Wordcraft -- Much ado about Duotrope

If you read any writing post, by now you know that Duotrope’s Digest, the searchable database of writing markets, is only available by subscription. There was a lot of weeping on writing websites about the formerly free site’s decision to charge for its services starting the first of this year. Didn’t Duotrope love us anymore? How dared it charge for its services, after years of unsuccessfully begging us, its users, for support?

Although some writers I respect swore off Duotrope and offered alternatives, I went ahead and paid its fee -- $50 for a year’s subscription or $5 for one month. I’ve looked at alternatives and will share them in this post. But frankly, I don’t find any offering as much value as Duotrope. They’re free because sell advertising or solicit donations, as Duotrope did unsuccessfully.

Only you can decide which site, or variety of sites, is the best value for your situation. But consider that Duotrope offers a database of more than 4,500 markets which it keeps current, lets you keep a continuously updated spreadsheet of your submissions, and provides feedback from other users.

If you know for certain you’re not ready to submit stories, articles or poems for publication, it may be a waste of money to pay for a market research site. If you’ve published so much you’ve built your own list of markets, ditto. But if you publish but don’t have well-established markets, or if you’re not sure what’s out there in the ever-changing world of publishing, consider a short-term subscription to Duotrope.

For alternatives, especially for writers of “speculative fiction” -- that umbrella term covering science fiction, fantasy and horror -- take a look at writer J.W. Alden’s discussion of “10 Free Alternatives to Duotrope for SFF Writers,” at www.authoralden.com/.

I also check listings on incredibly prolific UK writer Deborah Walker’s blog,
http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/.

Deborah is one of those writers who’s built her own list of markets. She’s also a fan of an upcoming site, Submitomancy, billed as a free alternative to Duotrope. See its Facebook site for a current progress report.

Not a spec fiction writer? Consider New Pages, www.newpages.com/.

The literary type? Try Poets & Writers online listing of contests, grants, residencies and awards, at www.pw.org/.

Like me, you probably already subscribe to the likes of Glimmer Train and Writer’s
Digest. Share your own favorite sites. We’re in this together.

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Last Monday, I told you to expect a review of YA author Mark Zusak’s appearance at the Highland Park literary festival, but a bad cold and hectic schedule intervened. However, next week I hope to provide an update on literary festivals and conferences cited earlier this year. For now, I’ll just mention that the FenCon writers’ workshop in October is already filled. Hope you got your place to hear husband and wife Tor editors Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. But if not, I’ll fill you in on what they have to say.

Wordcraft -- Character: The likeability factor

I''ve lost the likeable character lottery -- again, after being turned down for the Sword & Sorceress anthology with a rejection letter from editor Elisabeth Waters that said, "This is a perfectly good story, but. . . "

Hey, wait!  She didn't actually say the characters were unlikeable, did she?  But I'd better turn to those who can write with more authority on the magic that makes a character -- specifically the main character, the protagonist -- someone readers (and that includes editors) will want to spend their valuable time with.

One of my favorite books adddressing this subject is the late Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat!"  Not least because it makes me laugh.  Although it's aimed at screenwriters, his discussion of story structure and character can apply to other forms of writing.  As he describes the concept, the "save the cat" scene is "the scene where we meet the hero and the hero does something -- like saving a cat -- that defines who he is and makes us, the audience, like him. . . . You must take the time to frame the hero's situation in a way that makes us root for him, no matter who he is or what he does."

Or as writer and agent Donald Maass puts it in his "Fire in Fiction," our job as writers is to create a bond between our readers and our protagonist.  And that's an immediate bond, on the first page if possible, not the last page or hidden in the depths of the story.  To do this, he said, we must give the readers a reason to care.

I love and care about all my characters, as you love and care for yours.  They're the children of our imagination.  And like good parents, we love our children no matter how weird or naughtly or -- let's be frank -- how unloveable they can sometimes be.  But passing out snapshots of our kids at their unloveable moments isn't going to make random strangers care about them.  We need to show pictures of the kids at their best, remembering that their best may be when they're soaked in sweat and mud.

Show the picture of her standing up for a bullied friend.  Or the one of him hugging his brother instead of hitting him.

In Maass's words, "Demonstrating a character trait that is inspiring does cause readers to open their hearts."

(While pondering editor Waters's words, I read fellow blogger Deborah Walker's wickedly funny post "Rejectomancy," about finding meaning in rejections.  See her post at http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com/  Next Wednesday:  "The Passage" author Justin Cronin tells us what it's like to get a multimillion dollar advance for a novel -- and what happens next.)
 

Wordcraft -- Why do stories get rejected?

I check in often with other bloggers to see what they’re writing about and lately there’s been a lot about what kinds of stories get accepted and what don’t.  British writer Deborah Walker (http://deborahwalkersbibliography.blogspot.com ) noted that she was thinking about horror writing lately.  (Could it have anything to do with THE WEDDING?) but also shared a link to the late Marion Zimmer Bradley’s discussion (www.mzbworks.com/why.htm ) of what really makes editors buy a story.  “The first sad truth about marketing fiction of any kind,” MZB confided, “is this, and you are just going to have to deal with it:  editors do not buy stories because they are well written.”

On MZB’s site, that was capitalized in boldface print, so I think she really meant it.  After a few doses of smelling salts, I recovered enough to read further.  It’s not that editors actively seek out badly written stories.  It’s that they’re more interested in salable stories.  Salable as in, primarily, stories that will give their readers a satisfying reading experience of the kind their magazines were intended to provide.  The italics here are mine.  And MZB has a few more pages of things to say about that satisfying reading experience, but I’ll let you read her words for yourself at www.mzbworks.com/why.htm/.  For now I’ll focus on the “of the kind their magazines were intended to provide.”  In other words, what genre readers would expect from the magazine.

One of my writing friends recently confided that she did not initially know what genre she wrote in.  Which brings me to the discussion by social media maven Kristen Lamb (http://warriorwriters.wordpress.org/ ) about the distinguishing characteristics of genre fiction.  Why? she asks.  Because, among other things, “each genre has its own set of general rules and expectations.”  A writer who writes a story beginning with a murder (often signaling the mystery genre), will have a hard time marketing her story as a romance if the murder victim is the protagonist’s love interest.  (Unless he comes back as a ghost, but that’s really another subgenre.)  Kristen does a thorough and thoroughly funny job of explaining genre characteristics, including the dreaded one of literary fiction which is not, she assures us, just anything that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Does following genre rules mean your stories have to sound the same as everybody else’s, as some writers fear?  No, says middle grade writer and hockey mom Kris Yankee (http://adventuresthatscore.blogspot.com ).  Kris has been brave enough to blog her way through the alphabet this month, and this week’s “U” entry is for “unique.”  “I’ve read that there are no new stories, just different (unique) takes on the same one,” she says.

I’ll add that there are limits to how unique unique should be.  Cycling back to MZB’s focus on “a satisfying reading experience of the kind their magazines were intended to provide,” let me add her caveat to read the magazine’s submissions guidelines.  And the magazine, if possible.  Read it even if not possible.  After all, a lot of on-line subscriptions are free and instantly accessible, so we’re running out of excuses.  And take the stories to heart.  They provide the kind of reading experience – satisfying and unique – their readers expect.