfully slow, in your own ears.
2. A period means pause and count to 2.
3. A comma means pause and count to 1.

Go ahead and read it aloud, just thinking about the mechanics.

Now, the fun stuff.

Each sentence has a word or phrase that is the most important thing in it. Take the first sentence of the second paragraph.

He looked at his fingers and he looked at the large room around him and he looked at the man lying on the floor.

What’s the most important thing here? “the man lying on the floor.” Underline it, so that when you get there you put a slight emphasis on it. Now in that phrase, what’s the most important word? Man? That would be my bet. So a slight line goes underneath it, but you don’t want to do too much or you’ll break the rhythm of the sentence.

Placing emphasis can be as simple as putting more stress on that part of the sentence, the same way you put more stress on the accented syllable of a word.

There’s a simple exercise to make you more conscious of using stress in a sentence to change the meaning. Say, “The ball is on the table.”

Now I want you to answer each of these questions with the same sentence, changing only the emphasis of one word to answer

What is on the table?

The ball is on the table.

Now answer these questions using only “The ball is on the table.”

• What is the ball on?
• Is the ball under the table?
• The ball is not on the table, is it?

There are other ways to do it as well. You can use a vocal tremor, a dimenuendo, a crescendo, tempo, aspiration or a dozen other tricks. The key is to decide how your character, the narrator, feels about the moment. Remember Attitude? Go through this block of text and mark the attitude that you think your character feels. The deeper the penetration into the POV character, the more attitude your voice should display.

Bradbury uses the word “looked” three times in that sentence. The echo of the word can be powerful if it’s used right. Take a minute and think about how William Acton feels about each of the things he’s looking at. Perhaps the emotions could be wonder, disorientation and horror.

Another section to pay special attention to is this bit, “he realized that by some sculptural clenching and remodeling and twisting of human clay”

The verbs “clenching” and “twisting” are particularly visceral. When I was talking about words that were almost onomatopoeic, I meant words like this. When you clench something it doesn’t really make a sound, but you can manipulate the word to create a vocal description of it. If you tighten your throat–clenching it–the sound of the word will change. Find words like these and see if you can wring the vocal description out of them.

So read that chunk o’text again–after marking it–and see how much emotion you can get out of it.

What we’ve done with this exercise is gone from an emotionally neutral narrator to an emotionally invested narrator. There are times when each will be the most appropriate choice. Remember when I said about each sentence having a word that’s the most important in it? When you are using these ornaments try to pick only one per sentence, otherwise it’s like having a superfluity of adjectives. It’s very easy to tip from emotional investment to verbal pyrotechnics. Make certain that you are making choices that advances the story.

With all of these points, the key thing to remember is that you are returning to a long tradition of oral storytelling.  Don’t reduce your story to words on a page. Talk to your audience and tell them the story.

Mary Robinette Kowal was the 2008 recipient of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and Asimov’s. Mary, a professional puppeteer and voice actor, lives in Portland, OR with her husband Rob and nine manual typewriters. Tor is publishing her debut novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, in the Spring of 2010.

]]> http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/reading-aloud/feed/ 10 http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/writer-beware-wins-big-as-frivolous-lawsuit-rejected-by-court/ http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/writer-beware-wins-big-as-frivolous-lawsuit-rejected-by-court/#comments Wed, 12 Aug 2009 20:35:33 +0000 JaymeBlaschke http://www.sfwa.org/?p=2156 A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has awarded costs and attorneys’ fees to Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, the principal operators of the Writer Beware website, soundly rejecting a frivolous lawsuit filed by a purported literary agent.]]> CHESTERTOWN, Md. – A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has awarded costs and attorneys’ fees to Ann Crispin and Victoria Strauss, the principal operators of the Writer Beware website, soundly rejecting a frivolous lawsuit filed by a purported literary agent.

Writer Beware is a publishing industry watchdog group sponsored by Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America which “shines a light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes and pitfalls.”

“We’re thrilled that Robert Fletcher has been ordered to pay our costs–but even more that the Court has acknowledged the bad faith nature of this lawsuit, which was brought with the express intention of harassing Writer Beware into silence,” said Strauss. “We feel completely vindicated, and hope that this outcome will give pause to anyone who may consider bringing a similar frivolous claim in future.”

The suit, initiated by Fletcher and his company, the Literary Agency Group, alleged defamation, loss of business and emotional distress while making claims Fletcher had lost $25,000 per month due to warnings about his business practices posted by Crispin and Strauss. The suit was dismissed with prejudice March 18 by the Massachusetts Superior Court due to Fletcher’s failure to respond to discovery or otherwise prosecute the lawsuit.

In the Aug. 5 ruling handed down by the court, Fletcher was found to have brought the case “in bad faith, was and is frivolous and was brought only to curb the defendants, Crispin and Strauss’ first amendment rights.”

“For over a year, Victoria and I have been working with our attorney in Boston, giving him large boxes of documentation regarding Robert Fletcher and his many aliases, companies and activities aimed at separating writers from their hard-earned money,” Crispin said. “This is a victory for writers worldwide! And yes, we’ve gotten complaints and inquires about Mr. Fletcher’s claims and operations from writers in Australia, Finland, Israel and many other countries–even Nigeria!”

Crispin and Strauss’ motion, filed through counsel against Fletcher and the Literary Agency Group, Inc., seeking recovery of their legal fees incurred in defending the frivolous lawsuit has been granted by the court.
The case dates to Feb. 2008, when Fletcher and his company filed for a temporary restraining order pending a preliminary injunction against Crispin and Strauss in Suffolk County Superior Court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“This ruling is vindication for Ann, Victoria and Writer Beware,” said SFWA President Russell Davis. “Writer Beware is one of the most important and valuable services SFWA provides, and the overwhelming victory in this case should serve as a warning to others who would consider filing frivolous lawsuits in the future.”

Crispin and Strauss have volunteered countless hours of their time to advising, educating and warning aspiring and established authors about dubious, questionable and outright criminal business practices on the fringes of the publishing industry. They maintain the Writer Beware website (www.writerbeware.com) and are major contributors to Writer Beware Blogs! (http://accrispin.blogspot.com/).

Apex is known for its blend of Science-fiction and horror, garnering regular nominations on the Stoker ballot.  They have published SFWA authors such as Jennifer Pelland, Glenn Lewis Gillette, and Ben Bova.

Short fiction published with Apex from June, 2008 forward are  now qualifying sales for membership with SFWA. Congratulations to Jason, the entire editorial staff at Apex Magazine and their writers!

When I was a teenager I discovered at my local library a fascinating book called Writer’s Market. This book was a monster, a 1008-page leviathon that would put most college textbooks to shame, and it was filled cover-to-cover with small-print listings of newspapers, magazines and anthologies where I could submit my writing.

Writer’s Market was a revelation for me. As a novice author, I’d assumed that the two or three science fiction magazines I knew of were the only ones there were. It had never occurred to me that there might be so many different places where I could submit my fiction.

Today, thanks to the internet age, it is no longer necessary to pore over pages of microscopic script in order to learn where to submit your fiction. There are a number of online venues that specialize in providing just such information. Allow me to share some of my favorites.

Duotrope

Duotrope is a free, internet-based listing of over 2000 markets for fiction and poetry. Market entries are searchable by genre, pay rate, manuscript length, and a number of other factors, and they include statistics about how long on average the editor tends to take to respond.

Ralan’s Webstravaganza

Ralan’s market listings focus exclusively on speculative fiction; that is, science fiction, fantasy, horror and related genres. He has them handily separated into professional, semi-pro and 4-the-luv (non-paying) markets, with a special category for contests. Ralan keeps his market listings exceptionally up-to-date and also provides a warning if a small-press magazine has gone out of business or stopped responding to submissions.

The Black Hole

This is more of a response-time-tracker than a market listing, but for new writers biting their nails and wondering whether their manuscript has been lost in the mail, it can be a godsend. The basic principle is one of communication: authors report how long it took them to get an acceptance or rejection letter from a given market, and those reports are used to provide statistical information.

With such a flood of potential markets to send their stories — and with new markets opening up all the time — it’s sometimes hard to know where to send your story first. Everyone finds their own strategy over time, but here are some factors most authors look at:

Does My Story Match the Market?

All magazines are not created equal, and submitting your story to a magazine it’s not well-suited for is a waste of time for you and the editor both.

Do not assume that just because your story is science fiction (or fantasy, or horror) and the market is listed as accepting that genre, that your story is necessarily a good match. Some editors prefer adventurous, upbeat fiction. Others prefer realism. Some place a high priority on wordcraft and characterization. Others pay more attention to plot and pacing.

Take time to get a feel for what kinds of stories the different magazines publish. This is not as expensive as it might sound. Many magazines make their Hugo- and Nebula-nominated stories available online at Awards time, and a number of online magazines have content that’s freely availalbe year-round.

What’s the Pay Rate?

For speculative fiction, markets that pay five cents per word or higher are generally considered professional markets. Markets that pay between three and five cents per word are called semi-pro or semi-professional. There are also markets that pay fixed rates, pay in copies, or don’t pay anything at all.

Among authors of my acquaintance, the generally accepted rule is: Always submit to the highest paying markets first.

Many authors are tempted to spare themselves the pain (and postage costs) of receiving five, ten or even a dozen rejections before selling the story, but I would advise against this. Give your work a shot at the best market in the field. It may fail, but then at least you’ll know that. If you sell it to a low-paying market on its first trip out, you’ll alway wonder whether it could have done better.

What’s the Response Time?

The time it takes from submitting your manuscript to receiving a rejection (or acceptance!) letter varies dramatically. Some online magazines respond in days or even hours. Other markets require over a year to respond. Many authors are unwilling to wait that long for feedback no matter how high the pay is, and so skip over the markets with unusually long response times.

How Reliable is the Market?

Fiction markets are not static. New magazines spring up and others go out of business with occassionally distressing regularity. Many authors are cautious when submitting to markets less than one or two years old, as experience has shown that they sometimes fold after a story is purchased but before it has ever seen print.

These aren’t the only factors you’ll want to take into account when submitting stories, of course, but they’re a good set to start with. Over time, you’ll get a feel for what’s important to you and what isn’t.

Keep at it, good luck, and don’t forget Heinlein’s Rules.

Go get ‘em!

photo by Beth Gwinn

by James Patrick Kelly

© 1995 by James Patrick Kelly, First published in Writer’s Digest, July 1995

What follows is not for the squeamish.

It’s the nature of writers to fall in love with words, particularly their own. Clever turns of phrase excite us; we beam like proud parents when our protagonists take on lives of their own; a shapely plot twist can turn our heads. There is nothing wrong with indulging in the occasional fling-as long as it stops in draft. When time comes to make that final revision, however, you must harden your heart, sharpen the ax and murder your darlings.

Well, maybe not all of them. Just the shiftless ones, those precious freeloaders who are too busy looking good to do any work. Once you learn how to spot them, you’ll see them everywhere, in unpublishable manuscripts and in award-winning stories, in my work and hers and yours. There are no exceptions; even Shakespeare can be profitably trimmed.

Some writers like to fix problems by addition rather than subtraction. First they layer in just a little more complexity to develop a rounder Aunt Penelope. And then they expand the garage scene, so it will foreshadow the car chase. Last they have Biff’s lawyer explain the rules of evidence to his secretary after the trial so that slow readers will get the end. If these writers worry about wordiness at all, they might tighten a few lines here and there. Drop a “he said,” on page two. Major surgery is for beginners, right?

What they don’t realize is that muscular prose alone can’t lift a narrative. Any sentence, no matter how powerful, that serves no story purpose is just so many wasted words. Obviously, adjective pileups and unnecessary clauses and clunky diction must go. However, effective cutting involves more than line editing. You can also strike whole paragraphs — pages, even! For example, toss out that extra twist and the plot might come clear. Too much costume jewelry weighs characters down so they can hardly move. Rather than reconstruct the pyramids in five paragraphs (despite that week you spent cruising the Nile last summer), pick the two best and invite readers to supply some of their own building materials.

Although I can offer some specific suggestions for what to excise, please don’t memorize my list. These skills are most useful when stored in intuition, not consciousness. The best way to prevent verbosity is to develop an instinct for cutting, which means you should practice every day. I know enough writers to realize there’s no universal technique for getting words on paper. But here’s the routine that works for me.

I write at the computer, the greatest advance in literary technology since the eraser. I spend the first hour or so paring and revising the previous day’s work. This not only promotes the proper mindset but it also helps me re-enter the world of the story. I’m rarely stuck because I always begin with these editorial warm-ups — much easier than first draft, in my opinion. In the middle part of the day I try to compose as carefully as I can. Later on, however, I may let standards slip in order to fill out the daily complement of screens. This admittedly sloppier work will either be cleaned up or pruned first thing the next morning, as the process begins again.

Although I edit daily, I rarely attempt major cuts until I finish a working draft. I like to split production of a finished manuscript into two stages, revision and deletion. In the revision stage I make sure I’ve given my readers enough of everything: plot, character, setting, theme. I search for logic flaws and continuity breaks; I run my spell checker. Revision ends once I’m satisfied that the manuscript is complete and as coherent as I can make it. Only then do I go through it one last time with an itchy finger on the delete key.

How much to trim at this point? Based on extensive reading, I estimate that the current rate of literary inflation is about 10%. I try to do my best to fight it; so should you. Thus, if the revision draft is twenty pages, the submission should be eighteen.

Two pages! How can you carve two pages of living prose from a story without killing it? Here are some things to look for.

Adjectival and adverbial leeches. Start at the sentence level, hunting for the unnecessary modifiers which drain the life out of prose. Strong verbs are the key to taut writing. Rather than, “The ungainly triceratops walked slowly away,” try “The triceratops lumbered away.”

Clumsy entrances and exits. Don’t waste time moving people around; too many doors open and close in fiction. If you want the UPS man to deliver a mysterious parcel, he doesn’t need to knock, come in, and ask Reggie to sign for it. When Janet screams at Bob that she’s sick of his catting around and wants a divorce, why must she also stalk from the house to her car and peel out of the driveway? Some writers try to punctuate emotional scenes with histrionic exits. If the scene isn’t angry enough, fix it. Don’t slam the door.

Unnecessary scene or time switches. Aristotle was wrong about physics but he was right to recommend unity of time and place. Before you board a cruise ship or skip ahead three weeks, always ask: is this trip necessary? When you change venues or let time fly, you take on an extra narrative burden. You must describe the new setting, explain what happened in the interim. Compressing these story elements can save words while shifting the focus back onto character and action.

Overpopulation. In the attempt to recreate the sweep and richness of life, some writers keep cramming characters into a story until it resembles the Marx Brothers’ stateroom in A Night At The Opera. The people you want readers to care about will be lost in a mob scene, so keep the cast to a minimum. Name as few characters as you can, describe even fewer. If you can combine two characters into one, you probably ought to.

Overdramatization. “Show, don’t tell,” can be a dangerous policy. Prolix writers think they must dramatize everything. But a story isn’t a game of charades; you’re allowed to come right out and tell the reader what’s what. Do you really need a rhapsodic paragraph about Amanda’s aquiline nose and alabaster skin and piercing blue eyes and tawny mane when all you wanted to say was that George was attracted to her? When necessary tell, don’t show.

Arriving early; staying late. Not all stories start on page one — only the good ones. If you’re the first at the party, there’s usually nothing to do until the other guests arrive except to stand around and admire the furniture. Writers who start their stories too early have the same problem. They waste time describing the china on the breakfast table, the daisies nodding in the garden. Or else they deliver a weather report. Yet the same people who chuckle at the classic howler, “It was a dark and stormy night,” don’t hesitate to play meteorologist in opening paragraphs of their own fiction. Similarly, when the story is over, stop writing. There’s no need to explain exactly what became of everyone and how they all felt and what it all meant. Memorable fiction rarely ends with the last line. By leaving some things unwritten, you empower the reader to imagine what happens next.

It is one skill to recognize potential cuts, another to make the right ones. A strategy I’ve developed is to read my work aloud in draft; it forces a fresh approach. Try it sometime and listen carefully to the expression in your voice. You may actually hear your interest level peaking and dipping.

For those who just can’t bring themselves to operate on their own fiction, I offer this advice: get a second opinion. Almost anyone can help, even your mom. In fact, if you’re dissatisfied with the criticism she’s been giving you lately, don’t ask for it next time. Instead, just hand her the manuscript and a blue pencil and tell her to prune 10%. While Mom may not have been an English major, she’ll know when she’s bored. Easier for her to remove the slow bits than to critique your subtext.

Unfortunately, the craft of cutting is undervalued in a world where writers are paid by the word. And it shows; you don’t have to look very hard to find padded work in print. Yet clearly it is precision which separates the journeyman from the master. Perhaps the way to grow as a writer is to shrink your manuscripts. Or, as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch so memorably put it, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it — whole-heartedly — and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.“

A Cautionary Tale

by Tappan King

Copyright © 1991-1997. This document may not be reproduced in any form without express written consent of the author. You have been warned.

FOREWORD

From March, 1986, until its untimely demise in February, 1989, I was the Editor-in-Chief of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, and Editorial Director of its “twisted sister” publication, Night Cry. During that time, we received an average of one hundred manuscripts per week, in addition to a backlog of more than 2000 manuscripts left behind by my predecessor.

I had never edited a fiction magazine before (although I had been a consulting editor to Bantam Books between 1980 and 1985, and was involved in the founding of the Bantam Spectra imprint for science fiction and fantasy). It was an education, to say the least. During those three hectic years, my colleagues and I (including Associate Editor Alan Rogers, Managing Editors Robin Bromley and Peter “Stoney” Emshwiller, and Assistant Editors Robert Simpson and Margaret McGlynn, and several freelance readers) I made a valiant effort to keep up with the torrent of manuscripts.

During, and after, my tenure, I appeared on several panels at SF conventions which dealt with the basics of submitting a manuscript. Over time, I discovered that the audiences were far more interested (and, I think, learned more) when the panelists presented the information in dramatic form, role-playing the various characters involved, from hapless new writer to grizzled, jaded editor.

I’d been on the GEnie network (GE’s online information service) for about a year, when a side discussion in the Science Fiction Roundtable (SFRT) (in topic on the editorial relationship) spawned a new topic called “Packaging Your Manuscript.” Author Martha Soukup, an Assistant SysOp (System Operator) for the SFRT, gave it the following topic header:

CATEGORY 6 — THE WRITTEN WORD
Topic 18
Packaging Your Manuscript
–physically, that is. The virtues of paper clips, rubber bands, boxes, folders, and enclosed bribes to the editors: when to use what.

The topic proceeded fairly innocuously for about a month, with lighthearted banter about the proper format for pages, preferred type styles, and various types of fasteners.

But one evening at the end of July, some Imp of the Perverse overcame me, and I decided to see if there was any interest in an online version of the sort of dramatization of the editorial process I’d done previously. To my horror, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Over the next week, my waking hours were involved with the extempore creation of a thirteen-part cliffhanger, presenting in excruciating detail the trials and tribulations of Myrtle, an innocent young manuscript cast upon the winds of fate by a fledgling writer.

The response was gratifying. Not only did the members of the GEnie RT seem to enjoy the Saga of Myrtle, they also seemed to learn valuable lessons about the pitfalls of publishing, and the all-too-human nature of the editors who hold writers’ fate in their trembling hands.

A transcript of the Saga follows. It is essentially unchanged from its initial appearance, save for a few alterations for consistency and elegance. If you are interested in the rest of the dialogue, several members of the SFRT have complete transcripts of the discussion.

One disclaimer: The individuals depicted in this purely fictional exercise bear no resemblance whatsoever to actual writers or editors, living or dead, real or imaginary. Especially not the Editor-in-Chief and loyal staff of The Twilight Zone, who were, at all times, prompt, efficient, and thoroughly professional in the performance of their responsibilities.

Message 226    Mon Jul 29, 1991    at 20:43 EDT

A quick poll of the membership: Who’s interested in the Sprawling Saga of what actually happens to an SF or Fantasy short story manuscript from the time it leaves the author’s hands to the time the author gets a “yes” or “no”? Fair warning: It’s not pretty …

>T<

Message 243    Tue Jul 30, 1991    at 10:50 EDT

Okay:

THE SAGA OF MYRTLE THE MANUSCRIPT, FIT THE FIRST

Myrtle is sitting in a mailbox on a rainy Monday morning, waiting for the postmam to come. One of her stamps has already started to curl, and the rain dripping in has started blearing the return address in the upper left corner. But she’s exhilarated to be starting out on her journey.

Wait! She’s been scooped up, tossed on the floor of the jeep, and rides there under Polly the Postmam’s Reebok all the way back to the station. By the end of the day, the side of her flap has gotten bent up. Now she’s been summarily sorted by size and destination, and fed through the cancel machine, and thrown in the bottom of a large canvas bag. It’s dark in here, and most of her company is stuffy business correspondence with no spark of creativity. It’s also cold in the cargo compartment of the plane, and the Indian River Grapefruit is starting to seep …

Four days later, she’s shaken out of the bag she’s been sitting in over the weekend, and dumped on a large metal table. A bored temp, wearing headphones and reading dirty magazines, flips the envelopes out over the post office floor, fifteen feet into a series of waiting mailbags, propped open in racks.

Myrtle lands in the wrong bag …

NEXT TIME: FIT THE SECOND–BENIGN NEGLECT!!

Message 246    Tue Jul 30, 1991    at 19:39 EDT

Our saga continues …

FIT THE SECOND: MYRTLE IN THE HOUSE OF BENIGN NEGLECT

It is now three weeks since Myrtle the Modest Manuscript was placed in a mailbox, and sent on her way to Shameless Stories magazine. But she has only arrived at her destination this morning, as a result of mishandling by the Postal Service.

But wait! When we say “arrived,” what do we really mean? Well, we mean that the canvas bag with U.S. POSTAL SERVICE on it has been delivered to the service entrance of the Smegma Building, where it sat on a loading dock until Tuesday morning, when Jaime, the Mailroom Guy from Chutzpah Publishing (parent company of Shameless Stories), recently recovered from root canal surgery, returns to work and drags the bag up to the mailroom. The bag is then opened on Wednesday morning, about 7:20 am, when Jaime is all alone in the mailroom, listening to Vanilla Ice and drinking a Cherry Coke, and tossing envelopes into various wooden boxes along the wall.

Here’s a sampling of the company Myrtle has on the big dented metal table in the middle of the mailroom: Business envelopes addressed to the Publisher, the Business Manager, the Comptroller, the Circulation Director, the Art Director, the Ad Sales Director, the Field Sales Director, the Publisher’s Mistress, the Publisher’s Bodyguard, and the Nice Old Lady Who Answers the phone.

But wait! There’s more! There are also manila envelopes for Sleazy Stories, Scary Stories, Smarmy Stories, Smutty Stories, Sunny Stories, and Little Baby Bunny Stories, all published by various divisions of Chutzpah Publishing.

Jaime, being a dedicated young man (despite the “J” shaved into the side of his head), works late all that week, and finally gets all of the mail sorted by Friday afternoon, leaving the work table clean as he heads out for a hot date.

Monday morning, he wheels the huge piles of stuff around to all of the different offices. It is now four weeks since the manuscript was mailed … .

NEXT TIME: MYRTLE UNDERGOES TRIAGE …

Message 249    Wed Jul 31, 1991    at 10:47 EDT

FIT THE THIRD: INCOMING WOUNDED

It’s Monday morning <M-day plus 28>, in the offices of Shameless Stories. The Editor-in-Chief, Saul Badliver, is on his fourth cup of coffee, sitting with his feet up on a pile of slush, while his two assistants, Kitty Devonshire <the Managing Editor>, and Byron Wilder <the Associate Editor> sit on the beat-up old office couch (having moved piles of manuscripts onto the floor to make room). They are discussing the December issue …

… when Jaime the Mailroom Guy rolls in a large cart with three large stacks of mail on it. Byron and Jaime slap hands as Jaime hands Byron an enormous stack of manilla envelopes. “Ah, sh*t, says Byron, “more incoming wounded … ” Kitty gets all of the form letters, bills, and other official looking correspondence. And Saul gets a small stack of stuff with his name on it.

Now watch closely: Kitty, with an apparently absent-minded air, flips quickly through the letters she’s holding. About a third of them go directly into the trash, unopened. (They are junk mail, press releases, and other stuff that’s obviously not for Shameless Stories. She rarely makes a mistake.) Byron dashes back to the airshaft he laughingly calls an office, and dumps the stack of manila envelopes (which all bear the words “Editor, Shameless Stories,” or some such variation) under his desk, and returns to Saul’s office before his coffee cools.

Saul, on the other hand, is an old-fashioned kinda guy. He feels he has to open every envelope that has his name on it, just in case it contains money. Myrtle the Manuscript has Saul’s name on it.

Now those of you who followed the narrative this far probably think this is a distinct advantage for Myrtle. For the terrifying truth, read on …

NEXT TIME: SITTIN’ HERE IN LIMBO …

Message 252    Wed Jul 31, 1991    at 19:50 EDT

FIT THE FOURTH: THE FIRST CUT IS THE DEEPEST

As the staff of Shameless Stories sit around drinking coffee and discussing the December issue, bleary-eyed Editor-in-Chief Saul Badliver is slicing open manila envelopes with the miniature Toledo sabre he got in a duty-free shop a few years back. He sticks the end of the point into the small opening made when he squeezes the end with the flap, slides it quickly in, and then saws upward with the razor-sharp blade, until he reaches the other side.

Many things can happen when he does this.

If it’s one of those horrible envelopes with the gritty gray fluff in it, he tries to pull it open by the staples, often lacerating his hands on the little staple points. (If the author has thoughtfully taped it shut with strapping tape, he throws it into the “too difficult to bother with” basket.) If the envelope is flimsy, he can tear a great chunk out of the side of the envelope. If the knife catches on the paper clip, he can gouge a great hole in the first page of the ms, or flip the sucker out of the envelope and onto the floor.

Saul, from long experience, is slitting all the envelopes at once. He will then go back and look in each envelope — but just then the Associate Publisher comes in to scream at everyone about something, and then there’s a meeting about advertising, and then it’s lunchtime, and then an article for the magazine needs editing … .

It’s now Thursday afternoon. Saul closes the door of his office, rolls up his shirt-sleeves, and begins to clean his room. By 5:45, when Kitty sticks her head in the door, Saul has a great huge pile of opened envelopes stacked up on his desk. Including our heroine, Myrtle.

For the next hour, Saul opens each envelope, glances at the cover letter and first page, slips the manuscript back, and flips it into one of five wire baskets on his desk. The baskets are labeled: A, B, C, D, and “BYRON.” At 7:24 pm, 31 1/2 days after the manuscript was mailed, it lands with a satisfying “thump” at the bottom of the basket labeled “C”.

Where it will sit for a surprisingly long time … .

NEXT TIME: BYRON WILDER, MANUSCRIPT WRANGLER …

Message 254    Wed Jul 31, 1991    at 20:27 EDT

FIT THE FIFTH: BYRON, THE BOY WONDER

In the three-and-a-half days it took Shameless Stories Editor-in- Chief Saul Badliver to go through his stack of some 100 manuscripts addressed directly to him, Byron Wilder, Shameless Stories’ Associate Editor, has processed nearly 500.

Byron, whose job is in a bit of a lull because the staff is between issues, is frantic to get caught up on manuscripts, because he knows things will start getting hectic again in a week or so. His first action is to use his Workman Press envelope slitter, which he copped at last year’s American Bookseller’s Association convention, to open all of the envelopes in rapid succession. Since he works with single-minded devotion, and the tool in question is awesome in its precision, he gets all of the envelopes opened by Monday afternoon.

He then peeks into the top of the envelopes while listening to REM on his Walkman, and drops them into three cardboard boxes under his desk. Two of them are labeled RAW SLUSH: JUNE. One of them is labeled SOMEBODIES 6/91. When the first two boxes are filled, they go on shelves in the office of Kitty Devonshire, the Managing Editor. (There are boxes on those shelves labeled “DECEMBER,” so don’t be too surprised if you haven’t heard about your story yet … .)

A few minutes later, Yasha Fitzsimmons, a sometime short feature writer and professional manuscript reader, shows up with a backpack full of manuscripts and hands them to Byron. Byron empties them out, takes the large stack with the rubber band around it labeled REJECTS and puts it behind the telephone on his desk. The other stack, which is labeled KEEPERS, is put in yet another box under Byron’s desk. Byron then takes Yasha into Kitty’s office, and helps him fill his backpack with the December and January manuscripts, and two mysteries from the review mailing pile.

When Yasha has gone, Byron closes the door of his office, and starts in on the KEEPERS pile. By the time he finally goes home at 6:15 on Monday evening, he’s read all 36 of the manuscripts that made the first cut. Twenty-two of them he rejects outright, sealing them and tossing them in the outgoing mail. The remaining four he sticks Post-it notes on with a few key words, and puts them in another cardboard box labeled KITTY. When that box finally gets full, he’ll take them down to Kitty’s office for a second read.

It should be noted here that every few days, Kitty Devonshire takes massive quantities of manuscripts and SASEs out of their mailing envelopes, puts the manuscripts into the SASEs along with rejection slips, and then puts them back on the shelf in those cartons labeled by month. This is less callous than it seems. Since Shameless Stories can buy less than 150 stories a year, the vast majority (something like 399 out of 400) will be rejected. When this happens, all the staff of Shameless Stories has to do is toss it into a large cardboard box labeled OUTGOING MAIL, and their job is done.

Myrtle, meanwhile, is still languishing in the office of the Editor-in-Chief… .

Message 260    Thu Aug 01, 1991    at 11:58 EDT

FIT THE SIXTH: A NEW HOPE

When we last left Myrtle the Manuscript, she was lying at the bottom of a wire basket labeled “C” in the office of Saul Badliver, Editor in Chief of Shameless Stories … .

Forty days and forty nights have passed, and Myrtle is still in that basket, now crushed by the weight of dozens of other manuscripts. In the 71 days since she was mailed, a total of 814 new manuscripts have arrived at the offices of Shameless Stories, and 428 have been read, evaluated, and rejected. Are you beginning to get a sense of the enormity of the situation?

I forgot to mention that the December ‘91 issue of the magazine has been assembled, edited, and sent to the typesetters, and the December/January issue is currently being finalized (It’s a big Anniversary Issue, which means the words “Anniversary Issue” will be splashed across the cover … )

And the Editorial Staff finds themselves in another lull …

“We’ve got to do something about all of these manuscripts,” says Managing Editor Kitty Devonshire, clucking her tongue at the huge, overflowing baskets on Saul Badliver’s desk. “I’ve got a whole stack of letters from writers asking what’s become of their manuscripts.”

“Well, I’ve got a meeting with the Publisher this afternoon,” says Saul, rubbing absently at his ulcer, “Why don’t you and Byron go through the stuff in my office and put it in order?”

So while the Editor in Chief wastes an entire afternoon listening to the Publisher’s bad jokes, Kitty and Byron tackle the piles in Saul’s office.

The process yields: Six manuscripts that fell out of the “A++” basket on the top of Saul’s filing cabinet and down behind into the primordial gunk. Eleven manuscripts that were crushed under the wheels of Saul’s vintage 1924 Art Deco office chair. Nine baskets of neatly stacked manila envelopes, labeled “A++,” “A+,” “A,” “A-,” “B+,” “B,” “C,” “D,” and “BYRON.” One hundred forty-seven paper clips of various sizes shapes and descriptions, sixty-six rubber bands, eighteen International Postal Reply Coupons, and forty-nine dollars worth of loose stamps.

Kitty has also managed to match 36 query letters to manuscripts in Saul’s office — INCLUDING MYRTLE!!! She glances at the cover letter, notes that Myrtle’s author has been published in several other magazines (though not in Shameless Stories) and slips a Xeroxed form letter into the SASE sent with the query letter, which reads in part: ” … your story has been held for a second reading … ”

NEXT: THE GREAT QUARTERLY SLUSH KILL AND PIZZA PARTY …

Message 268    Fri Aug 02, 1991    at 11:33 EDT

FIT THE SEVENTH: ONE MEDIUM MANUSCRIPT WITH ANCHOVIES AND EXTRA CHEESE …

The Associate Publisher’s niece’s best friend, who mailed a story to Shameless Stories five weeks earlier, has just called up the Associate Publisher and shrieked that she is being given the runaround by the Associate Editor. The Associate Publisher has just reamed out the Editor in Chief:

“How many damn manuscripts have you got in there, anyway, Saul … ?”

“Conservatively, I’d say about five thousand … ”

“Five-<farking>THOUSAND!!??! Well, I got news for you, <buster>, you ain’t going home tonight until you find my niece’s best friend’s story. It wouldn’t kill you to buy it, either … ”

The Editorial Staff of Shameless Stories exchange Significant Glances. In three separate “offices” the following phone conversation takes place:

“I’m going to have to work late on the backlog. You wanna come over and take part in our Quarterly Slush Kill and Pizza Party? We’ll expense it to petty cash … .”

Imagine this scene:

A half dozen editors, readers, and significant others sit cross- legged on the floor. In the center are several pizza boxes, two gallons of Diet Pepsi, and a bottle of Maalox. Surrounding them are stacks of manuscripts. Play passes to the left. Kitty is reading aloud:

“When I came to the Castle of Count Eripmav, I had no idea what laid in store for me … ” <Loud Bronx cheers and rude noises, “Gong Show” sound effects, etc.>

Byron: “Only the daring dues of Lucas Skysaber saved the beauteous princess Layla from the dreaded Dark Lord Vaguer … .” <More rude noises.>

Byron’s significant other: “The thousand injuries of Fred I had bored as best I could … .” <Still more rude noises>

Saul: “You’ve probably read all the stories you ever want to about killer sows from outer space, but mine is a little different … .”

Silence.

Kitty: “That sounds like a keeper to me. Next?”

Yasha: “Mightily thewed, Kovacs the Barbarian hacked and slashed his way through the Dread Forests of the Nightmare Goons … ” <More rude noises … >

Outside, a dog is barking …

NEXT: THERE’S GOT TO BE A MORNING AFTER …

Message 275    Fri Aug 02, 1991    at 23:01 EDT

The damn-near endless saga of Myrtle the Manuscript continues …

FIT THE EIGHTH: DAWN OF THE HALF-DEAD

Gladys the Rumanian Cleaning Lady, opens the door of the office of Saul Badliver, Editor-in-Chief of Shameless Stories, at 5:15 am, Friday morning, and recoils in terror. Three huge Xerox cartons heaped high with stamped, self-addressed envelopes obstruct her passage into the room.

The cartons contain one thousand, one hundred and twenty-nine truly execrable attempts at short fiction which will soon be on their way back to their creators. For in four hours, young Byron Wilder will stagger in that door, eyes red from the smoke at the midnight show of “Pump Up the Volume” at the Waverly that he attended to get the taste of bad prose out of his mouth. He now bears an eerie resemblance to Christian Slater. He will arrange the manuscripts in relatively neat piles, and bribe Jaime the Mail Guy to take them with a dub of the new Jesus Jones CD.

Five minutes later, Managing Editor Kitty Devonshire will enter that same room, and gather up a stack of two hundred eleven manuscripts which are held together by three red rubber bands, and covered with a note that reads “SURVIVORS,” traced in anchovy juice on the back of a cover letter.

And, at a quarter to eleven, Saul Badliver will finally enter his office, scratch his head to find it relatively free of manuscripts, except for a single large wire basket labeled READ THIS OR DIE!!!

Saul shakes his head, empties the large flower vase behind his desk that is filled with dead chrysanthemums, rinses it in the Gladys Rumanian Cleaning Lady’s business sink, fills it with overcooked black coffee, walks back into his office, sticks a little magnetic sign on his door that reads DON’T EVEN THINK OF OPENING THIS DOOR and sits down heavily on a piece of pepperoni Pizza which is still stuck to his 1924 Art Deco chair, ready to do penance for his sins … .

A NOTE TO OUR READERS: There is something you must understand. As strange as it might seem, the Editors of Shameless Stories truly love good fiction. They actually live for the moment when a fresh, interesting, or even basically competent and entertaining story will fall on their desks. They edit Shameless Stories, rather than taking a real job, because they, like you, really love this stuff. Really they do.

What you must understand, however, is that reading submissions is for them like making Pablo Casals attend a tuba-testing convention. Like locking Andrew Wyeth in one of those “All the Art You Can Eat” shows at the Holiday Inn. Like taking Paul Prudhomme to Domino’s Pizza. Do you begin to encompass the horror of it all … ?

Saul Badliver picks up an envelope, takes the story out. It is a very flawed leftover series story by a VERY FAMOUS WRITER WHOSE WORK SELLS TONS AND TONS OF BOOKS. He wants to reject it. He knows the letter alone will kill the better part of the morning. He suspects that more people will buy the magazine because of the VERY FAMOUS WRITER’s name on the cover than will cancel their subscriptions because it’s garbage.

His hand trembles. He puts the manuscript in the KEEP basket to the right, loathing himself for doing so.

He will go through a similar process ninety-four more times today before he finally pulls Myrtle out of the basket … .

NEXT TIME: BITING THE BULLET

Message 292    Sun Aug 04, 1991    at 12:42 EDT

FIT THE NINTH: THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

The heart-stopping saga of Myrtle the Manuscript continues …

But first, it might be useful to recall why all of these underworked overpaid professionals are taking the time to read, or at least look at, thousands of terrible manuscripts.

The first reason might be summed up by the phrase: “Stephen King won’t live forever.” (Substitute “Terry Brooks” or “Bill Gibson” or “Toni Morrison” or “John Crowley,” or whoever your favorite writer is, for the proper emotional effect.) New writers have to come from somewhere, and just about everyone who’s writing now once, long ago crawled out of the slush pile.

The second reason is that there is in fact, a magazine to be put out. “Shameless Stories” prints approximately 60,000 words of (semi-)original prose thirteen times a year. A little math will show you that the staff has to actually buy about 150 stories a year so the pages won’t be blank.

The third reason (and one you might not have considered) is that one of the few compensations editors have is to be able to say “I discovered Elizabeth Hand.” (Substitute “Bob Aspirin” or “Mel Brooks” or “Dorothy Dunnett” or “David Drake,” or whoever you like, for the proper emotional effect.)

So Saul Badliver, having read all the way down to poor, long- suffering Myrtle, is engaged in an exercise called “issue balancing,” which might be compared to packing a suitcase …

I’ll describe this process in a moment, but first another digression:

Where did that basket labeled “READ THIS OR DIE” on Saul Badliver’s desk come from? Well, it’s composed of several different kinds of material:

1. Stories from Big Name Pros which came directly to Saul’s office, and have never left it.
2. Stories from Fairly Big Name Pros which came first to Saul’s office, but may have made a detour through Kitty’s office if she knows the writer, or if Saul is overworked. (The less publishable ones were most likely returned with a nice note from Kitty. Those few that made the second cut were returned to the basket.)
3. Not All That Well Known Pros who came first to Byron, were quickly sorted into a pile labeled “SOMEBODIES” (remember?) and then sent to Kitty for “culling” and have found their way to Saul’s basket.
4. Stories by nobody in particular that were so well written that they made it past Yasha, past Byron, and past Kitty, and were placed in Saul’s basket with a note that reads “BUY THIS!!”
5. Stories that are unpublishable, but require a personal response (the Associate Publisher’s niece’s friend’s story is one of these) and
6. Stories that got stuck to the bottom of the basket.

Myrtle falls into category 6 …

Message 295    Sun Aug 04, 1991    at 13:10 EDT

FIT THE TENTH: I SHALL BE RELEASED … .

So anyway, Saul is “balancing” the next couple of issues of Shameless Stories. As I mentioned it’s a lot like packing a suitcase. There are certain large objects that have to go in first. Then there are some medium-sized things that get packed around them. And finally, you stick stuff into the corners and try to close the bag.

And if you pack the blue shirt, you need to pack the blue blazer and the blue socks and the burgundy tie. But if you decide to pack the beige suit, then you need to pack the brown shoes and tan socks and the ecru shirt and the chocolate tie. (Saul is not a very snappy dresser … )

Similarly, Saul has a bunch of sheets of paper with the names of months at the top: FEBRUARY, MARCH, APRIL, MAY, etc., a bunch of pencils, and one of those white cylindrical plastic erasers that come in a plastic holder. As he sits in his stuffy, overheated office, swilling cold coffee from a vase, he keeps juggling forty or fifty stories back and forth between those issues. Asking himself a number of questions: Does the author’s name have any drawing power? How long is the story? How long have I had it here? What has to go in that month? What’s the subject of the nonfiction piece? Does the issue have a theme? What season will the issue come out? Did I publish something by this author recently?

And somehow all of those decisions have to be optimized to make a balanced, pleasing issue that will satisfy all of the magazine’s constituencies.

As it happens, the February ‘92 issue is the Christmas issue. [Don't ask. Accept it on faith.] The Large Object that must be included is that awful series story by the Very Famous Writer. As it happens, the first scene of the story takes place in winter, and the protagonist’s name is Noel. Voila! A Christmas Special!

The second thing to go in is an overlong novella by a writer Saul discovered, and whose career he has been nurturing for five years. It’s maybe a bit overwritten, but otherwise it’s award-caliber. And the author has agreed with Saul that setting the last scene on Christmas morning will actually make it a better story. 27,000 words down. 33,000 to go. No, wait. Make that 29,000. The Long-Winded Critic is doing his Year End Wrap-up, which will probably come in about 4000 words.

Okay, what’s left? Well, the VFW’s story is a vampire-detective tale. The Overlong Novella is a winsome contemporary fantasy. The issue needs some hard SF. Right! There’s that “The Stars Are Sentient Goldfish” story by the astrophysicist, complete with a scientific appendix explaining why the story could actually be true. Stan Schmidt, eat your heart out! Gee! Everything’s kind of long. How about some of those shortish one-punch stories that have been sitting in inventory forever? Right. The psychic cannibal story, the last man on Mars story, and that strange thing with the killer sows. Let’s see, 29 minus eighteen equals 11,000 …

Oh! Here’s that story Kitty and Byron liked so much, about the mermaid and the dish washer repairman. Okay, now how much have I paid for all this? Good. I’m still $800 under budget. Well, that story by the Associate Publisher’s niece’s friend isn’t all that bad … Wait! What am I saying … ?!?

NEXT: THE APOTHEOSIS OF MYRTLE

Message 298    Sun Aug 04, 1991    at 14:25 EDT

The harrowing saga of Myrtle the Manuscript continues …

FIT THE ELEVENTH: THE UNKINDEST CUT

It is now ninety-one days since Myrtle, fervid with hope, began her voyage out into the world, dreaming of fame and fortune. She is now a sadder but far wiser dame. She has seen her peers treated with contempt and a cavalier attitude. She has endured physical slights which no self-respecting manuscript should have to endure. (Somewhere along the way she lost her paper clip, her SASE, and the bottom third of her cover letter … ) She has seen stories of far worse quality than she elevated rapidly to cover lines, and stories of somewhat better quality condemned to ignominious rejection because of the state of the internal organs of the editor reading the story.

But now, at last, her day has come.

For on that fateful Friday, at 6:24 in the afternoon of the hottest day in the history of New York City, Saul Badliver discovers he has exactly 2,450 words left in his word-budget, and exactly $150 left in his editorial budget.

And there, at the bottom of the basket, is a 2,700 word short story by a writer with one previous publication credit (a whimsical story about household appliances that got seven Nebula recommendations when it was published the previous year in Asimov’s SF). This one is funny, too. It’s the story of a group of miniature aliens who take over a small boy’s model railroad layout.

And the story begins on Christmas day … .

FLASH FORWARD TO: The editorial meeting for the February ‘92 issue.

Everyone is in agreement on the contents of the issue (although Byron thinks the Famous Writer’s story “chokes on the hairy banana,” and Kitty things the Sentient Goldfish story is pretentious). However, a two page ad spread for a mind- controlling cult’s endless science fiction series has just bumped the Xmas Xuiz; and cut into the slack allowed for illustrations, pull quotes, and author bios. Somewhere, 700 words have to be cut.

Saul, who has not actually bought any of the stories for the current issue except the one from the Famous Writer, and the three one-punchers in inventory, has been having misgivings about the “terrier subplot” in that story about the model railroad, which both he and Kitty think slows down the narrative.

“I think I can get 700 words out of the railroad story,” he says. Kitty sighs, gathers up all of the manuscripts in the folder labeled FEB on Saul’s desk, makes three copies of each of them, and hides the originals in a secret filing cabinet whose location only she knows.

Thus it is that Myrtle herself never undergoes the Editorial Process. That honor is reserved for one of her clones … .

NEXT: LET’S MAKE A DEAL!!

Message 304    Sun Aug 04, 1991    at 21:55 EDT

FIT THE TWELFTH: IT DON’T MEAN NOTHIN’ TILL YOU SIGN IT ON THE DOTTED LINE …

Tuesday evening. 96 days after Myrtle left the mailbox. Saul Badliver, who has been phone-phobic all his life, picks up the Xerox of Myrtle the Much-Abused Manuscript, which has the shreds of its original cover letter clipped to it …

… and fails to find a phone number. The author didn’t remember to put it on either the cover letter or the first page of the manuscript. Taking a wild gamble, Saul dials directory assistance for Arcata, California, gets a listing that vaguely resembles the author, dials it with trembling hands …

… and gets an answering machine. But all is not lost. Myrtle’s author, who just got in the door from picking up the kids at the daycare center, picks up the phone just as Saul is about to hang up (which is fortunate, since the entire conversation is thereby recorded for posterity … )

“Ah, hem, this, er, is Saul Badliver, Editor in Chief of Shameless Stories. I have your story here about the aliens and the model railroad, and I’d like to buy it for the magazine.”

Dead silence.

“Hello?”

Finally, the author answers. “Ah, hem, er, that’s — that’s wonderful, but … ”

“But what?”

“Well, when I hadn’t heard anything after two and a half months, I sent you a letter withdrawing the story, and sent it to F&SF. I just heard from Kris Rusch this morning. She’s considering it for their Christmas issue … You did get the letter, didn’t you … ?”

Dead silence.

“Um, ah, yes, we did, and we actually, er, sent you a letter about a month ago saying we were still considering it, so I wonder … ”

“Oh, dear. Now I don’t know what to do. I mean, you did have it first, and I only heard just heard from Kris, and she’s still considering it, so I guess — you pay, what? eight cents a word, right? I think F&SF only pays six … .”

“Um. Eight cents?”

“Well, that’s what it says in Writer’s Market … ”

The house of cards which is the Christmas issue of Shameless Stories is starting to fall apart before Saul Badliver’s eyes. “Um, eight cents. Right. Well, I can have a contract out to you tomorrow.”

“Gee! That’s wonderful!”

“There’s just one small problem. That scene with the terrier … ?”

NEXT: DON’T MISS THE EXCITING CONCLUSION OF THE SAGA OF MYRTLE THE MANUSCRIPT: GOIN’ TO THE END OF THE LINE …

Message 308    Mon Aug 05, 1991    at 13:09 EDT

The Death-Defying Saga of Myrtle the Manuscript continues …

FIT THE THIRTEENTH (AND LAST): THE BEST-LAID PLANS …

Friday morning: 99 days after Myrtle began her journey, she sits with warm contentment in Kitty Devonshire’s Secret Filing Cabinet, while her young clone undergoes The Editing Process.

Saul Badliver sits at his desk, drinking his eighth cup of hi-test coffee, clutching his ulcer-ridden gut, and marking up the photocopy with a recently sharpened blue pencil. First he styles the heading, putting reverse square brackets on either side of the title and author, to center them, and then writing 14 PT AVANT BF in the margin. (These are all Mystic Words of Power which can only be properly explained by Hagia Sophronia, High Priestess of Orthography and Matron Saint of Copy Editors) Then he draws a small left-pointing arrow from the first indented paragraph to the margin, and writes FLUSH beside it. Above the text he writes 9/10 OPT X 14 PIC FL/RR W BRKS. Then he goes through and draws little vertical lines between all the dots that make up ellipses, writes “1″ above every dash and “M” below it, circles every “#” mark and writes “1″ to the left of it and “LI” to the right of it. When he reaches the end, he crosses out the “- 30 – ” at the bottom of the page, and writes “END” above it. Then he goes back to the beginning and starts over …

But not before Kitty Devonshire comes in the door with the signed and executed contract for the story. (The reason Saul took so long to buy the story in the first place is that the publishers of Shameless Stories are cheapskates, and the Bookkeeper begrudges every penny spent on the magazine. In fact, the normal boilerplate offers half on signing, and half thirty days after publication. Myrtle’s author has wisely crossed this out, and allowed the magazine only First North American serial rights and an anthology option. For this, the author will be paid the princely sum of $190.) The author has returned the contract FedEx and Saul knows he’s going to have an unpleasant argument with the Bookkeeper over all of this. Nonetheless, he initials the changes, and Kitty takes the contract down the hall.

A half hour later, Saul has made a large number of small changes to the manuscript. Most of them are justifiable and actually improve the story. One or two are petty and arbitrary. He then puts a cover sheet on top, and fills in the name of the magazine, issue date, title of the piece, and priority (everything is RUSH!!!), and puts it in an out-basket with other edited manuscripts.

In the days that follow, Myrtle (or, more properly, her descendants) will go through seven sets of galley proofs, be styled and restyled by the Art Director, sliced up, waxed, and pasted down on boards by a paste-up artist, along with art commissioned especially for the story and then …

A four-page Christmas ad supplement from the Norwalk Mint comes in, with porcelain “Quantum Leap” figurines at $195 bucks a pop. Something’s gotta go … .

Saul calls a hasty editorial conference. The consensus is that Myrtle is dead meat. She’s the right size, and the boards haven’t been shot yet. Saul agonizes. Myrtle the Mechanical sits on his desk, haunting him with her naive charms.

(“She’s too expensive,” Saul tells himself. “And too long. And we already have a Christmas story in that issue … .”)

“Aw the hell with it,” he says at last. “Leave her in. We can cut the damn Killer Sows story instead, and have room for the Xmas Xuiz, too!!”

Byron grins. He liked Myrtle. Kitty rolls her eyes. Another farking repagination. “This is it, then?” she asks warily.

“It’s a wrap,” says Saul jovially. “Auld Lang Syne” can be heard faintly in the background.

Six months later, Myrtle achieves immortality.

– 30 –

AFTERWORD

The Posting of the Saga of Myrtle the Manuscript produced a good bit of discussion. Many readers couldn’t believe editors could be that ditzy. Others (some editors) wrote to say that they felt I had glossed over the Awful Truth. One of them (my wife, Beth Meacham, Editorial Director of Tor Books) felt it would be fairer, both dramatically and statistically, to have Myrtle’s odyssey end in rejection, but I have always been a sucker for happy ending.

And then there’s the matter of the terrier.

As an added treat for those of you who are reading this New and Improved version, here’s the part those online didn’t get to see:

The Poignant Saga of Myrtle the Manuscript:

CODA: CARPE CANEM

A telephone rings in Arcata, California. The Author of Myrtle the Manuscript answers:

“Hello?”

“Um, hello? This is Saul Badliver again, from Shameless Stories … ?”

“Oh, hi, Saul. What can I do for you?”

“Well, actually, I’ve been doing some thinking. I’m just putting the Christmas issue to bed, and in looking over your story, I realized I’d – um – made a mistake about that scene with the terrier. It really is kind of funny, and I’d – um – like to put it back if you don’t mind … ”

Dead silence.

(The awful truth, of course, is that one more full-page color ad came in a short time ago, and the issue has been increased in size by another four pages, and so Saul suddenly has to fill an extra page, and there’s nothing that will fit. And he’s been feeling kind of embarrassed about cutting out the terrier scene, since it is kind of funny after all … )

Finally Myrtle’s author responds.

“Oh. I guess that would be okay. I don’t suppose we’ll bother about the extra money, since it’s so small … ”

“The extra money?” asks Saul.

“Well, yes. I mean if the story is going to be 700 words longer, you technically owe me another five dollars and sixty cents, don’t you?”

Saul laughs hollowly. “I suppose you’re right. I’ll add it onto the contract for the next story I buy from you.”

“That would be fine. Oh, dear! I’ll have to tell Mike Resnick, though, so he can put it back in, too.”

“Mike Resnick?” Saul replies, with a sinking feeling in his gut.

“Oh, I didn’t tell you. Mike wants to reprint the story in his new theme anthology, TINY ALIEN STORIES. It’s going to be out next spring from St. Martin’s Press.”

“When next spring?” asks Saul, warily.

“I think it’s a January or February hardcover. I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no particular reason.” (Actually, Saul has realized that the books will probably in the stores before the magazine, because of Shameless Stories’ lackluster distribution system.) “Um – congratulations on the sale, by the way … ”

“Why, thank you, Saul. I don’t suppose you have any word for me on the other story yet, do you?”

“The other story?”

“Why yes. The one about the evil creatures masquerading as Nintendo cartridges?”

“Oh,” says Saul, looking balefully at overstuffed basket of manuscripts marked READ THIS OR YOU’RE DEAD MEAT Kitty Devonshire has just set down on his desk. “That story. Right. Well, it’s been held for a second reading … ”

THE REALLY AND TRULY END