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redheadedfemmeI just submitted my Greek fantasy to Weird Tales, and the instructions for e-mail submissions made me take a long hard look at the first few paragraphs of the story.
"Type of electronic submissions accepted: attached as a .RTF or .DOC file -- also, if possible, paste the first 3-4 paragraphs into the body of the e-mail."
For the editor, the advantages are obvious. If the first four paragraphs don't reach out and grab you, you can delete the attachment and get on with life.
This may seem unfair, but with the amount of submissions a mag like Weird Tales receives, I'm sure it's necessary. They simply don't have time to wade through five pages of backstory or exposition before something happens. I don't have time, and I'm a lot more forgiving about that kind of thing than a professional editor.
So: I pasted the first four paragraphs into my e-mail. I read them over ruthlessly and they seemed to hold up. These paragraphs introduce the two main characters, state the setting and time period, and state the story's conflict (not in clunky exposition, but in dialogue).
I've always liked this story. If I stumbled across those first few paragraphs in an anthology or on a Web page, I would want to read it through to the end. It's made the rounds; it doesn't seem particularly "weird" to me (but of course weirdness is in the eye of the beholder). It just needs to find a proper home.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
"Type of electronic submissions accepted: attached as a .RTF or .DOC file -- also, if possible, paste the first 3-4 paragraphs into the body of the e-mail."
For the editor, the advantages are obvious. If the first four paragraphs don't reach out and grab you, you can delete the attachment and get on with life.
This may seem unfair, but with the amount of submissions a mag like Weird Tales receives, I'm sure it's necessary. They simply don't have time to wade through five pages of backstory or exposition before something happens. I don't have time, and I'm a lot more forgiving about that kind of thing than a professional editor.
So: I pasted the first four paragraphs into my e-mail. I read them over ruthlessly and they seemed to hold up. These paragraphs introduce the two main characters, state the setting and time period, and state the story's conflict (not in clunky exposition, but in dialogue).
I've always liked this story. If I stumbled across those first few paragraphs in an anthology or on a Web page, I would want to read it through to the end. It's made the rounds; it doesn't seem particularly "weird" to me (but of course weirdness is in the eye of the beholder). It just needs to find a proper home.
Keeping my fingers crossed.
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