Discussion: Q1 Volume 39

Posted by: @scribblesatdusk

Interesting. I know Heinlein's rules but I reread my stories and wind up seeing all the ways it could be better or all the ways its flawed and then often wind up not sending it out anywhere and just letting it die out in my hard drive. Not all my stories, some I do believe in and keep on the run around but that's very few of them. 

Heinlein's rules were composed for an entirely different industry and market.

@disgruntledpeony Liz has this incredible power to edit old stories and make them better. Once mine are done, they're dead to me and I send them out until the yawning trunk welcomes them with the misshapen husks of my other abandoned works lol.

@angelslayah Heinlein's Rules are just as applicable today as they were when he wrote them. Many writers have followed them to tremendous publishing success. 

Posted by: @scribblesatdusk

Interesting. I know Heinlein's rules but I reread my stories and wind up seeing all the ways it could be better or all the ways its flawed and then often wind up not sending it out anywhere and just letting it die out in my hard drive. Not all my stories, some I do believe in and keep on the run around but that's very few of them. 

But is it really better? Or only different, because you're a different person in a different mood on a different day? Don't make the mistake I made with my first software design book: For nearly a month, I started every day by rewriting chapter 1, page 1, paragraph 1, line 1. Because it was "better".

We're not always the best judge of our own work. Sometimes we're too harsh.

Posted by: @wulfmoon

@angelslayah Heinlein's Rules are just as applicable today as they were when he wrote them. Many writers have followed them to tremendous publishing success. 

When Dean Wesley Smith convinced me to try Heinlein's Rules, I got my first Finalist. And I started selling.

Without Heinlein's Rules, I wouldn't have written a novella that sold straight to Analog, and then to two year's best collections (including Gardner's). I wouldn't have written "Today I Am Paul", and it wouldn't have gotten a Nebula nomination or a Washington Science Fiction Association Small Press Award. It wouldn't have been reprinted in four year's best collections or translated into eight languages (with a ninth on the way). I wouldn't have written the #1 science fiction book on Kindle for the month of October, 2019, nor the sequel. I wouldn't have written my 24-hour story that ended up in another year's best collection.

There are nine and sixty ways

Of constructing tribal lays

And-every-single-one-of-them-is-right!

-- Rudyard Kipling, "In the Neolithic Age"

I don't follow Heinlein's Rules for every story, but I do for the majority.

Lemme see if I can thread this needle adequately.

As a very early writer, revising something I'd already written was way less scary than writing something new, so I spent a fair amount of time revising. I never sold any of that stuff. Got a few personals, but nothing sold.

Today, once a story is done enough to submit somewhere, I don't revise it except a) to editorial demand, or b) if there's been a significant epiphany while the story was out.

I revised Totaled after it came back from WOTF with an Honorable Mention, and the revision took it from HM to Hugo-nominee. The 'significant epiphany' was how to handle the cognitive / linguistic breakdown, and I added about a thousand words.

A different story of mine is making its way through a contest right now, and that contest lets you pay for feedback each round. I considered that story done, but the feedback, to the extent that I agreed with it, was editorial demand. In addition, a friend gave me some insightful comments on the opening, so I made those revisions, too. We'll see how it does.

That's two stories out of 10 or so. Most of the time for me, once a story is done, it's done.

I'm not sure the other rules are arguable. Hard to argue with WRITE, FINISH what you write, and PUT IT OUT THERE until someone BUYS it. 

Posted by: @karyenglish

I'm not sure the other rules are arguable. Hard to argue with WRITE, FINISH what you write, and PUT IT OUT THERE until someone BUYS it. 

 

I'm gonna argue with FINISH what you write, but that's going to take a much longer discussion. Possibly a one-hour conference talk.

Thank you all for your insightful comments! I always learn so much from this forum.

I continue to write new also (can't not with the super secret thread) so I'm not stuck constantly revising one thing ad nauseum. My edits aren't just tinkering with words but usually involve significant changes to improve plot and pacing. More often, I retire the story because I don't want to devote the energy to do the revisions I think would be necessary to make the piece competitive. It's very easy to improve something that's average, harder to do so when it's cream of the crop (and I've few of those). I guess a lot of this comes with gaining more confidence as a writer and knowing when a piece is good enough to keep it going regardless of rejection status and when it's not. 

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

Posted by: @karyenglish

I'm not sure the other rules are arguable. Hard to argue with WRITE, FINISH what you write, and PUT IT OUT THERE until someone BUYS it. 

 

I'm gonna argue with FINISH what you write, but that's going to take a much longer discussion. Possibly a one-hour conference talk.

OK, I'll concede that it's sometimes smart to abandon something unfinished. I'll also concede that a hobbyist writer who doesn't care about selling stuff can do whatever makes them happiest, and if that's writing the first few paragraphs of 300 projects, more power to them.

But someone who aspires to sell fiction probably needs to finish the majority of their pieces.

Posted by: @karyenglish

OK, I'll concede that it's sometimes smart to abandon something unfinished. I'll also concede that a hobbyist writer who doesn't care about selling stuff can do whatever makes them happiest, and if that's writing the first few paragraphs of 300 projects, more power to them.

But someone who aspires to sell fiction probably needs to finish the majority of their pieces. 

I guess that if my "majority" can be not too dominant, I'm okay--I checked my story stats, and it looks like I have a 61% completion rate for my works historically. With that being said, the number goes up a bit if I skew to the most recent five years, and the percentage of incomplete does include some of my "story" entries that are actually just a collection of notes about a story I'm planning to write later.

@martin-l-shoemaker 
Well, as different very successful writer once said:
Tools, not rules!

The specific difference between Heinlein's publishing world and ours -a difference much in evidence in this extended conversation- is the notion of requested changes. 

Editors used to request changes to stories as a matter of course. Just like they used to comment on rejected stories -that is, not every time, but not almost never.

Editorial practice has changed.

So you can only rewrite when asked to, but you'll be rewriting, I'm going to very conservatively guess, 30% less than Heinlein did?
(And in spots, he should have done 30% more than he did!)

And anway "these rules, laid down by the Lawgiver Ape, are still as precious and valuable today and forever" doesn't sound a lot like Heinlein, himself, now that I think of it.

What interesting insights from fellow writers including previous winners. I've been familiar with Heinlein's Rules for some time. I'm only just now at the point where I have confidence in my ability to write short stories worth reading. Today I took a WOTF rejected story that I edited and sent to another market which was returned with feedback, found the main core of the story and clipped it to 600 words and sent it to another market (they prefer stories less than 1,000 words). I'm getting there. Writing is hard! It's so nice to have a community of fellow writers to travel with. I have two more deadlines in sight before March runs out. I'm hoping to be able to craft fresh stories for both markets.

I had to Google Heinlein's rules and found out I pretty much follow them anyway. 

Must be something else I'm doing wrong  

Posted by: @pdblake

I had to Google Heinlein's rules and found out I pretty much follow them anyway. 

Must be something else I'm doing wrong  

I also petty much follow them anyway. The difference being that, after an early rejection or two, I'll review a story and trim or make other changes. I can only do that a few times, though; then it's set and I'd make no more changes unless a paying editor asked for them.

I can't answer for everyone but I'm pretty convinced my two pro-sales in 2021 (my first full year of trying) were a result of the same process that garnered me more than 200 rejections in that same span!
A story which I continued to consider perfect -and which had been rejected 29 times- sold on the 30th submission... and that shed some light on the process for me.

Coming back to "finish what you write", I do think a skill that you acquire is to know when a story isn't working, or at least when it is no longer going to be what you wanted, hoped, or needed it to be.

That's all very subjective, of course, as it's affected by style as well as the manner in which we write. I read an interview with Terry Pratchett once about his novel writing, and he said that if he didn't know what the novel was about by the time he was half way through, he would abandon it. I've always thought that was fascinating, as even without any more detail, it gives a sliver of an insight into how he approached his story writing.

I find, though, that as I've written more, the ideas I actually sit down to write tend to be more interesting--i think partly because I've already written my way through my most simple and obvious ideas by now. So it's much less common for me to abandon a story entirely, and far more likely that I'll set aside a bad version and then rewrite it from scratch.

Posted by: @angelslayah

A story which I continued to consider perfect -and which had been rejected 29 times- sold on the 30th submission... and that shed some light on the process for me.

My favorite story sale to date, which sold to On Spec and then was reprinted by PodCastle, earned over thirty rejections before then. There is a great deal to be said for keeping your finished work out there to find a market.

I do edit my finished stories far less than I used to, too--though I pay attention if I get the same piece of feedback from independent sources, particularly if a fix for it is simple and organic, or if I get excellent constructive feedback from a source I respect. Otherwise, I just let them keep on sailing.

One of the most successful writers I know is my friend and mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. He did not start selling until he studied and applied Heinlein’s Rules. He was first to walk across the WotF stage, and today he is a WotF judge. Heinlein’s Rules served him well, and he’s a powerful advocate of them, as Martin can attest to with his own tremendous success. It doesn’t mean you can never revise a story, but it’s a well known trap more than a few aspiring writers have fallen into that keep reworking a cherished story over and over, never moving on to the next where they might learn something new (and have more product to sell). Worse, they might judge their finished works as unworthy and never send them out, instead of letting editors decide if they fit their needs.

It’s a valid system for writers, has led many to significant publishing success, and some to phenomenal publishing success. At the least one should study the system and see what they can learn from it. 

Here is where you can find Dean’s short but sweet book on Heinlein’s Rules and the benefits of following them. Cost you $4.99 as an e-book, but I recommend the paperback version. It’s going to be a book you’ll refer back to whenever you feel you’ve lost your way.

https://www.deanwesleysmith.com/nonfiction-books/

I also recommend listening to the late WotF judge Jerry Pournelle, who not only followed Heinlein’s Rules to his own publishing success, he got them from the horse’s mouth. 😊

And yes, editors still ask for revisions today and work with their writers, as anyone that has won Writers of the Future knows, as well as the other professional markets.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-mqEjCSNAzc

Posted by: @wulfmoon

It’s a valid system for writers, has led many to significant publishing success, and some to phenomenal publishing success. At the least one should study the system and see what they can learn from it. 

It's a valid system for some writers. It's a disaster for others. Nine and sixty ways. Tools, not rules.

It's a good idea to study tools, try tools, find the tools that work for you... and sometimes go back and try again, because different tools work better for different stories.

It's a bad idea to declare that a tool doesn't work, just because it doesn't work for you, so far -- especially when it's working for others. That can stop you from learning and growing.

Posted by: @doctorjest

Coming back to "finish what you write", I do think a skill that you acquire is to know when a story isn't working, or at least when it is no longer going to be what you wanted, hoped, or needed it to be.

That's all very subjective, of course, as it's affected by style as well as the manner in which we write. I read an interview with Terry Pratchett once about his novel writing, and he said that if he didn't know what the novel was about by the time he was half way through, he would abandon it. I've always thought that was fascinating, as even without any more detail, it gives a sliver of an insight into how he approached his story writing.

I find, though, that as I've written more, the ideas I actually sit down to write tend to be more interesting--i think partly because I've already written my way through my most simple and obvious ideas by now. So it's much less common for me to abandon a story entirely, and far more likely that I'll set aside a bad version and then rewrite it from scratch.

Rob — there is SO MUCH psychology packed in here for me. I can honestly say that I have never abandoned a story. On the other hand, there are a ton of stories that took me forever to write. I'm still figuring out my own process for writing. But one thing I've discovered is that some stories are easier to write than others. At some point, MOST of my stories become difficult to write and/or finish. But this isn't because the story didn't work; more often than not it's because there's a vital piece to the story that I haven't properly worked out yet. And that critical piece of the story turns into a sideways container ship that jams up my canal for days, weeks, months, even years!

I also get frustrated beyond rage because what turns out on paper (aka "computer screen") is NEVER as good as what I imagined in my head. So my stories never turn out the way I wanted or hoped or needed. That makes me want to quit. It makes me want to abandon them. It makes me want to quit writing altogether sometimes. Also makes me doubt my abilities to even write a decent story. But then I look at where I started and where I am now, and I see this huge chasm that I somehow crossed without falling into the black.

So I don't abandon stories for the same reason I don't abandon people: sometimes they're broken, sometimes they're difficult to work with, sometimes they make you want to rip out your hair, sometimes they make you grab the kitchen knife from the butcher's block like Arthur yanking Excalibur...wait...that might just be me...but then you realize we're all broken and make poor decisions and are sometimes difficult to work with. That's just how it goes. Much better to fix what's broken and move on then scrap the whole thing and start all over again. If I kept abandoning stories every time they got hard, I'd never finish a single one.

Told you. There was a lot of psychology in here for me. I may need therapy. I put the kitchen knife back, by the way. #dontcallthecops

Posted by: @wulfmoon

And yes, editors still ask for revisions today and work with their writers, as anyone that has won Writers of the Future knows, as well as the other professional markets.

I had sent multiple stories to Analog. I got a response from Stan Schmidt to one, closely paraphrased:

There's quite a good story in "Not Close Enough", but it takes too long to get there. If you can cut that down, I would certainly consider this story.

I was a nobody.* I had never sold anything to Analog. I had never sold anything to any pro market. (I had sold two at pro rates to Digital Science Fiction, but that market wasn't pro.) So I was surprised -- thrilled! -- to get this feedback.

And you'd better believe I attacked that story! Eventually I realized that my opening included a lot of foundational science that the average reader off the street would need to know to understand the story, but that the average Analog reader has known since... well, since I knew it, before I was ten years old. I cut that out, eliminating around 1,500 words, and I sent it back.

And at World Con that summer, Stan bought the story. That was my first pro sale, and it happened because Stan asked for revisions.

*But I wasn't a nobody, I just didn't know it yet. Dean has written of an editorial habit that is incredibly frustrating to us, but makes business sense to some editors. Remember, we're not their customers, we're suppliers. The readers are their customers. Every month (or bimonthly, or whatever), the editor has to give the reader a magazine that reader wants to read. The magazine is the product, not the stories. The editor has to deliver a good mix of stories, story lengths, and authors. They only have limited space, so they need to devote each story slot to a good story for that mix.

And part of that mix includes authors they can rely upon. They don't want a story from you, they want a relationship with you. If they give you a slot in the magazine, they're counting on you to sell them more good stories in the future.

So the frustrating habit is this: These editors usually won't buy your first good story! Not unless it's so good they can't refuse. They may pass up a good story, but put your name on a little list: Watch this writer. This writer has promise. After you send a couple more that are as good (or better), then they bite.

I wasn't a nobody. I was on Stan's list. His revision request was a test (as I later confirmed): did I know how to fix a story if he gave me direction? He wanted to nudge me, not point out the path. Because I took the nudge and followed through, I sold the first of many stories to Analog.

(See also: the Topanga Canyon story...)

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

 

(See also: the Topanga Canyon story...)

Thanks, Martin! Topanga Canyon reporting...If you are sending in stories regularly, and you are still getting rejected...this doesn't mean your stories are bad. It doesn't mean the editors don't know you. They do know you. They are watching you closely. They are waiting for that story that fits their market, that resonates with them. Do not give up! I learned this the hard way. 

Posted by: @angelslayah

@martin-l-shoemaker 
Well, as different very successful writer once said:
Tools, not rules!

I definitely don't have a problem with Heinlein's Rules--I use them sometimes, myself. The stories I pick to edit are mostly older ones where I thought they were done and then learned otherwise later, after my knowledge as a writer had grown. (And I have over-edited, or caught myself about to over-edit, on occasion. I put one story up on my website just because it wasn't selling and I needed to stop editing the damn thing--didn't want it to become my white whale. )

Posted by: @martin-l-shoemaker

Posted by: @wulfmoon

It’s a valid system for writers, has led many to significant publishing success, and some to phenomenal publishing success. At the least one should study the system and see what they can learn from it. 

It's a valid system for some writers. It's a disaster for others. Nine and sixty ways. Tools, not rules.

It's a good idea to study tools, try tools, find the tools that work for you... and sometimes go back and try again, because different tools work better for different stories.

It's a bad idea to declare that a tool doesn't work, just because it doesn't work for you, so far -- especially when it's working for others. That can stop you from learning and growing.

Agreed! Because of the way my brain works (which is weirdly, at times--ADHD does funny things to executive function and long-term goal processing), I frequently need different tools for different projects. I've collected a lot of different writing advice over the years, and it definitely helps me to know that there are alternatives when one specific process isn't working for me.

Also, this isn't so much a tool as a process, but: I was convinced I couldn't write flash until last year, because all my story ideas were too big. Then I basically had to write 30 different flash pieces in a row for a TTRPG project because of the format I chose for one section of the book I was working on. At some point in that process, something clicked in my brain, and now I can write flash comfortably so long as I have an idea for it. (Prompts help with flash, but I can always seek out--or make--my own prompts if need be. The biggest thing that helped me, I think, was practice.)

@disgruntledpeony I've never really tried flash, not for a long time. My ideas tend to lean toward longer word counts. I rarely write under 8k. 

Might have to try again sometime. 

Posted by: @disgruntledpeony

I definitely don't have a problem with Heinlein's Rules--I use them sometimes, myself. The stories I pick to edit are mostly older ones where I thought they were done and then learned otherwise later, after my knowledge as a writer had grown. (And I have over-edited, or caught myself about to over-edit, on occasion. I put one story up on my website just because it wasn't selling and I needed to stop editing the damn thing--didn't want it to become my white whale. )

Thar she blows!
Also: the Idea that Heinlein, or any artist, turns every cocktail napkin sketch into a finished product is farcical. 

You know, I have to say I love the scrum of ideas here. We all know at least *something* about how writing works, especially how it works for us, individually.

Me, personally, I've never abandoned a story. That doesn't mean there aren't good reasons to abandon a story.

I think Heinlein's Rules make good guidelines, but that doesn't mean they work for everyone, all the time.

But really what I like here is that people can express different views, different nuances of those views, question things, try things, and still do it in a way that lets everyone have a voice.

Kudos, peeps. 

Posted by: @morgan-broadhead

I don't abandon stories for the same reason I don't abandon people: sometimes they're broken, sometimes they're difficult to work with, sometimes they make you want to rip out your hair, sometimes they make you grab the kitchen knife from the butcher's block like Arthur yanking Excalibur...wait...that might just be me...but then you realize we're all broken and make poor decisions and are sometimes difficult to work with. That's just how it goes. Much better to fix what's broken and move on then scrap the whole thing and start all over again. If I kept abandoning stories every time they got hard, I'd never finish a single one.

Told you. There was a lot of psychology in here for me. I may need therapy. I put the kitchen knife back, by the way. #dontcallthecops

There was a lot! 😀 And all of it interesting.

For the most part, I do try not to rewrite stories--but there are exceptions. One case is a recent one, where after writing the story and getting some feedback (with thanks to @scribblesatdusk for that), I realized that the same premise, but with the setting and characters all changed--not to mention some new ideas seeding in at the edges--would make for a far more powerful end result. The effect of that was that nothing in the original draft was anything I could realistically save, perhaps with the exclusion of a few specific passages that would be applicable. But the new story concept is much stronger than the one that I'm discarding, and I think this is a case where trying to force the original draft to work out would both take more energy, and yield a lesser result.

(I have a whole separate question around whether it's a good or bad idea to rewrite a story that you finished, and liked, but which has run out of markets to go to...but that's a whole other game, and by and large, I am drawn far more to writing my new ideas, rather than to trying to rewrite the older ones.)

For abandoned, though...that used to be a bigger deal for me, particularly when I wasn't yet any good at discerning when an idea was something that had enough substance to be worth pursuing. There is a whole block of them from early on, when I was just latching onto any idea that went through my head, good or bad (and back then I was very much a guy who went aha-idea-write in the span of a few minutes, without really giving the concept much room to ferment before the first words were down).

But it's been a long time since I marked any of my stories as permanently abandoned--I checked, and the last permanently abandoned incomplete story I have recorded was over ten years ago. That being said, I think that the process of abandoning a story, either permanently or temporarily, can still yield good results--either in terms of lessons learned, or in terms of ideas and story exploration. One of my incomplete entries, which I set aside, helped to seed the ideas that created the Q2 entry I'm currently in the process of polishing up. They aren't the same story, and they aren't the same ideas either--but this Q2 doesn't exist without the story I set aside earlier.

There's value in the effort, I think, no matter quite where it ends up.