One down, three (plus) to go
May. 9th, 2012 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anthimeriaJust clicked send for "Humanbearer." This will be my second submission to Sword and Sorceress (the first one got accepted, yay icon!), but I'm much less sure about this one. Not the story's quality, but that it fits the market.
"Well Enough" was literally tailor-made for S&S. I wrote it with that specific anthology in mind, it was "Well Enough"'s first and only submission, I submitted three days into the reading period, was notified it was held for consideration, and then received the acceptance about four days after the reading period closed. It was my first-ever pro publication (and remained my only acceptance for the next year and a half) and I was over the moon (there are entries on here reflecting this . . .), but I never doubted that the story was right for the market. Whether or not it was good enough, or would fit with the other accepted stories, or would hit the editor's nerve wrong, sure, I worried about those--every writer worries their story will get rejected for any number of reasons, and I try to be realistic about those reasons.
The simple truth of the matter is that "Humanbearer" has at least two basic things working against it: its length (7200 words--pared down from 8k, true, but it's still a lot--more than many markets will accept), and its . . . hmm. How to put this? Inexact genre? It's definitely what I'd call high fantasy, sword-and-sorcery type fantasy, but there aren't any swords and there's only one instance of semi-magic textually, though it's mentioned a few times. My main characters are future warriors, instead of warriors in the story's present. It's also fairly YA both in story type and in character. So it doesn't exactly fit S&S's main female character who is either a fighter or a magician. But it also doesn't NOT fit those conditions, and the guidelines page says simply, "Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about." And "Humanbearer" has two! Sure, one of them's not human, but the sole protagonist in one S&S 25 story was a squirrel, so I don't think a dragon POV for half the story will hurt my chances.
ANYWAY. Length (long, and submitted late in the reading period for something so long), and genre-oddities aside, I am pleased to have this one off my plate on schedule. I'll be ecstatic if it gets accepted, and philosophical if it doesn't.
Though where else I'm going to submit a 7.2k-word YA high fantasy story about a dragon and her girl, I don't know. Ah, well. I'll figure it out after I get the rejection letter.
"Well Enough" was literally tailor-made for S&S. I wrote it with that specific anthology in mind, it was "Well Enough"'s first and only submission, I submitted three days into the reading period, was notified it was held for consideration, and then received the acceptance about four days after the reading period closed. It was my first-ever pro publication (and remained my only acceptance for the next year and a half) and I was over the moon (there are entries on here reflecting this . . .), but I never doubted that the story was right for the market. Whether or not it was good enough, or would fit with the other accepted stories, or would hit the editor's nerve wrong, sure, I worried about those--every writer worries their story will get rejected for any number of reasons, and I try to be realistic about those reasons.
The simple truth of the matter is that "Humanbearer" has at least two basic things working against it: its length (7200 words--pared down from 8k, true, but it's still a lot--more than many markets will accept), and its . . . hmm. How to put this? Inexact genre? It's definitely what I'd call high fantasy, sword-and-sorcery type fantasy, but there aren't any swords and there's only one instance of semi-magic textually, though it's mentioned a few times. My main characters are future warriors, instead of warriors in the story's present. It's also fairly YA both in story type and in character. So it doesn't exactly fit S&S's main female character who is either a fighter or a magician. But it also doesn't NOT fit those conditions, and the guidelines page says simply, "Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about." And "Humanbearer" has two! Sure, one of them's not human, but the sole protagonist in one S&S 25 story was a squirrel, so I don't think a dragon POV for half the story will hurt my chances.
ANYWAY. Length (long, and submitted late in the reading period for something so long), and genre-oddities aside, I am pleased to have this one off my plate on schedule. I'll be ecstatic if it gets accepted, and philosophical if it doesn't.
Though where else I'm going to submit a 7.2k-word YA high fantasy story about a dragon and her girl, I don't know. Ah, well. I'll figure it out after I get the rejection letter.