Fully Listed by Jan Edwards
A writing friend was bemoaning the fact that, being a fairly prolific writer of
short fiction, she often loses track of the markets where she has submitted work,
and the fact that many of those short fiction markets fail to notify
unsuccessful writers does not help – and I feel her pain.
With
editor’s hats on at Alchemy Press we make a point of always notifying both
successful and unsuccessful writers when we have made our selection as a matter
of common courtesy; which can be quite a task when those submissions have
numbered anything up to four hundred per anthology.
However, I
can see how larger markets who have thousands of stories sent in would draw a
line at individual emails and many have a line in their guidelines giving a
time limit after which writers can assume they have been unsuccessful. Elsewhere technology has reached a point
where most of those use automated replies. That may seem impersonal when you
have slogged over a story and sent it out with high hopes, only to have it limp
home anything up to a year later, but it is not really any different to a
standard rejection email/letter, and at least you know where you stand.
So
how do we combat the lack of replies from the markets and/or poor memory of the
writer?
I
keep an Excel spread sheet that lists story/market/date sent and reply expected
but a simple Word Table will do just as well.
I realise that sounds desperately nerdy, but believe me it is done
purely in self defence! I am one of the most disorganised people imaginable,
with the memory of a gnat. If I don’t write it down forgetting it within days
is common. When these markets can take anything between three and twelve months
to reply it’s a given! And where I am concerned its not just lost story submissions that need tracking.
In
writing the Bunch Courtney Investigations
a series my lack of memory has proved to be a real problem when it comes to
details of my characters. I don’t just
mean a character sketch of lead roles and the villains they are chasing,
though I do write down the usual information on each: age, appearance, basic
background. Recurring supporting roles are also reasonably easy to keep track
off with a few bullet points. I’ve found that it’s the minor walk-ons who slip
past me the easiest of all. This is something that has not been an issue with stand-alone novels, but with a series it suddenly became a real issue.
My
memory for names is bad enough when faced with people out there in the real
world; those people I ‘should’ know, and have a total recall of their face and
where I know them from, but whose names remain stubbornly lodged in some dark
recess of my junk-yard brain and refuse to be brought to mind. Meaning that I
stand there chatting away, hoping the name will come to me – or by some miracle
be mentioned in passing and hope to hell that I’m not called on to introduce
them to someone else!
To some extent many of those walk-ons of mine don’t require names, but I was half way through book two when I realised that I had failed to make a note of the local Vicar. In 1940, in a small village, people would know that name and my imaginary village of Wyncombe would be no different. We never meet the Reverend Day, yet he is mentioned several times.
To some extent many of those walk-ons of mine don’t require names, but I was half way through book two when I realised that I had failed to make a note of the local Vicar. In 1940, in a small village, people would know that name and my imaginary village of Wyncombe would be no different. We never meet the Reverend Day, yet he is mentioned several times.
More recently the name that I needed to
find was an old friend of Granny’s from whom local gossip is often gleaned. ‘Connie Frain’ gets mentions in two of the three Bunch Courtney books,
and, as with Rev. Day, we never meet her in person; only gain her pearls of wisdom at second-hand.
Hats off to those uber-bijou cameos who only merit half a sentence but who
deliver the most vital of clues.
I
have an ancient writing programme similar to early versions of Scrivener. I don't use it to write but it does have a world-building function where these things can be recorded, and it’s been
a life-saver on many occasions. Its one drawback is that it doesn’t list them
alphabetically, so (and yes I am this sad…) I have recently also put those names
into a Word table. This required a rapid reread of all the Bunch Courtney Investigations –
including the upcoming third volume Listed Dead –
to make sure I had them all. I was gob-smacked
to find over 900 entries over three novels! That doubtless earns me place as a
card-carrying anorak of the highest order - but it keeps me out of
mischief.
All
of which brings me back to databases and spreadsheets in general. Keeping track
of details is essential whether that is short fiction submissions, bit-players
in a series of books or the bloggers and reviewers I will begin to harass quite
soon to read the new books before its release, if I didn’t write it all down I
just know I would forget.
***
In
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