We Make Books Podcast

"Submissions September" Episodes Referenced:

Week 1 (9/3/2019): Is This Ready For Other People to See?- Submitting Your Manuscript
Week 2 (9/10/2019): My Entire Novel in Three Hundred Words - The Dreaded Query Letter
Week 3 (9/17/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 1: An Interview with Literary Agent Caitlin McDonald
- (9/18/2019): Agents of Literature, Part 2: Interviews with Agented Authors
- (9/19/2019): Agents of Literature Part 3: Interviews with Agented Authors
Week 4 (9/24/2019): What is Going On Over There? - The Other Side of the Submissions Process
Week 5 (9/30/2019): Now I’m Even More Confused – Submissions September Q&A Episode

Episode Transcription (all errors are entirely Rekka's fault)

Rekka (00:00):
Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:09):
And I'm Kaelyn. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:12):
And today we apparently just have baking on our mind.

Kaelyn (00:17):
Yeah, I don't. It was. I. I'm just really surprised that you watch the Great British Baking Show. I don't know why I'm surprised by that. I shouldn't be.

Rekka (00:26):
Well, it starts when we're looking for holiday content, that's feel good and we don't want to worry about like, you know, getting drawn into one of those crappy made-for-streaming movies that everyone's talking about. And it turns out to be like worse than a Lifetime romcom kind of thing. That happened a couple of times this year. So we basically have said, okay—

Kaelyn (00:49):
Lookin' at you, Christmas Prince.

Rekka (00:51):
We can, we can trust Great British Baking Show. And so we started with the holiday episodes and then this year we were not satiated by the holiday episodes when we ran out of them. So then we just started watching season eight and now we're working our way back.

Kaelyn (01:06):
Yeah. But, um, in this episode, you know, we're just—for full disclosure, get ready for a lot of baking metaphor as being shoe-horned—

Rekka (01:14):
As many as I was eager to fill in, but I was, you know, like, you know, it was trying to be refined in my application of them.

Kaelyn (01:23):
Yeah. Well, so along the lines of refinement, um, you know, today we're talking about, uh, leveling up. What you can do as an author, as a writer, to help improve yourself.

Rekka (01:35):
Yeah. Cause you know, you can always be making forward progress even while you're waiting for the success to come to you, you know? Cause it's not going to come *to* you, for one, and for two, there's a lot of waiting involved for going out and getting it.

Kaelyn (01:51):
Yeah. So I think a lot of people, especially those who have been trying, you know, sending out a lot of queries, trying to get published for a long time, fall into the trap of passiveness. Of, you know, just waiting for something to happen rather than continuing to work and improve themselves and try to make something happen instead. Um, it is publishing is a weird, I can't even call it balance cause it's pretty lopsided of just like, you know, having to rely on other people to say yes and no to things. But that doesn't mean that you have no agency in this process. There's other things that you can be doing to try to tilt the scales towards a yes more than no.

Rekka (02:36):
And even if the scales aren't tilted, you are becoming a better writer, which is in theory why you're here.

Kaelyn (02:43):
Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, today's episode, we go through some, um, you know, bullet points of different things that you can be doing while you're waiting to hear back or taking a break to sort of try and improve yourself and reevaluate. Um, this is everything from, you know, as we always like to talk about, working on your writing to, you know, coming up with like a plan and having goals in mind, we'll talk a lot about goals and what is realistic and you know, what you should be doing to meet those.

Rekka (03:15):
Yeah. And if you, you know, if you put your entire career on pause while you wait for someone else to make a decision about you, you're going to spend more of your writing career on pause than you are actually writing. And so it's a good habit to get into, to send those, you know, queries or submissions out into the ether and then get back to it. And, uh, really that's what it's about. And even if you are nervous and creativity is hard, we have suggestions of other things that you can do that don't necessarily mean like sitting down with the keyboard and just writing and pretending like you've never sent a query out.

Kaelyn (03:54):
Yeah. So, um, you know, as always, we hope this, uh, episode is informational and educational and uh, that you enjoy and we'll see you on the other side of the music.

New Speaker (04:19):
Very nice segue Rekka.

Rekka (04:20):
Thank you. Uh, speaking of which, I don't know if it's a nice segue, if you call attention to the fact that as a segue, like I think that negates any credit you get for coming up with a decent segue.

Kaelyn (04:32):
Or am I just acknowledging your craft here?

Rekka (04:36):
Speaking of which, uh, today, uh, we had no topic and Kaelyn said, what do you want to talk about? And my suggestion was to talk about what you can do when everything else is up in the air and out of your control to keep moving forward and keep improving yourself so that you are getting stronger as a writer and making yourself hopefully a little more appealing every, you know, every time somebody talks to you about business stuff, whether they're an agent or a publisher.

Kaelyn (05:14):
Rekka's exact words were "leveling up."

Rekka (05:16):
Yes. I used leveling up.

Kaelyn (05:18):
Yeah, no, I liked it.

New Speaker (05:19):
Well then you asked me what I meant. So I felt like maybe that wasn't a good description. Yes. Following the description, it's a good shortcut.

Kaelyn (05:29):
Yes. I liked it. Leveling up. Yep. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, we're talking today about, um, as Rekka said, things you can do that are within your control to help move your career and forward and achieve your goals in writing. Because so much of this is not in your control. There is so much of just having to wait on other people to hand down judgements.

Rekka (05:51):
Yes. And, and you cannot even wait patiently for their judgment and know that you get a good judgment.

Kaelyn (05:58):
Yes. Yeah. On top of that, it's um, it's very, it's very much a spinning wheel of anxiety with a lot of this. Um, so yeah, but you know, that said you are not completely at the mercy of a cruel universe here. There are things that you can be doing to, uh—Rekka possibly disagrees.

Rekka (06:19):
I might've pursed my lips and bopped my head side to side and say welllllll, you know, that's, that's debatable, but we don't have time for that debate.

Kaelyn (06:28):
No, no, certainly not. Um, but in terms of writing, there are, you know, there are things that, yeah, you have to wait on external forces and powers and in some cases, deities to, uh, you know, let you know what's gonna happen here, but there's things that you can be doing in the meantime, you are not completely adrift on this sea.

Rekka (06:46):
In fact, sometimes it's helpful to be doing things in the meantime. So you're not fixated on how you are adrift at sea.

Kaelyn (06:53):
Writing, like every other craft, every other profession, there is always room for improvement and growth. You are never to a point where you achieve some sort of enlightenment status as a writer where okay, you now know, see and write all things. Anything that you jot down is perfect and needs no work whatsoever. There's not a —.

Rekka (07:16):
Unless you're Stephen King.

Kaelyn (07:16):
Unless you're Stephen King.

Rekka (07:18):
Which is a result of capitalism, not necessarily skill.

Kaelyn (07:21):
And possibly cocaine, but moving on.

Rekka (07:24):
I thought that was his directorial career.

Kaelyn (07:29):
But you're never to a point where you can't improve.

Rekka (07:35):
In fact, if you got to that point, somehow you would probably be quite bored and move on to something new.

Kaelyn (07:42):
Yeah. You pick up a new hobby, like, like crocheting.

New Speaker (07:46):
Otherwise you'll just be sitting on that throne like Conan and going, dammit. Now what?

Kaelyn (07:49):
Yeah. "And Alexander wept for, there were no more worlds to conquer."

Rekka (07:54):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. "No more words to conquer." That's what I heard. Um, yeah. So my thought and I'm, sub-tweeting literally all of my friends right now, um, is how many times I have seen people get to a certain stage where they rely on the judgment, as you say, or the response from others to move ahead to the next thing they want and how that causes them to experience a deterioration in creativity and motivation, focus, self-confidence. I mean, like there's a lot of stuff that falls apart when all you do is recycle your inbox to see if something's come in.

Kaelyn (08:42):
Yeah. This is, you know, there's a certain point where you're just beating your head against a wall, doing the same thing over and over again and not figuring out why this isn't working. Um, if you're just going to keep submitting the same thing over and over again, keep getting rejections and just go, "well, they just don't like it. It's fine. The way it is. I'm going to find somebody who likes us." You're not going to get very far in your career and you're probably going to end up pretty bitter. And—.

Rekka (09:09):
Yeah. And that's, that's the part that I'm most concerned about is, you know, cause you're, even if you make it in this career, you don't necessarily become that, you know, Hollywood picture perfect writer, successful writer. Um, but your enjoyment of being a writer can really, you know, it can take a hit when you let that kind of resentment and bitterness seep into you.

Kaelyn (09:38):
Yeah. So—

New Speaker (09:39):
Don't become a rum cake of bitterness.

Kaelyn (09:45):
Uh. Yes.

Rekka (09:46):
Right. Cause the rum cake, you soak it with rum after you finished making it. And yeah, that's what I meant. I said what I meant!

Kaelyn (09:55):
You heard me!

Rekka (09:58):
We've been watching great British baking show lately, so like all—

Kaelyn (10:00):
Oh hey, me too!

Rekka (10:00):
Okay. We are not allowed to talk about that because, cause we'll just go on for hours. I'm sure. Yes.

Kaelyn (10:10):
I have the best bread recipe now.

Rekka (10:12):
You're gonna, you're gonna put your name into the hat and get on the show?

Kaelyn (10:15):
Oh God. No, I'm terrified of everyone that's on that show.

Rekka (10:19):
I would just hang out with Noel and, and Paul, honestly.

Kaelyn (10:24):
Yeah. Yeah. They seem fun. Um, Paul, Paul's a little scary though.

Rekka (10:28):
No, see, I, I swear to God, Paul is only sc—see, I said, we weren't allowed to talk about this and we're talking about it. I said, um, the other day that Paul is only scary because of the way they edit the episodes. Like if you, if you have your ear to what's going on, like, yes, he walks around and stares at people, but I'm sure that's the same face I would make, if I were watching people I was concerned about, you know? Um, but he says really encouraging, wonderful things to people whenever he's given the opportunity.

Kaelyn (10:59):
But then, when they have to bring it up there, he's always the one like picking the bread up and like knocking on it. And he's like "I will rip this in half." It's a little, um, it's always, Hmm. "I, uh, think it's a little bit underdone didn't that mate."

Rekka (11:14):
Wow. Was that, was that your Paul Hollywood?

Kaelyn (11:17):
That wasn't a good Paul Hollywood.

Rekka (11:19):
Paul Hollywood isn't Australian.

Kaelyn (11:22):
Yeah, but it does call people mate.

Rekka (11:24):
I have not really heard him say that yet. I haven't watched enough. Obviously we need to finish this episode so I can go watch some more. Yeah.

Kaelyn (11:30):
Okay. But so you can be Paul Hollywood.

Rekka (11:33):
So wait for judgment from Paul Hollywood and be—

Kaelyn (11:38):
You can be your own Paul Hollywood

Rekka (11:40):
Be David from season eight, where you take all that critique and you actually turn it into more skill.

Kaelyn (11:47):
Yes. So.

Rekka (11:48):
Everyone go watch season eight. And so, you know what reference I just made.

Kaelyn (11:51):
We'll stop. I promise we're stopping right now.

Rekka (11:54):
I don't know if I'll I'll cut this or not. It was kind of fun. Depends how long this episode is. Since you told me it was all me, it's going to be short. So we need that filler, like rice crispy in the middle of a cake for structure. Sorry.

Kaelyn (12:10):
Oh my God. It's amazing because I don't think there's been a single thing made on that show that you would eat.

Rekka (12:16):
Oh, I can't eat a word of it. A word of it?

Kaelyn (12:18):
Yeah.

Rekka (12:18):
I can't eat a crumb of it.

Kaelyn (12:20):
Yeah.

Rekka (12:20):
Words are for writers. Crumbs are for bakers, but it is delightful to watch.

Kaelyn (12:26):
That said, speaking of words... We're going to get back on track here, I promise.

Rekka (12:33):
Nah.

Kaelyn (12:33):
Um, no. So there are, you know, there's a lot of different things you can be doing that are under your control to try to make yourself more appealing and to take, uh, to give yourself agency in this process, where frankly, um, it seems like you don't really have a lot of that through all of it.

Rekka (12:54):
It depends. And I, and I think this is exactly the point, what you see as your goals.

Kaelyn (13:02):
Yeah. Exactly.

Rekka (13:03):
Because a goal is a thing, in theory, that you have some amount of control in reaching. But if you say your goal is to get an agent and get a big publishing deal and become a best seller, where is the control in any of that? Let me tell you: there's none.

Kaelyn (13:25):
There's only so many writing courses you can take to get yourself to a point where you've written the world's greatest book.

Rekka (13:33):
But there are so many writing courses that will promise to make you a New York Times bestseller.

Kaelyn (13:38):
Yeah. Um, let's, you know, let's take a step back here and kind of identify, you know, some things that are attainable and things that just happen. New York Times bestsellers. I won't insult anybody by saying they just happen, but there's a lot more machination that goes on in behind the scenes—

Rekka (13:57):
Machination is the right word.

Kaelyn (13:57):
Yeah, than you realize, um, New York Times bestsellers aren't because everybody loves these books and, you know, buys a ton of them. There's a reason that the same books sit on this list for weeks, months, in the case of Harry Potter, years. Um, and it has to do a lot with, um, publishing houses, marketing dollars, um, to be clear, they're not bribing the New York Times, but the New York Times is not picking their bestseller list strictly based on how many of these books are sold.

Rekka (14:34):
And not even based on the merits of the book itself.

Kaelyn (14:38):
Yes. Having the aspiration of being a New York Times bestseller means what your actual aspiration is, is to be a globally known household name. Because that's kind of what you are looking at to get on these, some of these lists. Not always. And you know, of course, you know, bestseller lists have all kinds of subcategories and different genres, et cetera, but that is not a realistic goal because there is very little direct influence that you can exert over that process.

Rekka (15:13):
A goal itself, as we said, you know, you have to have some control over, and there are, you know, definitions in business planning and all that of what makes a goal. And the obnoxious, you know, uh, acronym is S.M.A.R.T., which means that the goal is specific that the goal is measurable, that it's achievable realistic and time-based, and you can see how the things that I mentioned earlier, getting an agent, getting a big publishing deal, becoming a New York Times bestseller doesn't really match this S.M.A.R.T. goal description definition. You cannot say, "Oh yes. By September I will be a New York Times bestseller."

Kaelyn (16:06):
Not this September, I hope.

Rekka (16:08):
Or you cannot even say, "Oh yes. In 10 years I will have an agent." You know, like you cannot control these things.

Kaelyn (16:15):
Yeah. These are, these are forces beyond your, your ability to control.

Rekka (16:21):
Are they achievable? Yes. Are they realistic? Yes. Bue because they happen in reality, but not because you can just sit down in a checkbox, you know, to-do list and say, "I will achieve these things."

Kaelyn (16:34):
Well, that's the logical fallacy that plays into the lottery. "I could win because somebody is going to have to win this." "Somebody will win this, why shouldn't it be me?"

Rekka (16:43):
Or "I should play because if I don't play, then I cannot win." It's not the same as "If I do play, I will absolutely win."

Kaelyn (16:51):
Two different, two different logical issues there. Yeah. But there's, you know, there have been so many books even that got exactly what they needed to be successful, and flopped.

Rekka (17:03):
Yep.

Kaelyn (17:04):
I think in some ways it helps to think of books like movies. You know, there's a lot of stuff that goes into them that has to do with marketing, has to do with names attached to it, has to do with, you know, can you get the right audience? Did you, you know, make the book appealing to the right group of people? The same way, books flop the same way movies, flopped, and you know, there's time and money investments that go into them. And, you know, it's, it's all a numbers game. Um, you know, that said, it's the same thing with the awards, to an extent, you know, like you don't just win an Academy award because your movie was fantastic. There are tons of really fantastic movies that have not won awards. It's all marketing. it's very political and very who-you-know, et cetera.

Rekka (17:47):
And we did do an entire episode on fiction awards. So go back and listen to that from last year, I'll link it in the show notes, if you want to hear about how that works. Um, and that's another bingo card item. And, and maybe that's how I distinguish them as like, "these are things that I put on my bingo card that I hope someday that I will punch off, you know, and say like, yes, I got an agent. Yes. I was guest of honor at some writing conference. Yes. I was, uh, received my 100 rejection." You know, like those are on there, too. Uh, won an award, uh, got a big, you know, publishing contract with X number of zeros, you know, put those on that list, but don't make them your standard for whether or not you've achieved what you want. And if that's all you want to achieve, please reevaluate step back and ask what, what it is that you really want out of a writing career? Pretend that none of that can ever happen and just work on you. What can you work on?

Kaelyn (18:51):
Yeah. So to that end, and you know, we're going to get in a minute here into some of the things you can be doing in the meantime. And this we'll, we'll certainly circle back to this, but decide what you want out of your writing career that is not to be the next Stephen King, because that's not necessarily a realistically attainable goal for everyone.

Rekka (19:10):
Or what that means to you, that you want to be the next Stephen King. Do you want to write a lot of like hometown horror stories? You can do that, but, and you can appeal to Stephen King's audience. "If you like Stephen King, if you loved The Stand, you will love this," you know, but, um, can you control whether you have that same level of success? Absolutely not.

Kaelyn (19:33):
You know, deciding like, well, I just want to get a book published. I don't necessarily need it to be one of the stories I've already written. Um, I don't necessarily need it to be in this specific genre in this genre only. "I just would like to have a book published" versus maybe a different goal is "I want to get this book that I've written published." And we'll talk about that a little bit more down the line here, but, um, so, you know, let's kind of get into this here. Some things you can do to improve your chances of attaining your goals. Um, first and foremost, as we always talk about, one of our favorite things to harp on: work on your writing.

Rekka (20:13):
Yeah. Don't stop writing when you send off a query to an agent. You know, like don't make that the only thing you've got in your hopper.

Kaelyn (20:20):
Yeah. As we said, there is no such thing as the writer who has attained enlightenment. That's not,

Rekka (20:28):
Especially if it's your first novel. Chances are, you're not very close.

Kaelyn (20:33):
Um, there's always room to be working on and improving your craft, um, in any craft really, but especially in writing. Um, it's, you know, and you may be thinking, okay, well, "I got published or, you know, I had some short that were picked up. I'm good." No, that doesn't matter. Go join a writing group anyway. Go take some, you know, maybe you don't want to take some courses. I mean, I, I love taking courses and things. I don't know why you wouldn't want to do that. But you know, join a writing group, attend a workshop, take some courses, join a group that Um, you know, reviews each other's work and gives feedback. Read things and give feedback on them. That's a great way to improve your own writing is to help other people work on theirs. So I know this is something we say all the time, "work on your writing, here's ways to do it," but this is a great way to be moving yourself along. Because on top of just staying on top of your writing, what you're doing is you're probably creating new stuff while you do this, that you may not have otherwise taken the time to do.

Rekka (21:40):
And every word you write is more skill that you are building.

Kaelyn (21:44):
Exactly.

Rekka (21:45):
Giving you the chance to say, you know, is, "am I using economy of phrase? Am I, um, you know, getting emotion across the way I want, am I, is my world building, you know, solid? Am I leaving the reader wanting more? Or am I leaving them in a coma because I've, you know, overdone it on the exposition?" Every time you write and you revise, you have the chance to analyze this and you have the chance to look at yourself honestly, and your writing honestly, and figure out, you know, how do you, how do you want to improve it? Like if you say "this revision pass, I'm going to work on characters," you know, or "this next book, I really want to delve into characters where before it's been all like, you know, the hero doesn't really change. It's just an adventure. And this next book, I really want to give the character arc the spotlight." You know, look for ways to challenge yourself. Because if you're just doing, what's comfortable, it is a little bit less effective. It's still good to keep writing. If you mostly do the same thing, but you are going to grow more, the more you flex your muscles and try new things.

Kaelyn (22:56):
Think back through the careers of all of the, you know, best-selling authors, you can name off the top of your head. They have not recently been writing what they started out writing.

Rekka (23:10):
Yeah. And that's the weird thing is—

Kaelyn (23:12):
Maybe they stay in the same genre, but the stories and the books themselves are not the same.

Rekka (23:21):
If you think about our obsession with classics, it's really interesting how people want to go back to like an old Spielberg movie and point out how this was so much better than any of his recent work. Um, or they want to go to an author who's written twenty books and they go back to the first book and they, you know, this series was their favorite. But if people look and even musicians, you know.

Kaelyn (23:48):
I was gonna say.

Rekka (23:49):
"This album is classic," you know?

Kaelyn (23:51):
Yeah.

Rekka (23:52):
But when you take in the discography or the bibliography or the filmography as a whole, people get really annoyed when artists evolve and change and don't do things the same way.

Kaelyn (24:07):
I think one of the best, uh, things I heard of that ever was I was listening to an interview with Billy Joel of all people. And Billy Joel, by the way, is a ridiculously talented pianist, like apart from, you know, we just think of him as like these poppy classic songs that are, you know, old people dance to at weddings and stuff. Billy Joel is actually very into classic piano music. And it's a very highly skilled with it. And then he composes as well. Things that aren't like, you know, what we think of Billy Joel music. And I was listening to him in this interview and he, um, he said, you know, like "I was to the point that like I was getting bored with, you know, just playing like Big Shot and Scenes From An Italian Restaurant over and over again. Um, and so every now and then I'd stop and I'd play like, you know, something new that I had written or something that was just, you know, not on an album, but, and everyone would, you know, I could feel the audience die down a bit." And, but he did say at the same time, these people have paid a lot of money to come here and see me play the songs that they love. And what he said was "I need to strike a balance between that because I'm going to be miserable if every time I just, you know, have to get up there and perform the same songs over and over again with no creativity." And so that's what happens with writing too, if you're just regurgitating the same stories over and over again with no evolution and no creativity?

Rekka (25:36):
You're not going to want to stick around long.

Kaelyn (25:38):
Yeah. I mean, I would think you'd get bored of that eventually. Um, especially, you know, if you're not in a position where you can challenge yourself, I think that's something that drives writers forward a lot is trying to challenge themselves and solve problems within their books.

Rekka (25:54):
And I think, you know, the genre does evolve and you are going to be left behind. You know, so if that's something that's concerning to you is about being included in the genre when people talk about it, you know, don't stand still.

Kaelyn (26:08):
Yeah. And that is, um, our next point here is reading. Apart from doing a lot of writing, one of the best things you can do is reading. And you know, some of this is just because you're absorbing other people's writing, you're seeing things they did, identifying techniques, tricks, et cetera. But also you're keeping up on the genre that you're interested in.

Rekka (26:27):
And the more books you could read. And there are a lot of them, you know, don't get me wrong. My To-Be-Read pile is, you know, taller than I am. But when you have read a lot of things, when that agent calls you back and wants to talk about your book, you will know if you've read something similar to your book that you can help position it with and help narrow down that audience again.

Kaelyn (26:50):
There is nothing to me, quite as disheartening as talking to an author, you know, like people I would just run into at conferences or seminars and stuff, and they'd be telling me about their book. And I'm about to say, "Oh, sure, send it along. I'll take a look." And they say, "Oh, so it's like such and such." "I'm sorry, what?" "Oh, okay. Oh, you haven't read that. Oh, okay. So kind of like this." And I don't expect everyone to have read every book, but if I named four or five and none of them are ringing a bell even a little bit, that's, um, I'm kind of looking at this and going like, does this person like science fiction and fantasy? You know, it's and again, I don't expect everyone to have read everything or for their tastes to line up exactly like mine, but there's a lot of stuff I haven't read that I at least have heard of. And I'm familiar with where its place is in, you know, the, yeah.

Rekka (27:48):
I mean, at least look at the long list for awards each year and make sure you're familiar with what's going on there. Even if you don't read every piece on there, um, you know, what, what is the appeal? Why did it make it to the long list? And yeah, that's a big day of homework. I did not assign you some light reading there. Like, you know, the long list itself is long. And then you also have to look into each book and see what's going on. Take a look at the cover. How was it being placed on the shelf? Is it, YA? Is it adult? You know, and be aware of the different aspects of how that book is being marketed. Because someday someone will ask you, hopefully, how you want your book marketed and you need to kind of have this background.

Kaelyn (28:32):
Now some of you may be going, "why do I need to be bothered with all of this? Why can't I just write the book I want to write? And if somebody is interested in it, they can get it published." Now here's the thing. Yes, you're right. On some level, it's like, "I don't, this isn't my full-time, you know, career goals and aspirations. I just wrote a book. It happens to be, you know, a science fiction and fantasy book. I enjoy that. I'm not super mega involved in all of this. I have some books I like, why can't I just write this book, put it down, and walk away?" And the answer to that is in some cases you can, yeah. That is a thing that can happen. The reason that's difficult to do is because you're going to be working with an agent and editor and a publishing house that eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff.

Rekka (29:15):
Right. And they rely on this for their, for their careers. And if you aren't as passionate as they are, they're not going to be passionate for you.

Kaelyn (29:22):
I know it's a weird, difficult spot to be in. I know it's kind of like a answer. You got to sort of get yourself in the club. Like you need to demonstrate—.

Rekka (29:34):
Or at least know who's in the club.

Kaelyn (29:36):
Yeah. Or at least know who's who's in the club. Um, I, I'm going to use this example, even though I really don't like it because I have a lot of problems with the fashion industry, but there's a scene in The Devil Wears Prada where, uh, Andy walks in and, you know, Meryl Streep's Anna Wintour avatar character is, you know, berating somebody and she says, do this. And, um, Anna or whatever her name is laughs. And they all look at her and she's like, Oh, I'm sorry. I'm still just learning about this stuff. And everyone in the room is very insulted because she is a complete newcomer and outsider to this. And Stanley Tucci gives her this sort of dressing down later where he says, "you happened into this job. There are people who spend their entire lives wanting to work in this industry. They dream of working here and you only deigned to work here. So you want to know why no one likes you, it's because you don't take us seriously. And therefore we can't take you seriously." It's very similar with publishing.

Rekka (30:47):
I don't feel like that situation—I mean, yes, there are people who are like," okay, agents come to me, bring me your offers." But, um, I feel like there are a lot of people who look for an agent so that they end up with a mentor and someone who's going to educate them on all this. And it would be great, I'm sure, for the agent to hear that you've done some of the homework already.

Kaelyn (31:20):
Yeah. So that kind of leads us into one of the other things that we can, you know, discuss here is work on ways to make yourself more appealing. For a lot of writers, the ultimate first step is landing an agent. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. Listen to the Query Letter episode, listen to the Agents episode, listen to all the Submissions September, probably because that's, you know—

Rekka (31:46):
Yes. And also there are a lot of agents out there with YouTube channels or podcasts of their own, and newsletters, mailing lists, you know, like there is a lot of information out there to be had to help you understand what's going on from the agent side so that you can make their lives a little bit easier by not expecting miracles of them, but also not expecting them to do the work of educating you.

Kaelyn (32:09):
Yeah. So everything that I just mentioned, you know, that we talked about with the Agents episode, with Submission September, with the Query Letters, all of those have a significant element of things beyond your control. What you can do to make yourself more appealing to an agent or a publishing house is as we said, familiarize yourself with the genre, but also have a plan.

Rekka (32:31):
Know what kind of books you're going to be writing in a couple of years? Not necessarily like, "I have this one book, please make it sell." You want like, okay, "I have this book." And then they say, "What else you working on?" And you have more than one answer for them.

Kaelyn (32:45):
I think beyond, you know, all of the agent pet peeves that were talked about in terms of submission and querying, one of the things in agent least wants to hear is "I don't know what to do with myself and my book." I think there is very little that is more disheartening than he completely directionless author. Um, it's one thing to show up and be like, "well, I don't, I don't know how this industry works. That's why you're here." It's another to be, "I have no idea of what my goals and plans are beyond just this book." Um, Rekka made the example before of think how hard it is to cook for somebody who doesn't know what they want to eat. Yeah. Now imagine it's a book.

Rekka (33:31):
Yeah. Now imagine that your career depends on this person being successful at and enjoying their dinner.

Kaelyn (33:37):
Yes, exactly. So, um, you know, all of this ties together with writing, into reading, into getting yourself into the genre and that kind of atmosphere in a world that you want to publish and live in.

Rekka (33:54):
As part of that, I would also suggest, and, you know, we all hate social media, but get on social media and just be aware of the discourse going around in your genre. Hear the discussions that are taking place. Hear the concerns that people are having. Um, either over the industry or subject matter or diversity or, you know, all the different aspects that go into a community and an industry and a livelihood. There's a lot to just absorb. Like you don't even have to participate. You don't have to feel like you have solutions.

Kaelyn (34:28):
Yeah. That was exactly what I was going to say is you don't even need to participate. You can just be like an observer or a lurker.

Rekka (34:34):
That's the nice thing about Twitter is like everybody's airing their dirty laundry on Main. And you can just, you know, get an idea of what's out there without having to step into anything messy to begin with before you've got an agent before you've made a name for yourself. However—

Kaelyn (34:48):
I would even, I would even go so far as to recommend doing everything you can to avoid stepping into anything messy.

Rekka (34:54):
Yes. Uh, what I might suggest is with all that reading you're doing, um, it might be nice if you, you know, talked on Twitter about what you're reading and, um, and how it's impacting the way you're thinking about your own writing. Like keep it keyed into the fact that you are a writer. Like don't make a review Twitter account, make a, "I am a writer. Here's the subject matter I'm engaged with." And, you know, like, "this makes me think about this in this way as I do my own writing" kinda stuff.

Kaelyn (35:28):
And along those lines though, you know, it doesn't have to be a review account, but never hesitate to shout out an author who you're reading and either enjoy.

Rekka (35:36):
Oh absolutely, that's what I'm talking about. But like, for example, I read a book recently where they were dealing with subject matter that I absolutely had plans to approach on my own and I was concerned about a certain aspect of it. And um, this author handled it, you know, in a way that made me go, "okay, this is something to consider as I go into this."

Kaelyn (35:57):
Never hesitate to, you know, shout out somebody whose work you're enjoying or who, you know, has contributed to your ability to do your own work. It's um, trust me, authors cannot hear that enough.

Rekka (36:09):
Right. Yeah. Definitely to understand, to know that someone is out there seeing what they're trying to do and appreciating it is a big deal and it will get you maybe—um, I don't know how soon this next one was going to come up, but it might get you a little bit into networking, um, on Twitter, on social media, you know, in your groups and stuff like that. When you are talking about the work that everyone else is doing and appreciating it, and without, you know, posting 10 times a day, "my book is on Amazon at this link," you can also present the fact that you are a writer as part of this discourse.

Kaelyn (36:48):
It's funny because I was reading something quite a while back about how people get jobs. And most people get jobs through the recommendation of other people or through people they know. Um, I think a lot of that comes from, you know, reputation and, uh, what's the word I'm looking for here? Recommendation. Because, you know, as I always have to, I have to explain sometimes, especially for my previous job where I dealt with a lot of new hires, hiring a new person is expensive. It costs a lot of money to onboard a new full-time employee. Um, which it doesn't seem like it should, but it actually does. The same way authors are an investment. So having friends or just even people, you know, and interact with in the industry who, you know, someone can say, you know, "Rekka, you're an agent, do you happen to know Kaelyn? Like I was interested in working with her possibly like, is she, you know, is she cool? Like, should I talk to her?" And coming to that person to be able to get some feedback on you is, is very important. Um, I think, you know, especially go back and listen to our Agents episode. Agents, you know, have to be very careful about these things and have to be careful about who they choose to work with because somebody who you talked to a few times and they seem like pretty cool and everything, and then they can just go off the rails. That is time and money down the drain that they are not going to recover.

Rekka (38:28):
Yes. And it's going to make them more nervous to sign the next author—.

Kaelyn (38:31):
Definitely.

Rekka (38:31):
—which is not a benefit to anyone. Um, but if you, you know, if you're not even sure where to begin with networking, I would suggest volunteering with some of the organizations that put on conferences, whether they be in person or online.

Kaelyn (38:46):
Absolutely. Yep.

Rekka (38:46):
Um, that's a great way, assuming you're reliable that you can build a networking, or at least an awareness of who you are, to people who might be able to help you with a recommendation later, um, whether you know it or not. You know, like if people appreciate the hard work you put in to help with, uh, you know, an event or they appreciate that you were able to run the Slack that, you know, corresponded with, uh, uh, an event that was prerecorded or, you know, whatever else is going on in the world right now, it's hard to predict, but

Kaelyn (39:23):
Yeah, God only knows if we'll ever have in-person

Rekka (39:27):
Conferences again. Well, we will certainly be thinking hard about it. Um, but anyway, the, the idea that you proved yourself reliable. Yes. Like that person maybe didn't read your writing, but they can say like you have a good head on your shoulders. You, um, were where you said you would be, when you said you would be there. You signed up and you didn't flake. Um, you were able to go above and beyond by helping people, you know, in ways that wasn't really in the job description or whatever.

Kaelyn (39:56):
I will tell you, I have my current job because of that. Because yeah, this is because my boss is somebody that knew me before I worked for him. Yeah. And knew that I was a reliable straight-forward person who could do basic math. Yeah. That's the only requirements for my job, basic math.

Rekka (40:18):
Yeah but the Venn diagram of all those things is a small overlap. But yeah. I mean, you never know how being decent and helpful to somebody is going to pay off later and, you know, do it for altruistic reasons. But it's a good idea too.

Kaelyn (40:35):
And that's exactly what I was just going to say is," this is not using people. Yeah. This is, you know, you may like, you may feel like squeamish about it. You may feel like, Oh, I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to, like, I feel dirty for just trying to get my face and my name in front of all these people." First of all, you're helping them with something. Okay. So if you want to think of it in terms of that, then think of it as transactional, but that's not necessarily what's going on here. This is how people get involved in things and get introduced and meet people. Um, it's, it's difficult. And for some people, this kind of thing does not come easy. They can't walk into a room and just start chatting people up. But if you have a reason to talk to people?

Rekka (41:18):
That was exactly what my thinking was. The first time I went to the Nebulas, I volunteered, you know, I'd never been there before, but what I did know was that it was a really long weekend. If I didn't get to know anybody to have conversations with, I was going to be feeling real awkward by that third day. So what I did was I volunteered and I volunteered in the book room, which meant that there were coworkers to speak to, um, people who could, you know, show me the way that the room was working. And then I had conversations with those people about books. I had conversations with those people about publishing. People would walk in and say, "what's good?" And I can make recommendations because I'd been reading in my genre and I knew some of the books in the room, you know, like this works out really well on many levels.

Kaelyn (42:01):
And by the way, one of the great things here is that if you're volunteering at a writer, writing conference or a science fiction and fantasy conference, you're going to be around other people that enjoy those exact same things.

Rekka (42:13):
Well, it's easy to have those conversations at the genre conferences rather than like, say it's just the book fair, you know? Um, yeah. It's—

Kaelyn (42:22):
Well, I wasn't even going, you know, like this is, it's really easy compared to, "Oh, come meet, you know, a group of friends that I know."

Rekka (42:29):
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Cause then, then you end up designing a podcast. I mean, yeah. Um, no, the, I think that was the best choice I ever made. I think that's why I had so much fun that first Nebulas conference was because I had a purpose and it wasn't the entire weekend, but then, you know, there were people I could, you know, pass by in the corridors between, um, presentations and panels, who I'd talked to in the book room, you know. And you could smile and nod. And I was getting really good about, you know, just talking to random strangers and that translated into having conversations later in the corridors, in, you know, in the, you know, restaurants and all that kind of stuff, because I'd already sort of like dip my toe in. And in the capacity of like, "this is my job to do this," it really helps.

Kaelyn (43:24):
And you know, what's, and we've definitely talked about, you know, conferences and all of this stuff before, but just one more thing to sort of reinforce there. A lot of people come to these things by themselves. There is going to be a lot of, you know, single people just walking around who, are just there because, you know, if it's something like the Nebulas that moves every two years, um, you know, maybe it was in their neighborhood and they decided to check it out.

Rekka (43:48):
This was the year that we're going to try it out. Yeah. And now keep in mind, some people come alone and they're there to have friends and family reunions, basically, with their found families within the community. And you don't want to tread on the toes of people clearly having a more intimate moment, but you know, like being there is the first step.

Kaelyn (44:07):
Believe me, there is no shortage of friendly people eager to talk to somebody about their favorite Orsen Scott Card book that you're going to find. Yeah.

Rekka (44:17):
Or, or someone a little more recent like P Djeli Clark or, you know

Kaelyn (44:23):
Have you been to the Nebulas, Rekka?

Rekka (44:25):
I have. We clearly ended up in different corners because nobody that I've ever stepped into a conversation with at the Nebulas is going to want to go off about Orsen Scott Card except in a different way than you're referring to.

Kaelyn (44:38):
Fair. Fair.

Rekka (44:38):
So anyway, um, you will find your people, they are there, they're in different corners. Check a different one if you didn't find them the first time. But yeah. Um, networking is important and volunteering is a great way to get started in networking. And even though we've currently moved into a virtual space where all these conferences are happening online, there's still a way to network by volunteering.

Kaelyn (45:02):
Yeah. Absolutely. And by the way, the fact that a lot of these are moving online and hopefully will stay virtual and therefore available to more people will give you more of an opportunity to participate and attend with these. Um, you know, it was definitely a problem that, you know, like there's a lot of these big conferences that had very little virtual presence, and so—

Rekka (45:24):
Very little virtual presence, and they required you to fly in from another country if you weren't a United States citizen, which therefore like you've already just pretty much blown half of your salary, if not more, for the year just to get here and you haven't even paid to get in the door or for the hotel room yet. So they were very restricted and these online, um, it it's a good thing. And even if we go back to in-person conferences, there needs to be—if you're hearing me conference organizers, I think you already know, but—uh, it needs to, it needs to stay expanded into these virtual spaces. For sure.

Kaelyn (45:58):
I think one of the things and not to get too sidetracked here, but I think one of the things that put off, you know, apart from sort of this awful gatekeeping aspect of these, these events, but I think one of the things that put off the organizers may have been, "this seems difficult and complicated. I don't know how we do this." And now that everyone was in a position where they have to do it, we've seen that, you know what, it's not actually as difficult and complicated as we thought it was.

Rekka (46:22):
Only that, but the things that made it difficult and complicated have been solved because it was a problem that everybody shared as compared to when, you know, people who needed this access for, you know, their health and safety were complaining about it but it was a small portion of the population and easy to ignore. Uh, people could just say, "Oh no, no, that's too hard. Sorry. You'll just have to come in person." Now. Now we can say—

Kaelyn (46:48):
We found out actually, it's not that hard.

Rekka (46:49):
It's not that hard. We've handled it. And yes, we can have live closed captioning and yes, we can control the quality of that live closed captioning, and should control the quality of that live close captioning. So, um, yes, it has been a big learning year for everybody. Good job us and no more excuses. So let's, uh, let's do that. All right. Sidetrack over, what's next on our outline. Cause you have the outline. I didn't write down any of our notes,

Kaelyn (47:12):
Actually, that was it on the outline.

Rekka (47:14):
That was it! All right. We did it! And we have time to leave in the Great British Baking Show references. Just drop a few more like their cake sliding off a tray. Why not?

Kaelyn (47:24):
I can't remember which season it was that like, they all, like, first of all, here's what I don't get about this show. Every year they film it in the summer in an un-air conditioned tent

Rekka (47:38):
And are surprised when the chocolate won't temper.

Kaelyn (47:43):
And the chocolate won't stay together!

Rekka (47:43):
I was watching, we watched season eight. So what we normally do is watch the Christmas episodes, the holiday episodes.

Kaelyn (47:50):
Exactly, yes.

Rekka (47:50):
And, um, so we watched this year's and we were not satisfied because last year we got to binge a whole bunch of them for the first time. And this year there was only one new one. So we, um, we went back and watched season eight and I remember the devastation of Chocolate Week being in the middle of— it was 35º Celsius in the tent when they were trying to cool and set chocolate and temper it.

Kaelyn (48:22):
Yeah. Anyway. Okay. We should stop.

Rekka (48:22):
So yes. So when you need to make the ice cream cake of your career, you can set yourself up for success, by at least making sure that you've cooled your, uh, work area on a bunch of really cool genre books that were written in the last five or ten years. That was a little weak, but I'm going to go with it.

Kaelyn (48:43):
No, no I like it. Keep going.

Rekka (48:43):
And, um, and then, uh, temper your excitement over that query you just sent out by keeping yourself busy and continuing to work and writing out your goals and your business plan so that when the agent asks you, you don't drop your biscuits on the floor.

Kaelyn (49:05):
Rekka, that was beautiful.

Rekka (49:06):
I'm very proud.

Kaelyn (49:07):
That was stunning. That was truly amazing.

Rekka (49:09):
Do I get a handshake?

Kaelyn (49:09):
Yes! Paul Hollywood would be proud of you.

Rekka (49:14):
Okay. So if you're not watching the Great British Baking Show, I hope you're inspired. They're a thankfully, um, really feel good show and it's nice to watch the contestants help each other and network and be good to each other and take that as your, your role models.

Kaelyn (49:32):
It really is a, uh, very inspiring show to watch for how you should conduct your career really your lives. Because when I tell people they should watch and they're like, "Oh, I don't like those reality shows. I'm like, no."

Rekka (49:44):
We didn't think we would either.

Kaelyn (49:45):
Yeah, I don't either. Everyone is so nice.

Rekka (49:47):
Everyone is so nice. Even the person that they tease for being heartless, is, I would happily hug.

Kaelyn (49:51):
Yes. Yes, definitely. Okay. So anyway, so network, um, read. Write. Work on, you know, familiarizing yourself with the genre. Work on building your knowledge base. Make it so that you can have a conversation with people that are going to be important to have conversations with.

Rekka (50:08):
Or just people who are going to come up the ranks with you. You know, and I say "ranks" as if there's a ladder, but you know what I mean? Like be friends with—.

Kaelyn (50:16):
There's totally a ladder.

Rekka (50:16):
Be friends with the people who are entering at the same point as you. And if you surge ahead of them, lift them up behind you. Don't, you know, shut the door and say, "Ha ha! I have excelled beyond my need to be your friend now." Um, that's just hopefully good, common sense and how to be a human, but it's yeah, not everybody, but, um—

Kaelyn (50:37):
Just remember a rising tide lifts all ships.

Rekka (50:39):
And also know what you want out of this. Like have a plan and be ready to talk to anybody about it and you can modify it as you get feedback, which is also good.

Kaelyn (50:49):
There is, there is no one is going to handy with stone, say, "Chisel your plan in it. And this is also your tombstone now."

Rekka (50:58):
I mean, it might be, you know, the time you take to chisel a message into a stone is time you could have spent writing.

Kaelyn (51:05):
That's a good point. Yeah. Like with like a computer, which is faster than chiseling into stone. Yeah. Never try to stop improving on this. Especially if there are certain goals that you want to hit and you're not hitting them, you are I—.

Rekka (51:19):
In other words, if you have goals you want to hit and you're not hitting them, the answer is not to stop and wait for them to come to you.

Kaelyn (51:25):
Yeah. I'm going to say something that's going to come off sounding kind of mean. And I don't mean it to be. If you have goals that you're trying to hit and you're not hitting them, the problems— it's either you or it's the goal. There are absolutely be some times in your life and your career that you're just going to be unlucky. But, more often than not, there's things you can be always be working towards improving.

Rekka (51:47):
Even if luck, you know, turns against you, you can keep moving forward. It just might be, you know, a little bit more disheartening. It might be more work. But if you really love this, then you know, you should be up for the challenge. And, you know, hopefully these tips will help you set yourself up to, you know, have tools you need in those darker moments to just keep working on something.

Kaelyn (52:10):
So for instance, when somebody puts you in a sweltering tent in the middle of a field outside a British estate and tells you to make a chocolate sculpture and it's 35º Celsius and Paul Hollywood is giving you weird looks, you can go, "All right. I trained for this."

Rekka (52:24):
I guess, I guess that is exactly the metaphor we needed.

Kaelyn (52:31):
So well anyway, that's, um, you know, we'll leave you there. Hopefully, you know—

Rekka (52:35):
Hopefully that's enough or made any sense.

Kaelyn (52:38):
Hopefully it's encouraging or, you know, maybe a little bit of a fresh thought on it.

Rekka (52:42):
If not, you can yell at us on Twitter or Instagram at @WMBcast, or you can find old episodes at wmbcast.com. And if that really was helpful, somehow you can thank us by supporting us on patreon.com/WMBcast. We do just appreciate anybody who supports us, but, uh, the best help you could give us would be to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and, uh, let people know that you enjoyed the content, how it's helped you. Um, you can even ask us questions through the comments there.

Kaelyn (53:16):
We love questions. If you send us a question, there's a very good chance we'll talk about it.

Rekka (53:20):
Yes, cause sometimes we don't know what we're going to talk about until we get on the call. And sometimes it shows. But, uh, yeah, either way, any of the ways that you reach out to us, we look forward to hearing from you and we will talk to you again in a couple weeks.

Tuesday Jan 05, 2021

Episode 51 - We Trunk Books (with Hilary Bisenieks)

Tuesday Jan 05, 2021

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Tales from the Trunk Podcast

Hilary's Links:

Twitter @trunkcast

Twitter @hbbisenieks

Website hilarybisenieks.com

Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)

Kaelyn (00:00:00):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a show about writing, publishing, and everything in between. My name's Kaelyn Considine, and I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:00:09):
And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:13):
This is an exciting episode. We have our second repeat guest.

Rekka (00:00:16):
Yes, I am looking forward to lots of people coming back on. When we crafted this podcast together, I wasn't sure how many guests we were going to do other than people who were experts on things that we didn't really feel comfortable dispensing advice on, but we've ended up just having like really great conversations where I don't necessarily think it was because we just needed to sit back and get out of the way of somebody. But like, because it's fun to talk to more than one person. And I don't blame you for not wanting to talk to just me all the time.

Kaelyn (00:00:48):
I could talk to you forever.

Rekka (00:00:51):
This is true. We have done this. There's no smoked meat now. So like it doesn't feel the same.

Kaelyn (00:00:57):
I know. We've definitely forgone sleep by like large quantities, because we were just like up talking.

Rekka (00:01:04):
We had slumber parties in the time before this is so sad.

Kaelyn (00:01:07):
I know. Yeah. And there's, there's no smoked meat. There's no slumber parties. There's no movie after movie. You don't what I just realized? We didn't actually say who our guest was.

Rekka (00:01:18):
Is that important?

Rekka (00:01:19):
No, I just.

Rekka (00:01:20):
We're terrible hosts.

Rekka (00:01:21):
We said our second repeat guests, so,

Rekka (00:01:24):
Well, I mean suspense, that's another genre.

Rekka (00:01:26):
Suspense. Definitely. We'll give you a hint.

Rekka (00:01:28):
It's Hilary Bisenieks.

Kaelyn (00:01:30):
Oh, okay. Or we could just tell you who it is.

Rekka (00:01:33):
That was my hint. It's just a good hint. I'm being kind at the end of this year.

Kaelyn (00:01:36):
Well, I was, so we had Hilary came back on to talk to us about trunking stories.

Rekka (00:01:41):
Well we did say that we were going to have him back on as soon As possible.

Kaelyn (00:01:45):
We did, yeah. This, this shouldn't. Yeah, this shouldn't be like a huge shock, but yeah, it was a, it was great to have Hilary back on. Um, uh, hopefully you listened to the episode.

Rekka (00:01:53):
Hopefully you listened to Hilary's podcasts because Tales From The Trunk is just a delightful podcast. It's so much fun. It's one of those great, like "two people who clearly like each other and like having a conversation, talking to each other for a while," and it's very friendly and I love it. Um, as I've said before and will say again.

Kaelyn (00:02:10):
Very relatable. So yeah. Hilary came on to talk to us about trunking stories today, being somewhat of an expert on the subject. Um, you know, it's a, it's a difficult thing to do, I think, for a lot of writers, it's definitely a milestone. It's definitely like, you know, there's an other side of it where it's like, okay, I have done this thing now. Um, and there's a lot of reasons to do it. Um, it sounds like something that you want to never do, but I think most people will and probably should, at some point in their writing career, trunk a story.

Rekka (00:02:45):
We're going to have more than one story that you write. Hopefully. You're not just going to write one novel and retire on the proceeds of that one novel.

Kaelyn (00:02:52):
I mean, that would be great, but like, is that really what you want?

Rekka (00:02:55):
Yeah. I mean, then you don't want to be a writer. You just want to be famous, right? You're not going to trunk that story if you're that committed. So if you are a writer who plans to be prolific, you're going to stumble into trunking a story at some point or another, you're just going to be done. You're going to move on. And I mean, we're going to go into those reasons in this episode so I won't, you know, distill them again down here.

Kaelyn (00:03:20):
Don't be ashamed of trunking a story. It's a natural process. It happens to everybody. Just because your friends are acting all cool and like nothing's going on with them. Doesn't mean they have a trunked a story, too.

Rekka (00:03:33):
Just because your friends on Twitter have announced 10 stories sold this year. Doesn't mean they're not trunking stuff as well. Um, yeah, so it's, it's just something that comes with being a prolific writer. So be proud of it and then hit up Hilary to go on his podcast and read one of your trunked stories to audience, which is just really nice. Um, a nice way to say goodbye to the story, maybe.

Kaelyn (00:04:11):
So, um, well, you know, speaking of things that are bad—

Rekka (00:04:15):
I had a segue for the traffic thing before. Oh, speaking of slowing it down. That's what I was going to use. Yeah. So we have a guest who might sound somewhat familiar to you.

Kaelyn (00:04:27):
Our second returning guest. This is so exciting.

Rekka (00:04:30):
Yes. And um, so Hilary Bisenieks is back. A triumphant return—

Hilary (00:04:35):
Woohoo!

Rekka (00:04:35):
—to help us talk about quitting.

Hilary (00:04:41):
I'm an expert at quitting.

Kaelyn (00:04:42):
Has come back to talk about quitting. No, specifically, we're talking about, uh, trunking stories today, what that means, why and when you should do it?

Rekka (00:04:52):
And can you reverse it?

Kaelyn (00:04:54):
Yeah. Is, is this permanent? Is this, uh, something that you have to live with for the rest of your life? So Hilary you're the, you're the expert on trunking, uh, for those of you who didn't listen to the previous episode Hilary joined us on, Hilary is the host of a very awesome podcast called Tales From The Trunk. Um, Hilary, do you want to tell everyone about that real quick?

Hilary (00:05:16):
Absolutely. Uh, Tales From The Trunk, subtitled Reading The Stories That Didn't Make It, is a podcast where I talk monthly with authors from all over science fiction, fantasy and horror about stories they've trunked. Every author comes on with a trunked short story or a selection of a trunked novel. They read that. We talk about why they trunked it. And then we just chat about being writers for the remainder of an hour. Uh, it has been described as just sitting around listening to a couple of friends chat.

Kaelyn (00:05:52):
I mean, those are the best kinds of podcasts. Um, so Hilary, before we, you know, get too far into this, as you know, our listeners know, I always like to start with definitions. So, um, for those who didn't listen to the previous episode you were on, can you, uh, tell us what it means to trunk a story?

Hilary (00:06:09):
Absolutely. So trunking a story is the moment that you decide "I can't sell this for whatever reason, I'm not going to continue trying to submit it. Or in some cases I'm not going to try to submit it at all." And, uh, that comes from any number of reasons, uh, which we will get into, but

Kaelyn (00:06:33):
Oh we're going to get into it! Yes definitely. Yeah. So, you know, if you're a, if you're in the writing sphere, if you, you know, frequent areas that writers collect, you've probably seen, you know, people talking about trunking a story and you know, kind of going like, "well, what the heck does that mean?" So exactly as Hilary said, you know, it's kind of like, "I'm quitting on this story." That's making it sound so much more dire than it than it actually is. But, um, you've gotten to a point where you're like, "I either don't think I can sell this or maybe I don't have the energy to try to continue selling this. I've just gotten disheartened to the point that for my mental health, I have to walk away from it." Um, but yeah, you're taking the story and you're putting it in a trunk and not going to think about it anymore.

Rekka (00:07:20):
And I like to imagine that, like, that's the trunk you find in your grandparent's attic. So someday, like someone's going to explore your—well these days, your computer hard drive.

Hilary (00:07:28):
Yep.

Rekka (00:07:29):
And, um, so you better change all the icons on your writing folders to look like little trunks, if you, if you decide to put a story away. But, um, Hilary also pointed out really quick there that you might've blinked and missed it, that, um, you can also trunk a story that you've never attempted to sell.

Kaelyn (00:07:47):
Yes, yes.

Hilary (00:07:48):
Yep.

Rekka (00:07:49):
And that might be like more like the secret novel that you didn't know, your grandmother wrote kind of thing. Um, because it was like, so passionate, your grandmother was this like adorable church lady

Hilary (00:07:59):
Uh, or it can be something that you decided you had no place in writing.

Rekka (00:08:04):
Also a good, good thing to consider. "Um, am I the right person to tell this story? Like, yes, I had this idea and yes, I had fun writing it, but maybe it's not for me to tell." Um, so that's, uh, that's a good point. So let's start from there. Like trunking a story, you just finished it, you're looking at it, you sit on it maybe a couple of weeks, a month or something, and you just feel like there's something about this that I don't want to take it out into the world. Now for that reason, I'm assuming not too many of your guests have ever come on and read a trunk story that they wrote and didn't want in the world.

Hilary (00:08:38):
No, no. They, uh, I think that I'm the only person who has brought a story onto the show that I was embarrassed of, um, which felt like the right decision. Honestly, I had a, of, um, I had a lot of good things to talk about with that particular story. Um, but I've had this situation for myself, certainly a number of times, especially right after the 2016 election, I wrote a lot of, uh, very angry stories that were from the experiences of people who are not me, who are much more marginalized than I was. And I was, you know, angry and scared. And then I finished the stories and I kind of treated it like free therapy in some ways.

Kaelyn (00:09:34):
Yeah. Yeah nothing wrong with that.

Rekka (00:09:34):
And said, "Okay, I exorcised this from myself and now I can stick it into—" uh, I think I just call it my "retired" folder, but, uh, I've been meaning to change that to a trunk.

Kaelyn (00:09:47):
I was going to say, not trunked? I'm very disappointed.

Rekka (00:09:50):
Well, you know, that would come up every time he did a search for his podcast files.

Kaelyn (00:09:54):
That's a good point. That's a very good point.

Rekka (00:09:54):
So if he calls it the same thing that it's going to tangle up, all his files, that makes sense.

Kaelyn (00:09:59):
Yeah. So, you know, this is kind of a way to segue into like, well, why would you trunk a story? So, you know, we've kind of, you know, for logical and human reasons kind of put this into, "maybe this, isn't your story to tell maybe this isn't something that you want to be putting out into the world," but past that then where you've got to make a personal decision, you know, why is this something that an author would decide to do? Um, you know, we talk a lot about on this show about how much time and effort it takes to write something, even, you know, a short story versus a novel. Don't— I go online and, you know, I'm in all these writers groups and then the discourse and the slacks, and everyone just keeps telling you, "you got to just keep trying, you got to keep trying it's, something's gonna, you know, if you, as long as you try some things eventually going to happen," but trunking a story seems to be completely opposite of that. That is not the case.

Rekka (00:10:55):
There is an element of energy that it takes to keep putting yourself out in the world over and over and over again. And at a certain point, I think when you love a story so much, and it just keeps getting rejected, it's almost protective that you just can't take it anymore, or this deserves better than that you know, 1 cent per word market, or this deserves better than going to a, uh, exposure-only payment method. You know, at some point you go, "maybe I'll just keep this for me" or "maybe I'll hang onto it and it can be part of a like single author anthology later "or something. But I don't know if that ladder counts as trunking, but I think we might get back to that too.

Kaelyn (00:11:40):
We'll certainly come back to that.

Hilary (00:11:42):
I, I kind of considered that level to be provisional trunking, that there are, there are stories that are in my... there are some stories that are still in my active folder that I haven't sent out in a couple of years, just because I've been waiting on the right market to reopen for them, or just because I haven't reorganized my writing folder. But there are stories in my actual trunked folder that I still stand behind. And if the opportunity came up, if somebody, you know, called me up tomorrow and said, "Hey, we like your writing. We want a whole bunch of it right now." I would be able to pull out and say, okay, yeah, this is still representative of me.

Rekka (00:12:34):
So on sabbatical, not retirement.

Hilary (00:12:36):
Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:12:39):
So let's kind of talk real quickly through some, some reasons, you know, to trunk something beyond, uh, you know, the more definitive ones that we had mentioned here. So one, obviously, you know, as Rekka had mentioned: exhaustion. This is you're to a point where you're like, look, I love this story. It's not selling for whatever reason. Maybe you've gotten really good feedback about it, but you just can't get a bite on it and you've hit the wall. This is as much as you can do with it. The cost of the emotional labor is too high for your own, you know, sanity and mental well-being, you have to stop doing this at a certain point. Um, another reason. So that's, you know, that's one assuming like good feedback, the flip side of that is maybe not so good feedback on the story. Um, and you know, when we'll, we'll talk about this more, but when a story becomes quote-unquote unfixable, and that's when it's time to stop on that side. Um, but you know, another reason might be that, you know, as Hilary had said, this isn't the right time for this story, for whatever reason, you know, environmentally in the publishing sphere that you're interested in, you know, maybe you wrote, you know, maybe you had the misfortune of writing a teenage vampire book back in the early two thousands, and just so happened to coincide with all of the other teenage vampire books that were, uh, being released at that point.

Rekka (00:14:05):
Or for example, you have a anthology story that was a themed anthology, and you didn't quite make it, and it's still a good story. And they told you it was a close call, et cetera. So you really want to rush it off to the next market, but everyone else who was rejected from that themed anthology has a story with the same theme. And now they're going to flood the rest of the markets with those stories. And those stories, those editors are going to know that there was a themed anthology call recently because of how many stories they're going to get like this. And that's another sabbatical sort of, um, item, but, um, another instance where good feedback does not necessarily mean send it right back out again.

Kaelyn (00:14:48):
Yeah. So let's, let's spend some time talking, you know, the good feedback side of this and the reasons that you might trunk something that has been receiving good feedback. So, you know, as we said, one of those could be the emotional and mental cost and labor of this. It's a lot of work to submit stories. Um, anybody who tells you like, "Oh, whatever, you just go online and you drop the file in there and you click it," um, clearly has not been doing this or has been doing it wrong. So there's the time. But then there's also the emotional and mental labor aspect of this. If this keeps getting rejected, that's going to wear on you. That's really difficult to just have to deal with day in and day out. Especially if it's a story that everyone's telling you, "I loved this. This is great. I have a couple little notes, but nothing, you know, nothing major," that can be very difficult to deal with. And, you know, like we were joking about quitting, but I, I don't necessarily like to think of it as quitting. I like to think of it as, you know, being realistic and, you know, taking good care of yourself.

Rekka (00:15:55):
Well, sometimes you quit a job to take good care of yourself. Isn't that true, Kaelyn?

Kaelyn (00:15:58):
Oh, yes. Yes.

Rekka (00:16:01):
So let's not forget that quitting is not always, uh, a failure on your part. Sometimes it is literally saying, um, "I need to not be here right now." And sometimes not being here right now means not being in the trenches of getting constant rejections or waiting 83 days to get a rejection or more.

Kaelyn (00:16:20):
And by the way, the quitting analogy is actually very good because I quit a job that was, um, it wasn't great. And I went to a much better one. So sometimes, you know, walking away from something that is maybe doing things that aren't great for your mental health and stability gives, opens you up to walk away and go to something that is going to be better and may actually help improve that.

Hilary (00:16:46):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:16:47):
Right. So in this case, stopping focus on like one story and revising it every time you get feedback and instead, like going and writing something fresh and, you know, using all the skills you've developed as a writer, writing all these other stories that maybe didn't make it, they're all going to create the story that does. Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:17:03):
As writers, I'd be curious from both of you about the obsessive characteristic of this, if you can get very obsessed and infatuated with revising and tweaking and fixing a story so that somebody will see how awesome it is and take it.

Hilary (00:17:20):
Yes.

Rekka (00:17:22):
I think a lot of that, at least speaking for myself, and some folks I've talked to is the, uh, inability to have the confidence in your own work to say, "no, I, I meant to do it this way. Um, and there are reasons why your feedback is, while appreciated, not appropriate in this case." And so when you are submitting, you have essentially put yourself in mode of, "I am seeking external validation for myself and my work" and when you don't get it, but you do get feedback, that's pinging something in you, I think. And when you're, when you've set your mind to that mode of looking for other people to approve of you, when they tell you what it would have taken for them to approve of you, it's very easy to then feel like you need to follow through on that unsolicited or solicited advice.

Kaelyn (00:18:16):
You don't think it's coming more from the, like the obsession with the story. So much as the obsession of getting somebody to say yes to the story and therefore validate it.

Rekka (00:18:29):
Part. Well, so there are people who never stop fiddling with a story, um, and they might submit it and then go look at it again and go, "Oh, you know what, I'm going to do that differently." I am the type where if I'm submitting it, I don't look at the story again. I will open it and make sure that nothing's gone wonky with the formatting and then I will send it off. And, um, if I hear back with someone else's advice, now I'm like, "okay, now I know what I would be looking for if I opened that document again." But if I just am myself without any external input, opening a document, like I could fiddle with it forever. And I know that, so I tend to be better about not fiddling once I say, "okay, this is done, I'm sending it off" because I know how frustrated I would be if I decided to change something and it's out with somebody at that moment.

Hilary (00:19:25):
Yeah. From my perspective, uh, you know, I, I answered yes, extremely quickly because when I was a brand new writer, I absolutely, I think kind of like what Rekka was saying, not having that confidence in my own work, but also, uh, because of how long it can take to write a short story and get it to a place where you want to submit it. I think, especially when you are young, when you are new to the field—uh, and I'm speaking purely from my experience in this—I pinned all of my success on that one story. My, you know, my feeling was, and especially because I had very positive feedback right out of the gate through a series of, uh, very privileged happenstances that I had, you know, all this great feedback immediately on this first short story that I ever sent out. And I thought, "okay, I have to sell this one because I don't know if I can do that again."

Kaelyn (00:20:50):
Yeah. I think, you know, the, the investment, and I don't even just mean time investment in this as like, is a major factor. It's like, it's the sunk cost fallacy. "I've gotten so far in this and I have done so much and everybody's telling me, just keep pushing, just keep trying." So, you know, that said, as you know, both of you have trunked stories that you've gotten very good feedback on that people have enjoyed. And for whatever reason, they just, you know, didn't, didn't go where you wanted them to. Um, I'm going to start with Hilary and then we'll go to Rekka. What happened that you said, "okay, now it's time to stop?"

Hilary (00:21:32):
I didn't think the story represented me anymore. That's, that's usually the reason I trunk stories at this point. If I have been submitting them, I trunk them because they are not something that I want to attach my name to anymore. Uh, especially I'm thinking about the stories that I was writing, you know—I started writing, uh, with an aim to get published 15 years ago. And me 15 years ago, uh, is, was a very different person than me in 2020.

Kaelyn (00:22:16):
Yeah, of course.

Hilary (00:22:17):
Um, in a way that like me from 2015, isn't as different that there are still stories I send out from 2015, but, or would if I had markets for them, but, uh, stories from 20, from 2005. Absolutely not.

Kaelyn (00:22:38):
Okay. Yep. Rekka, how about you? What's, uh, what's an example or two of a time you were like, okay, it's time to be done with this?

Rekka (00:22:45):
You're going to be very sad that, um, my answer is basically the same as Hilary's, but also—

Kaelyn (00:22:51):
Oh. That is a little disappointing.

Rekka (00:22:51):
Yeah, I knew you would be disappointed in me.

Kaelyn (00:22:56):
I was hoping for some sort of like, "I had a dream and a cat appeared to me and said, 'Rekka there's a new story.'"

Rekka (00:23:02):
See here's the thing. I haven't, I haven't trunked the cat story yet. I'm not giving up on that one yet. Um, Kaelyn's read that story.

Kaelyn (00:23:12):
Hilary, have you read the cat story?

Hilary (00:23:14):
I have not yet.

Rekka (00:23:14):
Hilary hasn't. Hilary might get to hear it next spring because I might trunk it by then.

Kaelyn (00:23:21):
Okay, so we have no spoilers.

Rekka (00:23:22):
We're not referring to the cat story now. We're referring to a very short piece of flash fiction I wrote for a library contest and it won the library contest and it was supposed to appear in an anthology that they were going to print cause they had a new espresso machine, which is a book printer, not an espresso machine. And I'm.

Hilary (00:23:43):
confusingly enough.

Rekka (00:23:45):
I'm not sure

Kaelyn (00:23:46):
Especially considering how often books and coffee shops overlap.

Rekka (00:23:49):
Right. You really would think that they would have at least called it an eXpresso machine or something like that.

Kaelyn (00:23:55):
I'm just like, I'm picturing like this, you know, things showing up and they're like, this box is gigantic. It's just supposed to be a coffee machine. What's it here. Okay.

Rekka (00:24:03):
I think you would notice if you accidentally bought an espresso book machine. They're about, I think $12,000 or something like that. If there

Kaelyn (00:24:10):
There are coffee machines that cost that much.

Hilary (00:24:13):
I was going to say, I just read this year's take down of the Williams-Sonoma holiday catalog.

Rekka (00:24:19):
Oh,

Kaelyn (00:24:20):
There's a take-down of it?

Hilary (00:24:21):
There is an annual takedown of it. Uh, the most expensive item in the catalog every year is somehow a coffee apparatus.

Kaelyn (00:24:31):
Well, so this is, um, this is very funny because, uh, I'm gonna just, you know what, I'm not sure when this, this episode's getting posted after Christmas. So Rekka will have her present from me by then, which is a coffee based thing from Williams-Sonoma.

Rekka (00:24:46):
I hope it's the coffee based thing. I'd be really disappointed if it's not at least several grands worth of coffee of apparatus.

Kaelyn (00:24:54):
It's not the $12,000 espresso machine. Be it either something that makes coffee or something that makes books, but it is a coffee based device from Williams-Sonoma.

Rekka (00:25:05):
Imagine if I could become a small press just like that.

Kaelyn (00:25:09):
Um, you could, you could become a kind of a small coffee shop, maybe?

Hilary (00:25:17):
You could become an Aeropress. Eyyyyyy.

Rekka (00:25:18):
Nicely done.

Kaelyn (00:25:23):
Very well done. Extra points for puns on this show.

Rekka (00:25:26):
Always. Um, so I, okay. Now I have, now I remember what I was talking about. Sorry, we went off coffee. I was like, wait, also my coffee mug is almost empty. So like now I'm just upset.

Kaelyn (00:25:42):
Yeah that's exactly how you distract Rekka all the time. "Rekka. Rekka... Coffee with heavy cream."

Rekka (00:25:50):
Um, so they were going to print an anthology on their espresso machine book, printer, and never did. And so I was like, I'm going to go ahead and say that two years is enough time that if there were a contract, which there wasn't, that the rights would have reverted to me by now. So I started shopping around and it wasn't getting any hits and it wasn't like super fantasy or science fiction or anything. It was kind of just like on the edge of reality kind of thing. So I wasn't super committed to it. It wasn't very long, so it wasn't like it was going to get me, you know, very far along those SFWA guidelines for membership, you know, um, for the minimum word count, you got to sell at a pro rate. And, um, and then, yeah, I think I opened it one time to see if I should revise it. And I was kind of like, "you know what, this is not that great a story. I'm like, it might've been pressed the library, but this is not reflective of what I can do." So I stuck it in a folder.

Hilary (00:26:48):
The story that I brought on to the Tables Turned episode of my podcast, where I had Sharon Hsu interview me, instead of me interviewing her, faced a very similar set of circumstances where I wrote it in 2011 and sold it to, uh, a semipro market in the beginning of 2012. And got a contract, returned the contract, never got a countersigned one sent back to me. This was 2012 and people were still sending things through the mail. And then never heard anything from the market, uh, for over a year and then heard, "Hey, we found this. We were meaning to publish it. We'd like to put it in this feature and we've upped our pay rates. Would you like us? Can we still do that?" And I said, "Yes, please. And can you send me a new contract?" And then never heard anything from them? Uh, and I think I submitted it one more time maybe after that. Uh, I think to the first open submission period for Uncanny, and then it came back rightfully and I looked at it and I said, "Oh, this is, this is not great. I don't want to attach my name to this anymore." And so.

Rekka (00:28:29):
Thank goodness that contract never showed up.

Hilary (00:28:30):
I did the smart thing and read it publicly on a podcast that you can go download for free right now.

Kaelyn (00:28:36):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it's interesting because both of you, um, you've kind of, you touched on something and, you know, as I said with, you know, "tell me about the time you've talked a story" and both of you said, "well, the story wasn't really representative of me anymore." Um, and you both skirted around something, well Hilary, you just dove into it, which is, "I don't think it was good anymore. And I didn't want my name on this." Um, so I'm going to take that and segue us into the other reason you may trunk a story is apart from you deciding this is isn't good. I don't want my name on this. Maybe be getting some negative feedback here about, uh, about your story and whether or not you should continue to try to publish it. Um, I will, uh, put on the editor hat here in a minute and talk about—

Rekka (00:29:30):
Cause you haven't been wearing the editor hat this whole time.

Kaelyn (00:29:33):
Um, first of all, they're editor headphones,

Hilary (00:29:37):
I was gonna say.

Rekka (00:29:37):
Hang on, I've got a, I've got a hood. I can put the, the editor up.

Rekka (00:29:43):
This is so, so we can't spit in her eye when we get the feedback.

Rekka (00:29:47):
This is, this is so like, this is so I don't have to like actually, you know, make eye contact when I'm telling people this story is a tear down. Um, um, but yeah, so, you know, you both have kind of mentioned, you know, instances of like, "I, I really don't want my name on this and out in the world." And I'm assuming that kind of just comes from growing and changing and developing your craft as an author. And, you know, like, you know, we all look back at the thing we colored when we were, you know, a kid and be like, "Oh God, I remember being so proud of this." And, um, you know, you do you change and you grow and develop as a writer. And, um, but so then why out of curiosity, did you not go back and revise? What made you say "I can't, this is not something I can work with anymore."

Hilary (00:30:39):
TBH. I thought about it. And then I thought, you know, this is, I can spend my energy better on writing a new, better story. The things specifically in, in this story that were, that I didn't want to attach my name to anymore, weren't necessarily, uh, an intrinsic part of the story, but I didn't feel like I wanted to spend the energy to navigate around the ways that they were problematic.

Kaelyn (00:31:21):
Okay.

Hilary (00:31:22):
Uh, that like the text, the prose itself was functional. I having read it out loud on this show. I found problems with it that I could have dodged by just reading it out loud to begin with. But the things that I objected to were more on the content side of like, when I wrote it in 2011, I thought that I was a cis straight dude and I am a bisexual genderqueer disaster.

Rekka (00:31:58):
So the story isn't reflective of your truth anymore.

Hilary (00:32:01):
Yes. Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:32:02):
Well, I mean, you know, there's, it was more, there's the, the bisexual gender. I, I refuse to acknowledge or accept you as a disaster. I'm going to, I'm going to change that to force of nature.

Hilary (00:32:19):
I will take that.

Kaelyn (00:32:19):
Um, you know, that was just inside looking to come out and, uh, you know, come out.

Hilary (00:32:30):
Come out? Eyyyyyy.

Kaelyn (00:32:30):
It's just looking inside looking to get out into the world there. And uh, okay. So yeah, no that's, and I think that's something, you know, I, I don't really write, um, uh, fiction. I have written academically and it is funny you say that because I go back and I have the opposite thing now where I go back and look at stuff that I wrote that like, you know, some things I had published and I'm like, "Oh my God, was this me? I don't like, I don't remember being this insightful." And I don't think I actually, I'm not sure if it was insightfulness, or if it was exhausted and my professors were like, ah, yes, this is clearly I, uh, a smart person or, you know, I was basically just like drooling onto a page and trying to make sense of it at that.

Rekka (00:33:18):
What you're saying is that you reached enlightenment while writing that.

Kaelyn (00:33:22):
I, I don't, there are like papers that every now and then I dig up and I'm like, "I genuinely have no memory of writing this, but I clearly did a lot of research here." And like, I think, especially when I was in grad school, I was in just like such a, a haze of, you know, like I was reading three books a week and having to write 7 to 10 pages on them within that time. And then like, you know, then you get to the things that you're actually doing research on. Um, but it is interesting because, you know, if you told me to go back, like, I think like, you know, 10 years later now, I'm, I don't want to say more intelligent, but I think like I have a lot more information and, you know, stuff that I've gathered and I certainly have access to, you know, different things and I've just lived life.

Rekka (00:34:10):
Yeah. I was going to say the context or experience is a big part of it.

Rekka (00:34:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I still don't think I could recreate that time where I was just completely submerged in all of this. So, um, you know, I think like life stages have a lot to do with like what you're generating and like what, you know, you can go back and look at something and say like, "Oh, well, I don't remember this exactly. But based on what I've written here, this must have been when this was happening in my life." Um, but anyway, so I'd like to kind of pivot back to, you know, you guys had both, you know, said things that you're like, "I can't fix this. I can't, this isn't worth my time and energy have more to do with, um, it's not representative me anymore and it's not worth trying to fix."

Rekka (00:34:55):
For me. It was that, um, this piece wasn't really genre. So I, wasn't going to go outside of my genre markets that I'm looking at to find a place to submit it to, what, build a name that nobody cares about? You know, like there'll be one 501 word story out there in a non genre magazine, or, you know, maybe? Um, it just like, you know, I could write of 5,000 word version of this story, and that might be interesting to do, but like I was exploring, it was a, um, a word prompt, you know, challenge. So everyone, I think, honestly the word prompt was "writer." And so I, you know, like I, wasn't going to write super fantasy about it. I could have, but I just sort of had this idea and I went with it. I think I turned it in the next day or something like that. And they picked it like, so it barely got revised. It barely got re-read. And, um, it's not really representative, not just of me as a writer and what I'm capable of, but of the rest of my body of work. You know, like 500 words. I'm not going to sit here and revise it to add more fantasy or add more science fiction. I'm just going to let it go.

Hilary (00:36:09):
Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:36:10):
One of the things that's really interesting and what I like hearing from both of you is a level of self-awareness that you don't find in humanity a lot. And Rekka always teases me about, um, about like how, what I think of writers as like, as a collective and whatever. But one of the things that I will say that I always find with writers is they're self-aware to the point of their own detriment.

Hilary (00:36:33):
That is a mood.

Rekka (00:36:36):
And are you still self-aware of like, if you're going far off the other end where you are, so self-deprecating, you know, it's, it's one thing to be not—

Kaelyn (00:36:45):
Yeah, no, it's, there's, there's a cer there's definitely like, you know, there's a surface tension that's going to break at some points to be sure. Um, but Mo a lot of writers are incredibly self-aware. Um, obviously not all of them, because the other reason that it might be time to trunk a story— Rekka, that is the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Rekka (00:37:07):
I told you I'm in a shed. I can't just like wave my coffee mug in the air and make someone come and fill it for me.

Kaelyn (00:37:12):
I'm so concerned for you right now. And I just really hope—

Rekka (00:37:15):
I just tilted my head back—for our, for our listeners, if I don't trim this out—I tilted my head back to get the last of my coffee out of my mug. And I tapped to the bottom so that,

Kaelyn (00:37:23):
No. No, tap implies a much more gentle action than what was taking place there. This was a, like, "you give that to me right now."

Rekka (00:37:33):
I mean, yes.

Hilary (00:37:34):
This was a glass bottle of ketchup at a diner sort of motion.

Kaelyn (00:37:39):
Yes that's exactly what that was like, you know, like someone's holding it up to their eye. Like, that's exactly what was happening there.

Rekka (00:37:46):
Look, I like coffee.

Kaelyn (00:37:48):
We know honey. Um, but the other reason, you know, the, if we're go into a little bit of the more depressing side, maybe the side where you're not the one that makes the decision that it's time to trunk a story and other people are telling you too, is that the story is I am just going to say it: unfixable. As, you know, an editor as somebody who reads a lot of submissions, you know, I have come across multiple instances of novel length books that are unfixable.

Rekka (00:38:21):
I have a question.

Kaelyn (00:38:23):
Sure.

Rekka (00:38:23):
Because while revising, you can literally replace every word in the story.

Kaelyn (00:38:28):
Jason and the Argonauts, if you replace all of the pieces of the boat, is it still the original boat?

Rekka (00:38:33):
Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, if this happens over multiple revision passes and you, you know, are the same person, roughly, as you work on it, is it not possible to replace all the words over a period of time and turn it into a better story.

Kaelyn (00:38:53):
Okay. So let's talk about that because, and this is, you know, something where I know I'm going to be on the, uh, the defensive here a tiny bit, because.

Rekka (00:39:01):
No, you are the aggressor here. I'm sorry.

Hilary (00:39:02):
You have uttered fightin' words to a couple of writers.

Kaelyn (00:39:09):
Writers do not like to hear that something is unfixable.

Rekka (00:39:12):
I can edit this out too. I can make her say anything I want. I can change every word in this podcast. I have hours and hours of Kaelyn speaking.

Hilary (00:39:23):
It's just going to be me uttering nonsequitors.

Kaelyn (00:39:28):
This entire podcast is just going to be reduced to us laughing about coffee. Yes.

Rekka (00:39:32):
If it must be, it must be that will make it better, at least right, than you telling us that we didn't write a story and we have to put it away.

Kaelyn (00:39:39):
So here's the thing. Editors also do not like to say something is unfixable. Me as an editor, all I want to do is fix this. All I want to do is, and there's actually, I've shown Rekka a couple instances of like stories I got. And I wrote, like there was one of them, I think I wrote five pages single-spaced of just notes and like the first two were identifying all of the problems. And then the third remaining three were okay, here's how we fix this. And I remember showing it to, uh, to Collin Coyle. And he was like, "Kaelyn, this is supposed to be a pretty much completed draft somebody turned in, you've read this, sat down and spit this out in an hour and a half. This is nowhere near a complete list of what, you know, would have to be done here. And you're basically suggesting that they take everything they did and start over. This story is not fixable." And he was right. But I don't like to admit that because I am—not just in terms of stories, in terms of everything in my life—I'm a fixer.

Rekka (00:40:46):
Well I think most people are. You go on Twitter and say you have a problem and you will have so many comments, so fast, of people giving you advice that you didn't ask for us. This is human nature.

Kaelyn (00:40:55):
Is that, is that people who just want to give you advice or is that people who like genuinely want to fix something?

Rekka (00:41:03):
It happened to me today. A friend told me a situation that they had that was untenable. And my immediate reaction was "well, could you...?" You know, and it wasn't because I was thinking that they were incapable of solving this on their own. It's just, I really enjoy solving problems. That's why I code, you know, like when I, when I find that semi-colon in PHP that's broken everything, like I'm really happy.

Hilary (00:41:24):
Ughhh, PHP.

Kaelyn (00:41:25):
I mean, look, I work in, you know, I work in sales and like, this is, you know, I always, whenever I have to train someone new or whenever I have to, you know, talk about something, I always say, "they're coming to you because they don't, they may not realize it, but they have a problem. They need something to, you know, help with whatever. So that's what you're, you know, you're helping with here as you're being a problem solver." I wanna... But here's the thing. I want to make the distinction between problem solving and fixing, because problem solving is helping is, you know, trying to mitigate a situation, to an extent. Fixing something is "there are things that are broken here and we need to glue them back together. We need to pop them back into place so that the machine can go back to ticking."

Kaelyn (00:42:10):
Um, I don't like to think that there are stories that are unfixable, but there absolutely are. It's not pleasant, especially considering how much time and effort go into these. And sometimes that may be the problem. Is that, you know, you have like, like, you know, like with cooking, like if you, I, I love to cook. And one of the most important things about cooking is knowing that when a dish is done. Where you're like, "Okay, this is it. I don't need to put any more garnish on this. It doesn't need any more salt. It doesn't need any more seasoning me adding more butter to this is not going to improve upon it." It's now over cooked or the sauce is separated or, you know, whatever. So I always kind of lump stories that are unfixable into two categories. Um, one is that the story is a mess. Um, this is a trap I think a lot of writers fall into where they get very excited and then get overwhelmed.

Rekka (00:43:12):
How dare you.

Kaelyn (00:43:12):
I know both of you are feeling very personally attacked right now.

Hilary (00:43:15):
You come into my house on my zoom.

Rekka (00:43:17):
Exactly.

Kaelyn (00:43:20):
But writers, you know, have a lot, especially, you know, in the genres that Rekka, Hilary, and I live in and, you know, fantasy, horror, science fiction, where you've got to create so much stuff and you can just come up with all of these things. And it's like, it's like word vomit. It's just like, it just keeps coming and coming and coming. And it makes the story a mess. You lose track of character arcs, you lose track of plot lines, you lose track of themes because the story is just so ladened down with so many different things. And it could be, you know, it could be the world building is too much, there's too much detail and that's resulting in things being inconsistent. And it's not simply a matter of, okay, we have to make it line up consistently. It could be well, that affects the plot of the story.

Kaelyn (00:44:06):
You know, like you have one character explaining that the magic system works this way, but another character that's completely flying in the face of it. And that's, they do something that is relevant, you know, pivotal even, to the plot moving forward. So there's no way to fix that. Um, you could have too many characters, you could have too many points of view. And some of these sound, you know, individually maybe a thing that you address, but when they're all together, you're just, it's, it's too much. The story at that point is a tear down, where maybe you can salvage the foundation of it, but you're going to have to really like, do some major, major remodeling.

Rekka (00:44:48):
You're literally describing what happened with Flotsam. I worked on this story. I worked on this story for 14 years, but the version that made it to the shelves did not exist until 2016. You know, like the, the story was, um, my NaNoWriMo project every year. And then I would revise it. And as I was rereading it, I would go, Oh, but what if I also, and I always also had it into it. So it just kept getting bigger and more ungainly and yeah.

Kaelyn (00:45:18):
"Ooh, But what if I also" is emblazoned on the outside of so many trunks with stories in them. That is the epitaph on the tombstone.

Rekka (00:45:27):
Yeah.

Hilary (00:45:28):
Yeah. I've been in the situation though. And I think that this comes up more in short fiction than in longer form stuff, where I have ripped and replaced an entire story because the concept of it wouldn't leave my brain. And I think that's the coming back to earlier of "why didn't I try to fix this one trunked story?" I was over the concept. And I've rewritten other stories from the ground up with entirely new characters, but the same basic hook, because I couldn't get over the hook.

Kaelyn (00:46:09):
This is where I was, you know, kind of saying like where you get fixated and infatuated with something. Like you just, there's this thing in your ear that you just, you can't let go of, um,

Rekka (00:46:19):
But that doesn't necessarily create messy drafts. The way that overworking one draft does.

Kaelyn (00:46:24):
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah. Another time where it's time to trunk a story is you need to work on your writing. There isn't a lot we can do with this story until you get better as a writer. And, you know, there's a lot of different ways and resources to improve on writing, hone your craft. Um, you know, one is just writing. Two, You know, take a class. There's lots of great online classes get involved in writing groups. And you know, that's a, that's a whole topic for another time, but if you're not doing a good job with the actual writing, the story is not going to go anywhere. It's not going to sell. And by the way, speaking of, you know, then being in another place, when you come back to revisit this, you may just start over anyway, because all of the time you spent developing yourself as a writer is going to bring a fresh perspective to this story.

Rekka (00:47:17):
If you come back to it all at that point.

Kaelyn (00:47:19):
If you come back to it all at that point. Um, so yes, unfortunately there are unfixable stories. Um, it's apart from, you know, the time and effort and emotional labor involved in this, there are some points where, you know, you and probably in combination with someone else are going to hit a wall where you just have to say, "it is time for me to be done with this now. I have done everything that I can do. And maybe I've done too much."

Rekka (00:47:48):
If only they'd said that with The Last Jedi.

Kaelyn (00:47:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Hilary (00:47:55):
Yep.

Rekka (00:47:55):
At every level we can fall victim to this. Um, yeah. So, you know, it's funny while we were talking, um, I went back to my trunked folder and I did notice that I have a note about this story. Cause I put a story in a folder, because if like there are different versions of it, if I have, you know, a, a version for anonymous submissions or I have a version where they wanted Times and a version where they wanted Courier, I have, you know, each file saved separately. And so each story gets a folder. And the note for this one says "in the drawer, maybe rewrite?" So like, you know, 500 words would be a total rewrite, not like rework. Um, you will also be happy to know that I did apparently have the cat story in that folder. Um, except it is out on submission right now. So, um, I obviously didn't care, uh, that I decided to trunk it. Um, it has been at one market for 106 days now. So just kind of out of mind, out of sight. I don't know whether I put it in the folder before or after I sent it off.

Kaelyn (00:48:56):
So Hilary, you know, as kind of, kind of the expert here on, on trunking stories, what advice do you have for people who are, you know, can't quite figure out if they've hit the wall yet?

Hilary (00:49:11):
Oh, geez.

Kaelyn (00:49:15):
Well, you've been on this show before. You knew we were going to ask you—,

Hilary (00:49:18):
But last time I brought the ending question.

Kaelyn (00:49:22):
That's a good point.

Hilary (00:49:25):
Um, you know, on my show, I get to ask those hard questions and not have to answer them. Um, so the things I would say, if you're not sure about trunking something are really just set it aside for two weeks. If you still feel like, and it doesn't have to be two weeks, but like pick an arbitrary amount of time that is longer than a day to let the story sit and see if it still compels you. And you don't have to reread it in order to decide if it's still compelling to you, just whatever your metric is for you believe in this story.

Hilary (00:50:16):
If that's something that you still want to put out into the world, and if you have the energy to do that, then don't trunk it. You can put it on hiatus. You can say this is waiting for a specific market. I've sat on stories for, I sat on a story for six months this year, because PseudoPod only is open for original fiction submissions during October. And I knew that this was a horror story that hadn't yet been out to PseudoPod and I wanted to try it on them. And got rejected. It's out at another market. That'll be okay. And this is, you know, this is a story with 20-something-odd rejections under its belt. There's no threshold of rejections. There's no threshold of markets. It is, "Does this story still means something to you?" Yeah. Um, and if it still means something to you, you could still decide to trunk it, because I like nothing better than to be a contradiction.

Hilary (00:51:28):
You could, you know, you could trunk it today and then in a year think, "Oh, whatever happened to that story?" Um, and the other thing I would say is don't let your story that you are obsessing over right now be the only thing in your life. That, uh, you know, I have, I have spent probably a good year of my 15 years as, uh, a submitting working writer, obsessing over stories and tinkering on stories and worrying about stories that I could have spent just pouring that energy into something new. And it doesn't have to be a story. It doesn't have to be writing. Just something. It's not healthy to think about writing every day of your life. It's not healthy to think about any single thing every day of your life to the point that it upsets you.

Kaelyn (00:52:46):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:52:47):
And yeah, once you start submitting the story, as you are putting yourself in that position where you're more likely to be upset than not because there are, um, I looked yesterday, so this might not be up to date, but on the Submission Grinder, um, which is run by Diabolical Plots, uh, of markets that were either open or only temporarily closed, uh, there were 590. So you could put yourself through an awful lot of rejections with a single story and it not having anything to do with it being a bad story, but just, you know, the market submitted to wasn't right for it. There were too many great stories that, you know, submissions period. There were, um, you know, other people with the same topic, you know, and they had to pick one or they decided there was an anthology call because too many people sent them the same kind of story and then they didn't take any of them. Yeah. Because they thought someone else would too.

Rekka (00:53:44):
So, you know, there are lots of reasons that have nothing to do with that validation that you want, um, that your story might get rejected. And then there are also lots and lots of markets where if you just kind of get it in your head that this story might get shot out in 500 different directions, you can go back to your life and forget that you have a story in submission until you hear back about it. Um, which is why I try to always log my submissions in the Submissions Grinder. So I remember if I have a story out right now. Because I really try to put it out of my head until I get some sort of letter one way or the other, um, which I definitely recommend. Just like Hilary said, it's like have something else that you're really focused on. Don't be focused on "What's the story doing? What are people thinking about it? Um, will it be rejected? Does this editor hate?" It is, it is. There's a thing called rejectomancy that people attempt to try and divine what is happening with the stories at markets and how that market is moving through their slush pile and whether all the stories that are still out are, are now second tier or third tier—

Hilary (00:54:53):
Rekka, I'm on this call, you don't have to say "someone."

Rekka (00:54:59):
I was trying to make you sound bigger, you know? Um, and this is, you know, this is a thing that people do and it can be fun. And then suddenly you're reloading the submissions grinder three times a day on the single market and you were going to write, but that twenty-five minute timer you set for your writing sprint goes off and all you've done is stared at markets and what they're doing and tried to imagine your way into their brains. And it's not going to happen because you're also dealing with slush readers, plus editors, plus, you know, exhaustion. If somebody doesn't read your submission for three weeks, it's not because they're busy necessarily. They might just be coping. Um, so yeah, the, the idea of thinking too hard about what's out there in the world is, is a good point. Like don't, don't stress about it.

Hilary (00:55:45):
Uh, the other thing, and you know, this is, this is something I harp on a lot, uh, on my show and basically to everybody, is like trunking a story isn't the end of the world. And even just a single rejection, isn't the end of the world. And it, and that's, I won't say that you necessarily get hardened to it because I still get rejections that hurt sometimes. But you, the more rejections you have, the less precious any of them feel.

Kaelyn (00:56:21):
Yeah. Yeah.

Rekka (00:56:24):
Absolutely.

Hilary (00:56:24):
You know, just send the story back out if you're not sure if you want to trunk it yet, send it sent out again.

Kaelyn (00:56:31):
I was actually going to say exactly something along those lines, which you know, is to kind of, you know, round out our thoughts here is that there is nothing wrong with trunking, a story. You know, we were joking at the top of this, about quitting. It's not really, like, we shouldn't say quitting, it's not quitting. It's recognizing limitations and recognizing, you know, what you know is best spent with your time and energy. There's nothing wrong with walking away from something and saying, "I did as much as I could with this. I'm proud of what I did, but this was all I could do." Um, I think that there's, I don't want to call it a stigma, but like a sense of self-defeat where when you trunk something, especially if it is something that you put a lot of time and effort into and having to put it down and say, "all right, this just isn't going to work." Um, it's, it's definitely, uh, a moment in your life. Um, but I think a lot of people get scared by that because it feels like quitting. It feels like" I did everything I was supposed to in this still didn't work out. I'm a failure. What am I doing with myself? What am I doing with my life?" And it's not that. It's, it actually displays a really good sense of self-awareness and realism.

Rekka (00:57:54):
And maybe self-preservation. Like we were saying.

Kaelyn (00:57:57):
Self-preservation. Yeah, exactly. So.

Rekka (00:57:59):
And we, we haven't really pointed out how much harder it is to do it with a novel because of how many more words are in there. And then in theory, how much more time and your, you know, everything, and then you told people you were writing a novel and they are like, "so how's that novel coming?" And you're like, "Oh, I gave up on it." Like, that's not the answer you want to give anyone. Um, of course, if you didn't tell them too much about the novel, you can just say, "Oh, it's coming along great." Cause you're talking about like three novels from the one that you last referred to. But yeah, I mean, this is easier to practice on a short story level. Um, and then maybe you can grow those callouses you need for querying a novelty agents. And then if you get an agent, hooray, but now you have to put the book on submission. So now it just starts all over again. You just have someone else who cries with you.

Kaelyn (00:58:46):
It's important. To have someone else to cry with you.

Rekka (00:58:49):
Yeah. Practice having your rejections and, um, eating them too. And then, you know, don't stop writing. Like don't, don't look to the external validation. If writing is the part you love, like if you get in the habit of submitting stories, because that's what everyone does rather than like, my favorite part of the writing process is a submission. Is writing that cover letter, like then go for it. But I mean like—

Kaelyn (00:59:15):
Also if you've ever encountered one of those people run away. Yeah.

Rekka (00:59:19):
Short story cover letters are not that bad.

Hilary (00:59:20):
Short story cover letters are, are two sentences and you're out of there.

Rekka (00:59:25):
And they get copy pasted from my spreadsheet. Yeah. They, um, they are so much better than query letters.

Kaelyn (00:59:31):
Look I'm just saying, anybody who's like "my favorite part of this is submissions." That's not, that's not a human, that's an alien here trying to find ways to infiltrate our society. And they're not doing a very good job.

Rekka (00:59:45):
I mean, Submission Grinder does make it kind of fun, but yeah, not—

Kaelyn (00:59:49):
You're making me suspicious of you Rekka.

Rekka (00:59:51):
You should've been suspicious of me for a long, long time now.

Kaelyn (00:59:53):
Okay. More suspicious.

Rekka (00:59:54):
Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, I just wanted to point out that we hadn't really talked about like doing this with 200,000 words versus, you know, 2000 words, but, um, the feeling of a sunk cost or whatever, uh, it doesn't really go with writing because, you know, like if you were going to sit down and become a concert pianist, you would not sit down and attempt a concert on your first try. You would practice. And writers, I think, have this imagination, uh, have this vision that you write down— or you sit down and you write the Great American Novel, because that's the way we hear everybody doing it. Um, nobody talks about the 36 drafts that they threw out. I mean, now, now we do cause we have Twitter, but like, you know, like the, the fallacy of, you know, sitting down doing it perfectly the first time and then becoming famous and retiring and just like maybe writing two more books before you die and three are maybe found and released posthumously, like—

Kaelyn (01:00:57):
Yeah, I think we've got this thing in our head where we read and we enjoy reading and maybe we enjoy talking about reading. So we don't understand that you don't just sit down and churn out something perfect. To kind of, you know, finish up our thoughts here. Don't think of trunking a story as time that you wasted. Think of it as practice. Think of it as, you know, like Rekka said with the concert pianist,, you're not sitting down and performing a concert. There is a lot of time that went into this. The reason I think that we get a lot really hung up with writing is because, you know, somebody who's practicing the piano at the end of the day, they don't really have anything physical to show you that they did. With writing, there is something that exists. You have produced something that, you know, is tangible in the sense that you can show it to other people. Um, and that makes it harder to walk away from. You know, anytime you're making something, you know, like, um, a painting or, you know, you're into woodworking or some, you know, gardening, something, and you have to walk away from it that makes it so much harder to do.

Rekka (01:02:13):
And also the mistakes when you practice piano are ephemeral and they just sit here. Whereas when you stare at something that isn't quite working, that has become a physical product, there's, there's a lot of, uh, self reckoning all the time forever.

Hilary (01:02:29):
Yeah.

Kaelyn (01:02:30):
So Hilary, to, to kind of, you know, close us out here. Do you have a good, um, do you have a good trunk story to tell us? Either yourself or, you know, maybe one of your favorite stories from your podcast?

Hilary (01:02:44):
Yes. So, uh, I alluded to this story before, but it's, uh, it's not a story I will ever tire of telling, which is the very first story that I ever tried to sell. Uh, the first place I sent it to was Weird Tales Magazine. Uh, this was back in 2005, uh, where the head editor was George Scithers. Uh, and the thing about sending it to Weird Tales. I had that magazine in my head as this is, you know, "this is a place where you send stories and they get published. And like you get noticed by doing that." But George was a family friend for about half of my life. At that point, he had lived about six blocks away from the house I grew up in and my dad had worked for him on and off for years. And when I was a wee small lad would just like, take me over there, talk with George for a while, George would call me a little sprout, and then we would leave. So when I sent this story to Weird Tales, I didn't get a form rejection. I didn't get a personal rejection in the mail. George called my house, not even the phone number I had listed on the top of my manuscript—

Rekka (01:04:25):
Oh my god.

Hilary (01:04:25):
—which was my cell phone. He called my actual house, talked to my dad for half an hour.

Kaelyn (01:04:31):
Oh my god!

Hilary (01:04:31):
—and then said, "Can you put your boy on?"

Rekka (01:04:34):
Oh no.

Hilary (01:04:35):
And told me everything that was wrong with the story and then said, "But it's a damn good story, revise it and send it back to me."

Rekka (01:04:47):
Oh, your first submission was a revise and resubmit, but prolly didn't feel like it.

Kaelyn (01:04:52):
No, it felt like somebody called, spoke to your father for half an hour,

Rekka (01:04:56):
Like the principle.

Hilary (01:04:56):
Yeah.

Rekka (01:04:56):
—and then was, as an afterthought, "Oh right. Your kid. I have to tell him everything wrong with what he just did."

Hilary (01:05:02):
Yep. Uh, so I revised and I resubmitted and he sent back a fully, my same manuscript, fully marked up with all the things that were wrong with it.

Rekka (01:05:16):
Still wrong with it.

Hilary (01:05:17):
Yeah. Uh, because I was an 18 year old boy-shaped person who didn't know any genre conventions of Urban Fantasy. And so, and then I submitted that story again. Uh, and in the time between, when I had gotten the second draft of it back from George and when I got it back out to them, the publisher had a big shakeup and restructured the whole organization. Uh, so by the time my manuscript arrived with them again, uh, it was Jeff and Ann VanderMeer heading up Weird Tales and,

Rekka (01:06:08):
And they didn't call to speak with your father that time.

Hilary (01:06:11):
Yeah. They were not having this story. I think I submitted, I went through two or three other rounds of rejections because I was 18 and didn't have Twitter because Twitter wasn't a thing yet for another year. And certainly wasn't a thing writers did. Uh, so I didn't have anybody to tell me you don't revise and resubmit the story to every magazine. So Gordon van Gelder or one of his slush readers had that story go across his physical mailbox three or four times at F&SF. And, uh, then I left for college and stuck that story in the trunk.

Rekka (01:06:57):
That's an outstanding story. That is probably very similar to what I would have done if I had managed to finish, uh, the first novel that I ever wrote, which I did not know was fanfic, because I did not have very good internet access at the time. I could not run Netscape and AOL on my computer at the same time.

Hilary (01:07:18):
Oh yep, mood.

Rekka (01:07:18):
So had not broadened my horizons very much. And I wrote a Next Generation book because I read all these Pocket books. And I thought, what you did was you wrote the story and you submitted it and then they would pick it and print it if they liked it. So I was getting ready. You know, I was, I was writing my, my novel. I was about a quarter of the way through it. Um, when I made the mistake of showing it to a teacher who was also a Star Trek fan, and I was showing it to him as a fellow Star Trek fan, and then he gave it back to me covered in red pen marks and I never touched it again.

Rekka (01:07:49):
So, um, that probably saved me the, the, um, the experience of having, of having my ego, um, wiped across other people's desks quite a lot. But it's funny that you, you had this experience with someone who knew you well enough that they wanted to give you the best shot that they could at publishing this, and then taught you the wrong conventions of how you go about—

Hilary (01:08:12):
Yeah.

Rekka (01:08:12):
—submitting short stories. Um, it would've been great, and maybe he even did set it, say it, cause you know, like our memories, we pick out the things that you want to hear at the time or that we comprehend. So maybe the conversation even started with now, "don't normally do this, but—" you didn't know, I could just see that happening. And then later you go, "Oh man, I wish you'd told me." He was like, "that was the first thing I said!" But you know, I'm putting words in your memory, but, um, yeah, I'm just like the ego that we have at that age. I'm so glad I didn't start writing seriously. I have enough ego now. I didn't, I didn't need that overflow.

Hilary (01:08:48):
Yeah. I hang onto this story both as a, like a cautionary and a funny tale of like

Kaelyn (01:08:56):
Oh, it's an outstanding tale.

Rekka (01:08:58):
It's hilarious. It's, you know, got pathos, it's got ego, it's got all these things, but also it put me onto the path where I am now. That, you know, I had this encouragement from an editor and I probably like, I was already planning on pursuing writing, but doing this, having this as my first submission experience gave me that boost, uh, which, I mean, it was like a rocket boost straight into heartbreak of like 18 consecutive rejections. But it still put me on that path.

Rekka (01:09:41):
It was still the editor of a magazine that you respected telling you it's worth trying again.

Rekka (01:09:45):
Yeah.

Hilary (01:09:46):
Yeah.

Rekka (01:09:47):
That's awesome.

Kaelyn (01:09:48):
That's great. I think that just about wraps up trucking any, uh, any parting thoughts, anyone, any final words of wisdom?

Hilary (01:09:56):
Yeah, Absolutely. If you don't trunk anything in your life, you have no chance of coming on my show.

Kaelyn (01:10:04):
There you go. So there you go. Well, um, Hilary, thank you again so much for, uh, for joining us. This was, um, you know, a delight as always. uh, where can people find you online?

Hilary (01:10:16):
Absolutely. Uh, folks can find me primarily on Twitter, where I yell about everything, not just writing. Uh, my Twitter is @HBBisenieks. You can find my podcast on Twitter at @trunkcast and tales from the trunk is in whatever podcast app you're already listening to this in. You can also find it at www.talesfromthetrunk.com and links to all my writing can be found at www.Hilarybisenieks.com.

Rekka (01:10:51):
And all of those links will be in the show notes.

Kaelyn (01:10:53):
Yes.

Rekka (01:10:54):
Yeah, cause that's not an easy name to spell.

Rekka (01:10:57):
And it'll be an active link. So don't worry. Just, just go look at the details on your podcast and, uh, it'll be there for you. All right, Hilary, thank you so much for coming back again.

Hilary (01:11:07):
It's been a pleasure.

Rekka (01:11:07):
And, um, I'm sure we'll come up with another excuse to have you back.

Kaelyn (01:11:10):
Yeah absolutely.

Hilary (01:11:10):
I'm looking forward to it.

Kaelyn (01:11:13):
Any of those things you want to rant about. You just let us know.

Hilary (01:11:34):
I'm here for it.

Rekka (01:11:34):
Thanks so much, Hilary.

Hilary (01:11:34):
Bye.

Rekka (01:11:34):
Thanks, everyone for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter at @WMBcast, same for Instagram, or WMBcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand. And what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.

Tuesday Dec 22, 2020

Episode 50 - Anthologies Part II, from the Writer's Perspective

Tuesday Dec 22, 2020

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Transcript (All Mistakes are Fully Rekka's Fault)

Rekka (00:00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as R J Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:09):
And I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. And, uh, this is Anthologies, part two.

Rekka (00:00:15):
Part two, because Kaelyn was like, "Hey, you left me out. I am not gonna forgive you for this. We're going to talk about this until I have gotten to say everything I want to say about it."

Kaelyn (00:00:25):
I was unfairly confined somewhere and, uh, I, I missed, uh, I missed the interview last week, obviously, but, um, you know, I, I, we wanted to talk more, a little bit more about anthologies, you know, obviously, um, Rekka's interview with Julia was fantastic. A lot of great insight and information in there. Um, but that was very, you know, from the publishing side of things. So then there's the people that actually contribute to the anthologies, the writers. That's, that's a whole other kettle of fish. So we just, you know, we wanted to do another part where we talked a little bit about the other side of this.

Rekka (00:01:04):
Kaelyn's interest is a kind of pre-submission I would say, right?

Kaelyn (00:01:08):
Yes, definitely.

Rekka (00:01:08):
Although you have worked on an anthology, so your interest has also been post submission.

Kaelyn (00:01:14):
I have, uh, I have worked on an anthology. We talk a little bit about that in this episode. Um, anthology is our, you know, as the last week's episode went into great detail about very different from a novel, you know, I think we think like, Oh, whatever, it's a book. So you've got a whole bunch of authors instead of just one.

Rekka (00:01:32):
A WHOLE bunch of authors.

Kaelyn (00:01:33):
Yeah. A flock, if you will.

Rekka (00:01:35):
A slack of authors?

Kaelyn (00:01:37):
A slack of authors. Um, so you know, like, what's the difference? Why is, why is it a big deal? Anthologies are very different and they're, um, you know, even if they work out to about the same number of words and pages as a novel, I would say it's two to three times the amount of work.

Rekka (00:01:57):
At least. The process of editing is basically multiplied by however many authors you have on the book, because you've got to do all the direct contact things with each of them. And even though the story may only be a few thousand words, there is an entire process that has to happen for each submission.

Kaelyn (00:02:14):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:02:14):
So, so that's fun. So that was Kaelyn's favorite part of working on an apology. I'm sure.

Kaelyn (00:02:20):
Oh God.

Rekka (00:02:21):
Doing this all simultaneously with however many authors.

Kaelyn (00:02:24):
Yeah, yeah. It's um, it's, you know, it's different and there are certain things as a writer, if you're preparing or interested in submitting to an anthology that you should be aware of, um, you know, going into it. So, you know, that's what we wanted to take some time to talk about today. And, uh, that's what we did.

Rekka (00:02:41):
This is the bandaid that Kaelyn is slapping over my, my poor attempt to lead the podcast without her.

Kaelyn (00:02:47):
Oh no, don't be ridiculous. You did a fantastic job. Like it's to the point that I was like, I'm listening to it. I'm like, "God, I'm so mad. I missed this conversation. They had so much fun. It was awesome." So, um, but you know, we'll, we'll do something again sometime, maybe with Julia.

Rekka (00:03:03):
We can always talk to them about the experience of putting out 12 issues of a single themed anthology. Because Kickstarter funded the hell out of itself and it's happening. I knew it, I knew it was going to happen and I'm happy to say it did. So, um, look forward to mermaids all 2021.

Kaelyn (00:03:20):
Yeah. And maybe, you know, in a few months we'll check in with whatever is left of Julia and see how they're doing.

Rekka (00:03:28):
Yes, exactly. All right. So, um, after the music comes our conversation. Um, Kaelyn's getting the last word in on anthologies.

Kaelyn (00:03:50):
You know what I just realized Rekka, have we mentioned your new puppy on the podcast yet?

Rekka (00:03:54):
No, we have not. Because we skipped, uh, we skipped an episode and before that, like she was so new that she couldn't be out here while I was recording. Not that she's out here now, but she probably could be out here. She would just be bouncing a ball in the background. And you'd hear her nails skittering on the floor.

Kaelyn (00:04:10):
Aww. Yeah, Rekka I got a new puppy. Her name's Evie and she's freaking adorable. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:04:15):
She's so good. She's really smart. It's like, she's gonna probably get us in trouble someday.

Kaelyn (00:04:21):
Aw, well, anyway, she's adorable. And although she is uh slightly bitey, but you know.

Speaker 3 (00:04:27):
Little nippy. She's got these, um, her baby canine is still like stuck in there and the adult canine is coming in around it. And I can't imagine how, how much that bothers her right now, you know?

Kaelyn (00:04:43):
Aww, poor thing.

Rekka (00:04:43):
So I have sympathy for her and I look forward to the day that it's done. I keep checking her mouth every morning, going, you still have that tooth. Damn it, you still have that tooth!

Kaelyn (00:04:51):
Now, if it falls out, does the tooth fairy come to Evie?

Rekka (00:04:54):
Uh, so far, no, we've we found like four or five of the teeth. And, um, we have not given her anything special except you know, like some congratulations.

Kaelyn (00:05:05):
Some belly rubs.

Rekka (00:05:06):
Oh yeah. She gets those. She gets those for no reason. She, um, she's not like food motivated. I'm sure she could be. But when we got her, she had no expectation of treats or anything like that. So we were like, All right, cool, we're not encouraging that then.

Kaelyn (00:05:19):
Okay. Um, I'm very treat incentive-based as well.

Rekka (00:05:24):
Treat incentivized?

Kaelyn (00:05:25):
Yeah. Yeah.

Rekka (00:05:26):
I'm coffee motivated.

Kaelyn (00:05:28):
Um, I get myself through my day by saying, "okay, if you do all of these things, then you remember that cookie, you were saving? You can go have that cookie."

Rekka (00:05:37):
Oh, well that presupposes you save the cookie.

Kaelyn (00:05:42):
I am good at that.

Rekka (00:05:43):
I am not good at that. So that is why I am not treat motivated because there are none. I already ate them.

Kaelyn (00:05:50):
I, um, I am one of those people that like, will, you know, somebody will get me like a nice box of chocolates or something. And like, I won't open them forever. I'll like save them and save them. And then it's kind of like, "okay, I need to eat these now because they're getting to the point that I'm going to need to eat them or get rid of them." Um, but you know, I, I'm very, I'm very treat motivated. Um, anyway, so Rekka I'm back this week.

Rekka (00:06:18):
Yeah. Where the heck were you? You just abandoned me.

Kaelyn (00:06:22):
I was in the hospital. It was not fun. It was, um, it was a weird experience, which I don't need to tell you about. Um, but yeah, I, I missed the conversation about anthologies last week, which you know, I was very disappointed. I was looking forward to it. So I told Rekka, well, we're going to ha I get to have an anthology conversation too. So I'm going to, we're going to do the whole thing all over again.

Speaker 3 (00:06:45):
We're just going to pretend that Julia's answers are, you know, falling in and we're just going to record it so that Katelyn feels included. Right? I mean, that's, that's basically, cause I nailed it, right. Like as the standalone, like left in charge of the house. Okay.

Kaelyn (00:07:00):
No, you absolutely nailed it, but that doesn't matter because this is all about me. No. Um, we, uh—

Rekka (00:07:06):
No, but what it is all about though, is that Mermaids Monthly funded. So.

Kaelyn (00:07:10):
Mermaids Monthly did fund!

Rekka (00:07:10):
As we record it just funded overnight and we are incredibly happy to see that. So I'm looking forward to that. And I think it's telling that I had a sudden idea for a story to submit to it last night as I was getting ready for bed, that must've been the moment it funded. Cause I was just like, it just came to me.

Kaelyn (00:07:27):
The universe, just snapped it into your head and was like, "Rekka, write this..."

Rekka (00:07:31):
It was, it was waiting in its little seafoam bubble for me. And, um, the bubble popped as soon as the Kickstarter made it.

Kaelyn (00:07:38):
I really am disappointed. I wasn't able to make the, the interview episode. Um, it's fantastic if you haven't listened to it, absolutely go back and, uh, and listen to it. But yes, mermaids monthly has, has funded in that time. So any of our listeners that contributed thank you or we're happy that that got funded. It sounds really cool. Um, but you know, we, when we kind of talked about anthologies, I had like two areas that we wanted to cover. One was, you know, what Rekka and Julia were talking about last week, you know, the production side of an anthology, the editing, the story selection, et cetera. But you know, this is a podcast, not just about that side of things, but about the writing side of things.

Rekka (00:08:19):
And sometimes we do things out of order.

Kaelyn (00:08:20):
Sometimes we do things out of order. Frequently do things out of order.

Rekka (00:08:24):
That's just so you don't build up any expectations that we have to live up to.

Kaelyn (00:08:28):
We don't want anyone getting too comfortable here. But yeah, we wanted to just do, you know, a little bit on, uh, writing for an anthology, submitting, what to expect, you know, from the writer side of things. Julie of course had a ton of insight and information and knowledge last week about what's going on behind the scenes there. Um, but actually then, you know, figuring out like, "Hey, these anthology things sound great. Where do I get started?" Along those lines. You know, we kind of wanted to walk a few things on anthologies here from the writer side, what they are, why you should do them, and what to expect. So, um, as always, I like to start with definitions and a little bit of background. So, you know, well, I'm sure most people listening know what an anthology is. An anthology is a collection of work by different authors, writers, or contributors.

Kaelyn (00:09:18):
Um, anthologies actually date back quite a bit. Um, and they're primary... They were primarily poetry focused. Um, the first anthologies that we kind of accept that existed were in, uh, Japan and they were collections of poetries in like the 13th and 12th century, um, you know, printing and publishing was not really the thing that it is, but you had all of these people writing poetry and wanted to get it into one place. So that's what they did. Um, you know, in modern era, anthologies definitely were very poetry heavy, but then in the, you know— E,specially I will credit science fiction with this, um, short story, science fiction became very popular in the first half of the 1900s. And that was where we saw a lot of anthologies take off with these collections of short stories at that point. And, um, in some cases they were single author, so it wasn't really an anthology so much as a collection of short stories, but then this became more and more commonplace. Um, in some cases the anthologies were highlighted collections from magazines or periodicals where, you know, they took the best of the year or the award winners and put them together in a, in a anthology that was published. And a lot of, uh, magazines and publications still do those today.

Rekka (00:10:38):
Yep. I think those are some of the most commonly understood examples of anthologies is that you'll get, you know, the 2020 "best of science fiction and fantasy."

Kaelyn (00:10:48):
But there's more than one way to do an anthology. You know, there's um, what Julia was talking about last week, where it's a project where you're actively gathering contributors and going through a submissions process and putting something together that is specifically for an anthology, and then there's also, you know, "the best of the best for the decade" or, you know, "our top five most read stories" or something like that.

Rekka (00:11:09):
And we should say just real quick as an aside, those Best Ofs are according to whoever put that anthology together. They're generally the stories that were most well-read and most, uh, discussed.

Kaelyn (00:11:22):
Yeah. And something that you see now more and more, especially in this time of, um, you know, online publications and periodicals is, and it follows the collection of, you know, whoever is editing or curating this, maybe it was, you know, the stories that got the most views or the most talked about or whatever, and then they'll select those and publish them because, hey, people still like actual physical books.

Rekka (00:11:46):
We sure do.

Kaelyn (00:11:47):
Yep. So, but you know, it could be any, it could be an ereader version as well. You know, just going into this with the understanding of there's, there's multiple ways that anthologies appear and that content is collected for them. Um, we are primarily going to be talking about anthologies that you are specifically submitting for where there's a call for an anthology rather than "I'm gathering these things that were already published and publishing them in an anthology."

Rekka (00:12:19):
Hey, Parvus has done one of these.

Kaelyn (00:12:20):
We have, um, it was, uh, I can tell you it was an experience. So trust me, we will be, uh, I will be referencing through the, through the course of this, but, um, so, you know, let's get started with like, why are anthologies good? Why is this something that you should, you know, take the time and effort? Because let's be clear, this is a short story. And it may even be shorter than your average short story submission, but sometimes that makes it more work.

Rekka (00:12:49):
So you mean in terms of, um, why write for an anthology?

Kaelyn (00:12:53):
Yeah. Why is this something that the either average or aspiring author should be interested in participating in?

Rekka (00:13:01):
Um, well, why you would want to have a short story published is maybe different from why you would pick an anthology to write for exactly. Um, why you want to publish a short story is honestly, to get more of your brain juice out there. Like, you know, have more for readers, um, take a break from, you know, maybe your ultra serious Epic fantasy novel and write a really wacky little short story kind of thing. Um, I've heard recently an episode of Writing Excuses where they also said that, um, I think it was Mary Robinette Kowal who said that she discovered that she liked writing science fiction because she just sort of accidentally wrote a couple science fiction short stories, and thought that she was, you know, a fantasy and historical fantasy writer. And then somebody told her like, "you know you're good at science fiction, right? You should write more of this." Turns out that was a good choice.

Kaelyn (00:14:08):
Yes. Yeah. She, uh, she's won approximately all of the awards, various things since then.

Rekka (00:14:16):
Um, the, the idea being that you can experiment more without committing to a hundred thousand words of a novel. And when you write more and you, and you complete stories— like it's not just all the words you write that make you a better writer. It's also the story arcs that you complete the character development that you work through, the editing processes that you learn your tricks for. And this sort of lets you do that on a micro scale so that you can, you know, work those muscles with smaller reps, as opposed to, you know, having to do 20 Epic Novels before you feel like you've finally figured out your process.

Kaelyn (00:15:00):
Yeah. Also within that, it's giving you the ability to hone your craft. Um, what is particularly nice about an anthology and I'm gonna, I'm going to use this word. I know this is a cliched word, but I swear to God, this has layers. What is, you're getting out of an anthology from several different levels is exposure. I know. I know.

Rekka (00:15:24):
Oh, you said the word. Oh, I have to mute myself so I can just gag for a little bit.

Kaelyn (00:15:32):
So, but I'm going to use the word "exposure" in several different contexts here.

Rekka (00:15:36):
You better explain this.

Kaelyn (00:15:37):
One of the most important forms of exposure you are getting is to other writers and editors. You are getting exposure to a process of how this works on a smaller scale that is not just a novel. Um, when writing for an anthology, assuming you've been accepted, they don't just take your story and that's it. You're going to work with an editor. Um, you know, the degree and extent to which you are going to work with an editor, probably, you know, your mileage may vary, but you're absolutely going to. You're not doing this in a bubble. You're going to be interacting with other authors. You're going to have to talk with various types of editors. You know, all of the various editors we've talked about through the process here, the, you know, your, um, regular, you know, developmental and story editor, you're going to have to do line edits.

Kaelyn (00:16:25):
You're going to have to work with copy edits. Um, you are, depending on, you know, the involvement here and stuff you may have to review layouts. Um, especially if, you know, you've got some type of graphical intricacies going on there. Um, so this is exposing you to the publishing process on, I don't want to call it a micro scale, but in a more manageable, not as overwhelming way as it would be if maybe you were just writing to it for a novel for the first time. What is also really great about this is you are one part of a larger project. So there's a whole team of people that you're working with here that are all doing the same thing. Um, you know, it's not— You have a group of people on the publishing side that are not responsible just to you. They're responsible to everyone that is working on this.

Kaelyn (00:17:18):
So that means that you're probably going to be exposed to multiple people in each of those roles. And this is great because the other kind of exposure that's great here is networking exposure. You're going to meet so many people in just the course of having to do this. Um, like I said, editors, other authors, people who do, you know, probably marketing and, um, you know, publishing rights and that kind of stuff for, for this anthology. Um, it's a really great experience to—and a really great way to frankly—meet a lot of people quickly that are all interested in, in doing the same things you are.

Rekka (00:18:02):
That's assuming that you're not working with an anthology call that's a one-person shop.

Kaelyn (00:18:08):
Yes, yes. That is, that is true. We're, we're assuming a something more like even a Mermaid's Monthly where, you know, there's, there's multiple people involved in this. Um, the last layer of exposure that I'm going to expound upon here is the dirty one is the, "you're doing this for the exposure." Hopefully you're—.

Rekka (00:18:27):
No you're not. Get paid.

Kaelyn (00:18:28):
Yeah, get paid. And we're going to talk about that later. Um, but that said, the exposure is very good for this kind of thing. Um, a lot of anthologies have like cornerstone or like anchor authors and contributors that tend to be big names. If you're not a big name, having some of your work published in the same book that theirs is, that's certainly not a bad thing. Yeah.

Rekka (00:18:50):
Uh, there was an anthology call that, um, I wrote a story for, I already had the idea for the story. It was definitely shoehorned into their call. Um, Kaylin, you've read this one. And, uh,

Kaelyn (00:19:05):
Oh that one. Yes. I have read that one.

Rekka (00:19:05):
And so it was shoehorned into their call. So I was not surprised that it didn't make it in, but, uh, someone who's in my writing group that did make it in found out that his story was directly before a Turtledove story. So he was absolutely thrilled. So that's, you know, that's an exposure that you can't complain about. But also, he got paid, not pro rates, but he still got paid and the rights weren't, I assume over-reaching that's again, more we're going to get into.

Kaelyn (00:19:36):
Yeah. So when I say, you know, you're doing this for exposure, there's exposure to all different things, but let's, I know it's cliched. I know it's not a thing we like to say, but anthologies are a great way to get extra eyes on your work. Especially if they come attached to other things that maybe, you know, it's like a more well-known or prolific author at that point, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to do whatever you can to boost your visibility and getting into an anthology, especially if it's an author that you like and admire, and you want— I mean, how great does that feel to have your work showcased alongside somebody that you enjoy?

Rekka (00:20:14):
Or somebody that everyone knows their name or somebody that is going to sell the books because their name's on the cover.

Kaelyn (00:20:19):
Exactly. Yeah. Um, so then, you know, you're building up your writing, quote-unquote, resume. Your bibliography, but it is also, you know, there's a little bit of legitimacy that goes along with it because you went through an anthology process and it is not an easy thing to do. Um, the submissions alone can be very jarring, but, you know, then for all of the reasons I talked about with like the exposure to the different groups and because this is a large group, it can be a lot to manage. So, um... So it's, you know, getting published successfully in anthology is definitely a nice little thing to be able to tack on to, uh, your About Me section.

Rekka (00:21:04):
And check off on your writing career bingo card and that kind of thing. Um, and one other point is that, you know, while you're between novels or your novels are going through their, um, editing process, development process, if you are taking the time to bump stories out there into the world, and you know, there's only so much control you have over whether they're accepted because competition is fierce for these. But if you get in the habit of getting stories published, it's something that you can keep your pulse apparent to the outside world while you're working on bigger projects of your own.

Kaelyn (00:21:43):
Yep. All right. So all of this sounds great. You're really geared up there. "I want to, I want to go write something and get it published in an anthology." So where the heck do you find these things to submit to?

Rekka (00:21:56):
Um, One of the things to just do is befriend and network with a lot of other writers on Twitter. Cause a lot of anthology calls make the rounds on Twitter and you'll see them eventually. Um, and frequently if they're being funded through Kickstarter, you'll see them before the window is open so that you're not really scrambling. Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:22:20):
And that's, it's funny because I that's exactly what I was going to say is Google is your friend here. And so is Kickstarter. Now the thing you have to be careful about with Kickstarter is a lot of times these anthologies are either partially or completely filled out by that point.

Rekka (00:22:35):
Sometimes yeah. I mean, so when you are browsing Kickstarter for anthology projects, um, hopefully in the project description or in the updates, you will find the information of, um, whether that anthology is going to be opening for submissions. Sometimes they open for submissions if they reach a certain funding goal, which may not be a hundred percent, but it might be the point at which they say, "okay, now we know that we're going to move ahead enough that we're going to put out a call for people to consider submitting." Or "our stretch goal, you know, of an extra $2,000 is going to let us buy extra words and therefore extra stories."

Kaelyn (00:23:15):
Yeah. So, um, social media, huge. Kickstarter's definitely a good place to, you know, just look around, get some ideas.

Rekka (00:23:27):
Yeah Kickstarter is big about promoting anthology stories now. So it's a good place to browse and find some, and, you know, back some. If you're going to submit, I really recommend you back the, the anthology, it's not about payments. "It's going to come out of my payment or whatever." It's like, you're not even sure that you're going to be accepted, but you know, back a project you'd be excited enough about to appear in. That's just good business, that's networking positively.

Kaelyn (00:23:52):
So that's definitely networking as well. Along those lines, Rekka, you know, as you said, a project, you'd be excited to be in. Um, here's, here's the thing with a lot of anthologies is especially the ones where, you know, there's an open submissions process and they're gathering contributors a lot of times they're themed.

Rekka (00:24:12):
Right? And sometimes the theme is very specific, like "mermaids," other times the theme is more like "hope" or a certain demographic of people.

Kaelyn (00:24:21):
Yes. That's a good transition into, "okay, what do I submit to this? Should I take something that I already wrote that I really liked and try to fit it into this? Or do I, do I need to write something new for this?" My inclination is always try to write something new.

Rekka (00:24:39):
It's a good exercise at the very least.

Kaelyn (00:24:41):
If you just so happen upon an anthology, looking for contributors that you already have the perfect story written for. Well, then you were just very lucky and please, by all means, you know, submit your little heart out.

Rekka (00:24:54):
You might get some excitement about a theme topic that results in more anthologies being made on that topic. Something that, you know, people were begging for for years, and then somebody finally makes it, and then it's extremely successful, then someone else is going to be eyeballing that same theme going, "I know there are more stories here. If I give it some breathing room, you know, I could do this anthology too or very similar one." And then if you were in the pile of near misses from the first time, then, um, you know, you might find a new place for that story, but generally you've also grown maybe by a year or so. You might want to write a new one anyway.

Kaelyn (00:25:36):
Yeah. And so, I mean, this is good practice for short stories in general, but, you know, especially for anthologies is write to what they are asking for. Pay attention to the submissions. You know, Julia talked about this a lot in last week—or two weeks ago's episode, um, you know, and in their case, it's mermaids. If their story does not have, or is not about mermaids, then this was not going to be something that they were interested in. Um, anthologies, you know, as they are getting more and more, you know, we, we see a lot of, especially Kickstarter-funded, uh, anthologies that are very specific. And that's great because you get a whole collection of stories about one thing that everyone loves. Um, but trying to shoe horn pieces in it, especially if it's some, you know, a larger short story, slightly longer one, it's not, you know, it's not going to go well, and it's going to annoy people handling the submissions. Um, just blatantly—you know, same practice with, you know, submitting short stories to magazines and various other publications—just blatantly sending, you know, the same thing out to everybody with a little explanation that changes slightly, depending on the publication of what they're looking for, of why this is good for it is not going to, to help you here.

Kaelyn (00:27:02):
If you are serious about trying to get your work in an anthology, identify the anthology that you want to submit to, and then write a piece specifically for that.

Rekka (00:27:13):
While, at the same time, you know, Julia's advice to write a piece that's unique to you and tells your very specific angle on things. Not write exactly the correct trope filled thing that will, that someone could look at and go, "there is no way you could reject this story. It hits every button." No they could still reject it. It might be boring as heck.

Kaelyn (00:27:37):
Yeah. Don't, you know, don't write to requirements, but also, you know, be aware of what those requirements are and find the story, maybe the mermaid story that lives in your heart and put it on paper and send it out into the world to get published. Um, it's, it's a f— it's a weird, fine line to walk, but it is important to write well and passionately about something. If you're writing stories for anthology consideration, and you just don't really care about it, that's probably not an anthology you should be submitting to.

Rekka (00:28:11):
I would say that, like the story that we mentioned earlier that you've read: that was not the right story for that anthology. And I kind of knew it, but.

Kaelyn (00:28:18):
It was a good story though.

Rekka (00:28:19):
It was also like a lot of fun to write and I was backing that anthology. So I was kinda like, "yeah, I'll just toss it in there." And I don't regret it.

Kaelyn (00:28:30):
Nope. But you know, along those lines, um, be aware, you know, if— Julia talked a lot about this, so I won't go through too much of what a slush pile is and how this works for anthologies, but— be aware that this is a thing that is happening. If somebody opens your story and is just like "this isn't even close to what I'm looking for." If they make it past the first page, I'd be shocked.

Rekka (00:28:55):
Well, yeah, it's hard to say.

Kaelyn (00:28:57):
Yeah, it depends on how long it takes them to realize that you did not read the instructions

Rekka (00:29:02):
Or that you chose to disregard them. Exactly. Yeah. The guidelines are very important. They're there for a reason. And if you don't have a story that fits them and you don't want to write one, then move on to another anthology and see if you got something better for that.

Kaelyn (00:29:15):
And look, it's not, every anthology is going to, you know, be for you. Maybe you don't particularly like mermaids, you know, then maybe don't like write for a mermaid based anthology? You know, these anthologies get so many submissions and a good portion of them are going to be people that are just throwing mud at various walls to see what sticks, what they can get through. So some care and attention, and some indication that you are very interested in this and that you wrote something, or you had something that you think is specific and very special for this, will go a long way.

Rekka (00:29:52):
But yeah, I mean, in terms of writing for an anthology, the thing that I feel like people need to keep in mind is that these anthology calls never pop up when you have a spare minute. Oh no, of course. So you're going to see an anthology call and go, "I was going to revise my novel that month. And now, now we don't have, like, I can't, I must, I want to write for this." So like when an anthology call pops up and you cannot resist stealing time away from a project you were already like really committed to, that might be the anthology call that is right for you.

Kaelyn (00:30:26):
There is no time of year that is the anthology heavy time of year. There isn't a publishing cycle necessarily for, um, anthologies that are specifically looking for contributors. There is a time of year that anthologies will come out, but they are, you know, those Best Of kind of anthologies.

Rekka (00:30:45):
Right, and those are reprints. So it's not like that's work for the person who's appearing in them anyway, it's it's proofing, but that's about it. It's already been printed once, the editing's been done. They're not going to change the words if they're proving that it's a Best Of.

Kaelyn (00:30:57):
Yeah. I would love to tell you, like, "yes, be prepared because April may every year, this is when you start seeing all the calls for anthology contribution." That's not a thing.

Rekka (00:31:06):
Nope. It's when the anthology editors get all their thoughts together on paper and they come up with that budget plan Julia was talking about, and then they figure out their timing, they plan out their Kickstarter campaign, and who's going to do what and, and get their timeline in order. Then they might announce it. And then, then you hopefully have a little bit of warning, but probably not much,

Kaelyn (00:31:29):
Probably not too much.

Rekka (00:31:30):
Probably by the time you've heard of it. You're a few days into that Kickstarter campaign.

Kaelyn (00:31:34):
If it's something you're interested in, I'm sorry to tell you this. There is no good way to do this, except to do everything that you possibly can to stay on top of this.

Rekka (00:31:42):
Again, if the anthology called moves you to write something, chances are, you're not going to be able to resist anyway, I would say that's the right anthology call for you.

Kaelyn (00:31:52):
Rekka, as someone who's had experience doing both of these anthology and magazine and publication submissions, I imagine if you're sitting at home listening to this, it may sound like a lot of the same. Like it might sound like there's overlap here of, well, "what's the difference between submitting to an anthology versus submitting to a magazine that has a, has a call out.?"

Rekka (00:32:15):
I mean, there's a little bit of overlap in that you have to, you know, have a well-polished story. You have to self-edit, you know, a couple of rounds. You want to really hone that thing as much as you have time to do. Um, if you have a piece that you're just going to shop around to magazines, you have a little bit more time to do that. Um, as we mentioned, the anthology calls, uh, the windows can be a little small, so that's a little bit more pressure to get it through the editing process. Um, but as you know, Julia and I discussed last week, the editors kind of know that too. So you might get a little bit more slack for grammatical issues or, um, a bit of prose that goes awry or something that you would from a magazine.

Kaelyn (00:33:01):
"Prose that goes awry."

Rekka (00:33:01):
I think that should be the subtitle of this, uh, this, uh, entire podcast maybe, or my, or just my writing career.

Rekka (00:33:09):
Um, but, uh, yeah. So when you are submitting to one or the other, the first most important step is to find the guidelines and absolutely adhere to anything that is not being left up to your choice. Because there's a reason for that. And that reason is to minimize the work that's going to be done on the other end. Um, sometimes it's house style things where you see a magazine will tell you, like "we want American English spellings of everything." You know, the guidelines will have some hard specificity to them. In terms of what the story will be. The guidelines for a magazine are probably going to just maybe, um, [coughs and it sounds remarkably like "Clarkesworld'] going to tell you what not to send them. These become pet peeves of the editor, uh, that they pass down to the first readers. So that those become the first readers' pet peeves. Um, and there are certain things that are just not going to make it through. And they'll tell you that. Um, many anthologies will be less specific because of the theme. Like they already told you what the theme is and they want to see what you'll do with it, but they might tell you, for example, we will not accept any stories that, um, you know, highlight violence or, you know, racism or bigotry, things like that.

Kaelyn (00:34:40):
So. Well, I would say that one of the big differences to understand here is a magazine is an ongoing thing. So be it a, you know, a magazine, a periodical publication of some kind, is ongoing. So, an anthology, conversely, either you're in it, or you're not. Um, a magazine on the other hand, you know, maybe your story wasn't exactly what they were looking for right at that moment, but maybe they'll keep it in their back pocket. Maybe it's, you know, I, I think, and Rekka correct me if I'm wrong, that you have a little bit more flexibility with a magazine to use creative license in there in that maybe this isn't exactly what we need right now, but a few issues from now, this might fit very nicely with a themed issue that we're doing. Versus—

Rekka (00:35:30):
I think it's very rare that a magazine is going to hold your story for a future thing that they might do. Um, very frequently you are in a submissions period window. You know, the magazine will open for a certain amount of time, every certain timeframe. So for example—you have the entire gamut—uh, Clarkesworld is open all the time. You'll probably get that rejection by the end of the week, Strange Horizons is open for 24 hours once a week, except for certain, like, two weeks a year. Um, other magazines are open for like a quarter and then they close and then they open for another quarter or, you know, a month, every other month, something like that. So if you are interested in submitting for magazines, you really have to be on top of their schedules to know, if there's a magazine you want a piece to go to, when they're going to be open.

Rekka (00:36:30):
Because the other thing to be tricky about is not to have sent it off to a magazine that has really slow response time that makes you miss that window. Um, so magazines submissions are kind of like a balancing act. You, you want a playbook that you figure out like what your, what your process is for a story. It's very rare that I hear even for, um, a magazine that has themed quarters, for example, like Fireside will do a quarterly, uh, themes. I'm trying to think of another one I know that, I've just seen one recently where they're, um, Zombies Need Brains has a, um, a couple of, uh, when they do their Kickstarter, they announce like four themes. And so if you're submitting, you're not necessarily submitting for the next one that comes out, you're submitting based on the theme that your story is written to. But they might all be reviewed together. And then you don't find out until the beginning of that calendar year, which ones, you know, re going to be accepted. So it's, it's weird. It's tricky. Um—

Kaelyn (00:37:38):
That should be the tagline for this podcast.

Rekka (00:37:41):
I guess before we get too much further, I should talk about the Submissions Grinder? Submissions Grinder is a web app that's hosted by Diabolical Plots and, um, they themselves are a magazine. And, um, I believe they're opening soon if they haven't already. Um, but they basically have this tool online that lets everyone aggregate their, uh, submissions information for both anthologies and magazines and even some non-fiction markets. You can run a search for open markets based on your story's criteria. So for example, a 4,100 word, uh, science fiction story, and you can put that you want, you know, pay rate of 6 cents or more per word, and then it'll return all the open markets that meet those qual— You know, that a fiction story of 4,100 words might potentially be published in. And, um, and at the pay rates that you request and you can even sort by pay rate, or you can sort by rejection time, you know, response time, I should say, but let's be real.

Rekka (00:38:49):
So then you can, you know, log your submissions and Submissions Grinder will kind of keep people apprised of how that magazine is responding to things, the age of, um, stories that are responded to and, provided that everybody submits like keeps up to date on their, um, data entry, then you get some of that rejectomancy juice flowing because people can watch and see, you know, like, "Oh, look, the submissions that were sent in on August 12th are starting to get their responses this week," you know? Um, and so you sort of know of like, "Ooh, I didn't get the response, but everybody else did. Did I make it to another round? You know, like have I, have I made it to the next challenge? You know, the next level of slush." So yeah, that's Submissions Grinder, and it's a great tool. I definitely recommend you keep a backup of your own submissions history, just in case anything ever happened to their server.

Kaelyn (00:39:46):
With an anthology, you know, where there's a call for contributors, it's very possible. They may even say, "we'll let everyone know by this day." Pretty much. Or, you know, "the first round of rejections is going out this day after that." And by the way, it's very common in this process that an editor is going to want to talk to you beforehand. Um, in very rarely do, unless, you know, you were approached beforehand specifically and asked to write or contribute something to this. Um, very rarely are they just going to send you an email and be like, "Hey, we picked this. Isn't that great." Um, there's always a little bit of a vetting process that goes into this.

Rekka (00:40:28):
Um, It's a very brief vetting process though, as compared to like having discussions with agents and publishers, uh, it's generally, you know, you get a response that says, "we are interested in purchasing this story," you know, and then you do a little dance and you answer whatever questions they have. It's not, um, it's not hard to find out about a person online these days. So if they're vetting you for your reputation, you've probably laid it all out on Twitter for them already. Um, if they're vetting you for your experience, you know, that might be on your website. Hopefully you have a website, please have a website.

Kaelyn (00:41:08):
They could be vetting you to see if they're going to be good working with you because that's another thing to note here is, I had mentioned, don't expect that they're not going to want any work on your piece. Because this is an anthology and it's a shorter piece, generally speaking, they're going to be pretty happy with it, but they may want you to do some work. There may be some, I won't say significant, but there could be some sizable edits involved in this. And that's where I'm saying, you know, they're probably going to talk to you, especially if they're like, listen, we really like this story. We need you to tweak it a little bit cause, okay, maybe they want it to fit in better with the theme of the anthology. Maybe there's, you know, something in there that they're like "this just isn't going to sit well with the re with the theme for the, um, you know, the book we're putting out" so they could want to talk to you just to make sure everyone's on the same page and you're not going to stomp your feet and pout and say, "I'm not changing a single word of this."

Rekka (00:42:11):
Well, you have some editors who will only pick stories that don't need a lot of work because they don't have the time to deal with that. Like I said, you might have a very small team or even a team of one person, and they're not going to pick stories that they're going to have to spend intensive time working on you with. If you were submitting to a magazine and there was something they weren't happy with, chances are, unless it's very minor, you're not going to get an acceptance or even an invitation to discuss possible changes. What's more likely to happen is they'll say "revise this with this feedback and you can resubmit someday and we'd look at it again" because, um, what we haven't really touched on is that if this is one and done, generally, if your story gets rejected, you don't get to send that story back again.

Kaelyn (00:42:58):
Yes. That's very important to know with anthologies.

Rekka (00:43:01):
Anthologies and magazines magazines. Don't, you know, they may not have a long memory, but it's very possible. They also do. So you don't know, um, you don't want to take your story that was rejected and just, you know, change the characters' names and flip it back and send it again, you know, in less than six months. It's very likely they'll remember it. Um, and it's very likely it won't get any further than it did the first time, uh, you know, much less. It'll have a much shorter life span if the person who saw it, you know, already knew it was rejected right off the bat. So, um, but with an anthology call, if they do like it, you probably won't get a revise and resubmit, um, suggestion because of the timeframe you're working in. You might get an editor who really likes the story, but wants to know, would you be comfortable making these changes?

Rekka (00:43:51):
And if so, then they're interested in buying it. Um, and that's going to again, be a quick process. And probably as I said, not a very laborious one. I doubt they're going to want to change the theme of your story. Um, it's going to be more like, um, "this comes off as problematic," or "this is really similar to another story that I'm definitely accepting. Um, if we can tweak this detail out, it may not even be critical to the story then," you know, something like that. But it's, I really don't think you're going to get very deep changes on a call because the competition is so fierce. Now, if you somehow ended up an anthology that nobody heard about and they're grasping for, you know, to fill the word count that they wanted, then that might be a totally different process because they are, you know, a little bit more willing to work with you because they just want to put together a good anthology and they didn't get the raw meat they needed to make a proper meatloaf.

Kaelyn (00:44:50):
Along those lines Rekka. Uh, you know, we've talked a lot here about anthologies. They're great. They're a lot of fun. They're good for that dreaded word "exposure" and they're good for your career. And they're a good experience that said not all anthologies are created equal.

Rekka (00:45:06):
Explain, please.

Kaelyn (00:45:07):
Some are created to screw people over.

Rekka (00:45:10):
Same with magazines though.

Kaelyn (00:45:11):
Same with magazines, yes.

Rekka (00:45:12):
Same with publishers.

Kaelyn (00:45:15):
Same with publishers.

Rekka (00:45:15):
There who are ready to screw you over at every, every step of the way. And it really does come down to, um, being savvy, uh, knowing what your value is and, um, standing up for yourself and watching for these red flags.

Kaelyn (00:45:30):
That said, anthologies are something that I think specifically is very easy to get sucked into and taken advantage of. Um, for all of the reasons that we mentioned before, you know, the, you know, adding this to your, uh, your bibliography, your writing resume, um, you know, the apparent legitimacy that this affords you. A lot of people see this as an easy-in. I want to be clear, first of all, even, you know, any anthology like, especially the legitimate ones, this is not easy. There are, you know, predatory, people and publications out there that know that writers are desperate to just try to get something published and will do things to try to, well, take advantage of them there. So in terms of red flags with anthologies, this one right off the bat should be very obvious if you've ever listened to this podcast: do not pay to be in an anthology.

Rekka (00:46:30):
Not only that, but do you not pay to have your submission reviewed.

Kaelyn (00:46:33):
Across the board, do not pay to have your submission reviewed. If you really want somebody to look at your stuff that badly, take that money and go hire an editor. Never pay to have your work featured in an anthology. And this is where that exposure word comes in, where, you know, the people are going, Oh, no, but "you're paying us. But think of all this exposure you're gonna get."

Rekka (00:46:50):
Remember, they have no content if they don't have writers. So you should be paying them in exposure.

Kaelyn (00:46:56):
Yes. Um, but along those lines and tied to this, also, is be careful of your rights. Um, a legitimate anthology will have—and by the way, magazine submission, same thing—very clearly upfront, what rights the publisher is maintaining here. Now frequently, this will be something like, um, you know, publishing and electronic rights in US English or Global English or something along those lines. Um, what that means is that if you know, John Favreau picked us up and said, "Hey, this would make a great movie." That means he's still got to get the rights from you, for that movie.

Speaker 3 (00:47:37):
Right. Anything that's, that's not signed over to the publisher in the contract—and when I say "signed over," um, I'm hoping that you're getting paid and therefore you're selling these to the publisher. You can even request the line that say, "all other rights, not mentioned are, you know, retained by the author." That's never a bad thing to ask for. So whatever is in there is in there and that's the contract and you signed it. And that's why we call them contracts.

Kaelyn (00:48:03):
There are, there are theologies that are literally just a bright scraps. They are going to get as many short stories as they can publish all of them, maintain the rights, and then if you think there aren't people who work for four or with this group that will just go shop those short stories to anyone. I mean, primarily Hollywood.

Rekka (00:48:24):
They like short stories. Keep in mind that most of the Stephen King movies, you know, and love were probably short stories at one point.

Kaelyn (00:48:31):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:48:32):
So, um, it's, it's a very tidy way for a, for a studio to get a fully realized story that doesn't need a whole lot of editing down. Because that's the thing about short stories, they don't have all those extra moving pieces that Hollywood usually has to strip out when they convert a novel to a screenplay. So when you are selling to an anthology, especially short stories, especially when you are getting pennies per word, you want to make sure that you protect whatever value that the story can be for you otherwise. And, uh, whether that's resell value, which means that, you know, you can sell it as a reprint story and you'll get less, but magazines will buy stories that have already been published, as a reprint. And then, you know, you can just do that as many times, as long as you don't accidentally give up all your rights to that story. And, you know, without an end date, it's usually going to be sometimes it's six months. I mean, it depends how quickly the magazine tends to get its issues out. Sometimes it's six months. I've heard some of them try to go for two years, which is really on the long end of things. Generally, again, they're looking at this in terms of calendar years. So when they put your story out, that issue is quote-unquote, you know, stale in a year. So they're not going to try and hang onto those rights, other than maybe if they do a Best Of, and then it's probably even in there that they'll renegotiate at that point.

Kaelyn (00:50:06):
Along those lines, you know, of, um, you know, pennies per word, be aware of the comp structure. Good legitimate anthologies will be very upfront about how this works. Typically, very typical of anthologies is you were paid a certain amount upfront based on the number of words. There's a, you know, there's different rates. Um, you know, maybe hopefully you can find one that does the, uh, you know, the SFWA level pro rate. Um, but be very clear about it. Anthologies, typically do not continue to pay you based on the number of copies sold.

Rekka (00:50:44):
Right? There are no royalties. You're selling flat.

Kaelyn (00:50:47):
It's too much work for, you know, for these to handle. You are selling a flat rate, they retain certain rights to your story. You maintain the rest of them.

Rekka (00:50:57):
And again, anthologies make a bit of a splash when they come out, but they're not something like a novel that hits a bestseller list and then, you know, has a long tailwind.

Kaelyn (00:51:09):
Yeah. And if you're thinking here, "well, that doesn't sound fair. So that means like this anthology is going to make a big splash. And then, you know, the publisher is just going to keep making money, hand over fist, with it forever." Anthologies are so much more expensive than a regular novel. Um, you know, Julia talked about, you know, the, some of the budgetary concerns and everything that goes into this. Anthologies are so expensive. Um, if a publisher, especially a smaller publisher, recovers their cost on it, that is—and that's, by the way, why so many of these are done through Kickstarter because the money upfront required to get an anthology off the ground is staggering.

Rekka (00:51:51):
And it's probably more than that anthology will ever make just by releasing it in a quiet, traditional manner. Like Kickstarter really helps to get eyes on it. And then it helps to get people to commit to it ahead of time so that it can be funded before it even comes out. And then that might be the end of it. You know, it comes out, people already backed it. So they get their copies, and maybe there's a trickle of sales, but it's not, it's not going to really be something that is making money long-term. So don't resent the publisher for not paying you your royalties each quarter, which would end up being like 0.1 cent.

Kaelyn (00:52:30):
You're going to make more money off of this, selling it flat than you would in a royalty structure. If somebody is offering you a royalty structure, I would actually go so far as to say, be very dubious of that.

Rekka (00:52:41):
And worry about them as a human, the amount of energy that they're going to spend on this.

Kaelyn (00:52:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, one last weird red flag, which I didn't really realize how much of a thing it was until I was doing research on this and actually came across a number of these: do not submit to anthologies that are offering prizes instead of money. Um, I was—

Rekka (00:53:06):
Hey, well, what if I need a blender?

Kaelyn (00:53:09):
Get the money from the anthology and go buy the blender.

Rekka (00:53:13):
And then you get to choose your blender.

Kaelyn (00:53:14):
Then you get to pick the blender. Um, no, I, I was, I was very surprised by how many anthologies and stories about this I came across where they're like "the prize for getting accepted by this is, you know, a thing like a physical thing, like an iPad, but like an old one that we used to be my daughter's and it's got some crayon on it and we're going to mail it to you." Um, no, but like, there's, there's this weird thing out there, and I'm not sure how much of it is genre versus, you know, other forms of anthologies and non-fiction. Um, but there's this weird thing out there where there are prizes offered instead of like monetary compensation. Um, look if you really want the crayon iPad than sure, go for it, but also avoid those. It's just, um, that's, I can't even call it an anthology. It's more of like a writing contest at that point. And I'm not sure what the prize is other than a weird iPad.

Rekka (00:54:14):
Yeah. That, that is more of like a County Fair level, you know, competition. Um, you're going to be up against like, if you're in genre, you might be up against memoir, you know, who knows?

Kaelyn (00:54:24):
Yeah. The one, um, the one other last thing I will say here, I talked kind of at the beginning of this episode about poetry and how that was really sort of the advent of anthologies. If, you know, obviously we talk about fiction. We specifically talk about genre fiction a lot on here. Um, if you are submitting poetry to an anthology—which by the way is very common and I believe like one of the more pervasive forms of anthology out there, um, is poetry—be especially careful with that with rights and everything because, um, I don't think many rights for poetry gets sold to Hollywood, but, um, poetry tends to form in collections, which is, you know, where anthology sort of sprung out from. So, um, if you are submitting poetry through an anthology, just be especially careful about that. Rights seem to be a big issue there. Because, you know, typically when you're submitting a poem, we're not talking about something that's a 20,000 word short story, we're talking about something that's maybe a few hundred words and you get paid differently and structured and everything there. So—

Rekka (00:55:34):
Yeah, I mean, if you ever wanted to release your own poetry books someday, you just got to make sure that you've got all your rights and if you ever released a themed poetry book, then maybe it does become a movie or a music album. I mean, you just get—make sure that in a year or so after the anthology comes out, you own that story again.

Kaelyn (00:55:51):
Yeah, exactly. Because poetry is, is weird with this where poetry is very short typically. And, um, it's not the same as, you know, you can just go publish a short story and put it on Amazon. It's very difficult to get people to pay for individual poems on Amazon. So, uh, anthologies are one of the main outlets there. And again, rights are always important.

Kaelyn (00:56:16):
Um, the last thing just to wrap up here, um, my cautionary stuff is I will—and this is something I actually have experienced in myself—is to be clear about academic versus, um, fiction and nonfiction anthologies. Because anybody who, you know, has come from academia, I'm sure you've had to do writing and research and like it's, you know, a publish-or-perish situation. Um, I've had a couple of things that I submitted to different periodicals and magazines published. Um, in those cases, the power dynamic is a little different here.

Kaelyn (00:56:57):
Um, you still should not be paying to have things published. That's a big no-no in academia as well, but for different reasons. Um, but the power dynamic is a little different because you are essentially trying to win a contest. You are trying to get your paper to be the most interesting, the most groundbreaking, the most, whatever to get it published. Um, so if you're thinking through this and going, "Oh, hang on a second. I submitted this stuff to this, uh, academic journal and they put me through this ringer," that is very different. That is career oriented. That is a step that depending on, you know, what your field is, you must take at certain points. I mean, if I had stayed an historian, all I'd be doing is trying to publish research papers and, uh, get books written—different kinds of books, obviously. Um, so don't, don't conflate the two it's, um, it's, it's a very different from, from fiction and nonfiction, creative writing versus academic writing. In those sometimes they do give you a prize and that's a big deal. Those are, those are the scenarios in which it's like, "Hey, and the winners getting a $50,000 grant," and then there are grad students killing each other over it. So.

Rekka (00:58:12):
Don't be those people though.

Kaelyn (00:58:14):
Yeah. Don't. We don't need any more dead grad students.

Rekka (00:58:18):
I mean go win the grants, but don't kill anyone to get there. Don't climb over a pile of dead bodies to get your grant.

Kaelyn (00:58:24):
It's the only way to get grants, Rekka.

Rekka (00:58:28):
Just picturing like that scene from Terminator.

Kaelyn (00:58:30):
Yeah. Um, that's what it felt like a lot actually. Um, it was, uh, I, I will tell you, I can't remember if I ever told this story on this, but, um, I had submitted to, um, a publication and the first thing I had to do was get... Like my university was allowed to submit a certain number of papers. So the first thing I had to do was get by like my professor's like review board and it was all supposed to be anonymous. So like I had to print this out, put it in an envelope with like a number on it. And then I was going to get, you know, notes and stuff back from them. I opened one of the envelopes and my 30 pages were in it. They had been torn to confetti.

Rekka (00:59:15):
Well that's something.

Kaelyn (00:59:18):
Um, what's really funny is that made it very obvious which professor had done that. But yes, needless to say he did not like it, but it was one of two things that I actually got published.

Rekka (00:59:34):
Okay, so that's a good point, to bring this back to our topic, is that what one editor hates and despises and shreds to confetti—thankfully we send digital files now and we can still send those to other editors who might also love them. Because let's be clear if you get something published in an magazine or an anthology, the editor loved it. Because the competition is so fierce, it's not just good enough. You didn't slip through the cracks and, you know, sneak by them and get in, you know, without being caught. You were chosen. Your story was chosen and it beat fierce competition to get there. So, um, don't, I, it's hard not to just remember the, the editor who tears it to confetti when you think of that story, but—

Kaelyn (01:00:23):
Oh, I remember, I remember that professor, he did not like me.

Rekka (01:00:27):
Well, but who cares? Because it was published and you didn't need him. And that's, that's how you can, you know, think about the editors that don't choose your stories. Once you, once you get to that point where your stories are getting chosen. And, you know, I've heard people call it a numbers game. I've heard people call it like, uh, you know, figuring out where your puzzle piece fits across, you know, a table of 60 or 70 puzzles. Um, but it's, it's a slog and you really, really have to give yourself credit for the successes. Because they don't come as frequently as we might like.

Kaelyn (01:01:02):
And that said, you know, to kind of wrap us up here, anthologies are great. And there are a lot of fun. And they're a great way to challenge yourself to maybe step out of your writing comfort zone a little bit. Especially if it's something you can get excited about. So...

Rekka (01:01:18):
Yeah. I, I mean, as a, as a purchaser of anthologies, I love knowing that, like, this is the theme of the whole thing. If I'm into that, this entire book should be pretty much up my alley. Or, you know, sometimes the anthologies are about a movement, and I want to support that movement and I can support that and support individual—like a whole team of individual people while supporting that. Um, and sometimes it's just like, "Oh, that's bizarre. I just want to hear 50 different ways that people will tell that story." So anthologies are super cool for readers, and you get short stories that you can put down and pick it up and leave it, you know, for a couple of months and then come back to it and your bookmark's in there, and you just read the next one. Or you jump around. I mean.

Kaelyn (01:02:02):
You've got options.

Rekka (01:02:02):
You've got options.

Kaelyn (01:02:03):
That's what we're getting at here. More than anything else, you've got options.

Rekka (01:02:07):
And as a writer who gets placed in an anthology, you get that chance to be discovered by somebody who hadn't heard of you before and picked you up because they like this theme. So another quick point then is if it, if it's a time crunch and if you're not really sure what to write and the, the anthology doesn't even work in your established genre, consider maybe not, you know, spending, putting your time into that. It might not be an investment that ends up being worth it, unless you want to try it. You know, like we said, earlier. Experiment. Yes. But, um, don't try to use anthologies as a gateway for readers to come into your existing library of work if the anthology story is great to end up nothing like the rest of your work.

Kaelyn (01:02:55):
Is so outside of what you typically write, yeah.

Rekka (01:02:57):
And again, if you're willing, if you're willing to pivot and make a change of this piece, turns into something big, totally different story. but be aware of that as you pick your anthologies that you want to participate in. And then run a search on, um, the Submissions Grinder, put your ear to the ground on Twitter and, you know, do a browse on Kickstarter and find something, and then try it. And, you know, maybe it takes 20 before you get placed in one, or maybe it's, you know, your first started or second or third one,

Kaelyn (01:03:25):
If it's something you're on the fence about definitely give it a shot. If nothing else, just see if, you know, just see— Someone's giving you a writing prompt, take that and run with it, see what you can do with it. If you're really like, still not sure. You know, what a great thing to do is pick up an anthology.

Rekka (01:03:40):
Yes. Definitely read some anthologies before you start submitting to anthologies. Same with magazines.

Kaelyn (01:03:45):
Use that to sort of figure out the type of anthology and genre that you would like to write to.

Kaelyn (01:03:50):
But yeah, anyway, you know, as always you can, uh, find us online. Rekka, you're going to have to do this cause I never can.

Rekka (01:03:57):
You can find us online at, uh, @WMBcast on Twitter and Instagram or at wmbcast.com. And, uh, we are also as it so happens on patreon.com/WMBcast. And of course I'm @bittybittyzap on Twitter. Kaelyn is barely even there, but you can find her. Um, and you can also find, uh, We Make Books on Apple podcasts, which is a great place to leave a rating and review if you are interested in doing so. And please leave a rating and review, of course, five stars is the most helpful, but any honest review is great. And we look forward to reading them.

Kaelyn (01:04:34):
Thank you everyone so much. And, uh, we'll see you in two weeks.

Rekka (01:04:38):
Take care, everyone.

Tuesday Dec 08, 2020

Episode 49 - Creating Fintastic Anthologies with Julia Rios

Tuesday Dec 08, 2020

Back the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter!

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Julia's Links:

Their Website: juliarios.com

@omgjulia

@mermaidsmonthly

Back the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter!

Episode Transcript (created by Rekka, blame her for any errors)

Rekka (00:00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between. I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:00:09):
I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:00:13):
And this episode is a little light on the Kaelyn this week.

Kaelyn (00:00:18):
Yeah. we had this this great interview set up with Julia Rios and I missed it because I I ended up in the hospital the day before we were supposed to record the interview and that's Um interviews are a lot of fun, but unfortunately it's different than when it's just Rekka and I recording and she can say, okay, well just do this when you get home. So I I felt bad, I had to, didn't give Rekka that much notice she had to fly solo on this one.

Rekka (00:00:47):
Yeah, it worked out okay. Julia is a great person. Julia Rios is a queer Latinx writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Latin American Literature Today, Lightspeed and Goblin Fruit, among other places. Their editing work has won multiple awards, including the Hugo award. Julia is a co-host of This Is Why We're Like This, a podcast about the movies we watch in childhood that shape our lives, for better or for worse. They're also one of several co-hosts for the Skiffy and Fanty Show, a general SF discussion podcast, and they've narrated the stories for Escape Pod, PodCastle, Pseudopod, and Cast of Wonders. And it was the editing work that had us reach out to Julia this time specifically editing anthologies, which Kaelyn brought to me as a concept for an episode. And I was like, "Hey, we can bring someone else on. Cause you said you wanted to do more interviews."

Kaelyn (00:01:38):
Yeah. And we got this one lined up and then I missed it. Yeah.

Rekka (00:01:43):
Well at least I had someone to talk to. It could have been a rambly, messy, nothing, if it'd just been me.

Kaelyn (00:01:50):
Yeah. So anthologies are you know, something that I think a lot of writers see constantly, especially if you're active in social media, there's something that you're just constantly coming across, but they're a different kind of intimidating than a regular novel or short story submission. It's a different process. So I thought doing an episodeum it's actually gonna be two episodes now—on anthologies would be a nice topic to cover. So it was, you know, I, I wasn't on this episode, but I will say it was great that someone could come on and talk to us about this that actually has experience doing this.

Rekka (00:02:31):
And then I threw Kaelyn the rough cut so she could listen while she was in the hospital to see if she wanted to have another conversation, if I covered everything or—and obviously I failed because we're going to talk about it one more time.

Kaelyn (00:02:42):
Oh no, no, we're gonna, we're gonna talk about some different some different stuff. I can't, I can't let you have all of the fun with the anthropologies without me,

Rekka (00:02:50):
Julia. The reason that I reached out to them this time was because, well, I've always wanted to have them on the podcast—cause you know, in your mind, when you have a podcast, there's always a list of people you want to talk to. So this one got me the chance to shoot Julia up to the head of the line because Julia is currently, right this very minute, get excited, running a Kickstarter to support basically a year long anthology. And the anthology is themed entirely around mermaids. And you'll get to hear Julia's explanation of why that happened that way in the episode. So I won't go too far into it.

Kaelyn (00:03:27):
As if you need an explanation for mermaids.

Rekka (00:03:30):
Julia provides an excuse to write your mermaid story, the mermaid story of your heart, and then send it to them. So of course, first they need their Kickstarter campaign to be successful. So make sure that while you're listening to this episode, you also go to MermaidsMonthly.com and that will lead you to the Kickstarter page. So you can back that act fast, because. Yeah.

Kaelyn (00:03:53):
Yeah. I was going to say, when does the Kickstarter end?

Rekka (00:03:56):
The Kickstarter ends on December 12th. So act fast. You have the rest of the week, if you're listening to this on, you know, the week it comes out. And if you are catching up after the fact, cross your fingers and go check that URL and we'll see, we'll see what happens.

Kaelyn (00:04:14):
This is actually an excellent reminder for me, because I haven't gone to the Kickstarter yet. So—

Rekka (00:04:18):
[GASP].

Kaelyn (00:04:18):
I know.

Rekka (00:04:19):
Go to the Kickstarter, Kaelyn!

Kaelyn (00:04:22):
I was in the hospital!

Rekka (00:04:22):
What! That's no excuse. You had plenty of free time just sitting in that room by yourself.

Kaelyn (00:04:25):
Yeah, but, like, you know what hospital wi-fi is like.

Rekka (00:04:28):
Yeah, I do. Okay. Sorry. So so yes, everyone, including Kaelyn immediately, while you listen to the music.

Kaelyn (00:04:35):
I'm actually going to just drop off this intro right now, so I can go over there and check out the kickstarter.

Rekka (00:04:40):
Good. All right. So while we listen to the music, go to MermaidsMonthly.com support this anthology because as you're about to hear it is extremely cool and extremely well-conceived. And it is in the hands of an excellent editor who has put together a team of people that they know can, you know, pull all this off and do it in a really, really cool way. So here comes the music. Here comes Julia Rios, and you are already at Kickstarter. I know it, so good for you back that shit and let's let's see this happen.

Rekka (00:05:28):
Okay, I am here today with Julia Rios, who is a personal acquaintance of mine. I would go so far as to say friend, and it's good to have you on the podcast, finally. I was searching for an excuse honestly, to invite you on. And then Kaelyn came up with this idea of, "Hey, let's talk about anthologies because they are a beast of their own when it comes to pretty much every aspect of them." So I said, "Hey, speaking of themed collections of writing, you know, I know somebody who might want to talk about that right now." So why don't I have you introduce yourself? You know, we gave your, your formal bio in the intro, but you know, what's, what's on your mind these days and and where is it taking you?

Julia Rios (00:06:18):
Right. Well, I think so talking about the theme of anthologies, I am a writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator. So I've done lots of different things in different ways. And I have edited anthologies in the past. I edited, Kaleidoscope: Diverse YA Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories. And then I did anthology editing for three different years, best YA volumes. So those were reprint anthologies, which is also yet another different beast than themed anthologies that are original stories. And now I am working on a project called Mermaids Monthly, which is technically a magazine, but it's more of an anthology project in that it's only running for one year and probably there's gonna be a book at the end of it, collecting all the contents. It's very themed. It's not a general call. So it's, it's even more highly themed than for instance, Kaleidoscope Diverse YA.

Julia Rios (00:07:11):
Cause that was basically any science fiction and fantasy. That was YA as long as the protagonist came from a background that wasn't the default straight, Cis, white, et cetera. I also did edit, I was a guest editor for the Cast of Wonders, which is a podcast, why a magazine sort of thing. But every year they do a banned books week episode, or series of episodes. So it's for the full week. And that's basically an anthology editing gig as well, where you're editing, you're selecting stories based on the theme that are, in the case of the one that I edited, it was censorship turns out the lights, like let's, let's turn the lights on and see what happens. And so it was very much like, "okay, tell me for banned books weeks, what stories you have that are science fiction and fantasy that have to do with censorship and with like subverting censorship." So that's, that's the kind of different areas of, of podcast and magazine and book anthology editing that I have done or that I am currently doing. All of them were different formats because when you're doing it for a book it's different than when you're doing it for audio and it's different than when you're doing it for something that's going to be serialized.

Rekka (00:08:35):
Right. Right. And the difference between just the, like the nuance between those three different that you listed is even more than I was thinking about, you know, because— as soon as I invited you on it, it was like, you were going to talk about mermaids. This is gonna be so cool. And and I'm thinking about like the specificity of a magazine about mermaids and you're right. Like an anthology that has a theme can still be a very broad theme where that's open to a lot of interpretation. And I would imagine that you'd even invite people to open "mermaids" to a lot of interpretation, but it's like if I was going to, and I, and I don't mean this to like downplay the mermaid theme because there's, there's a lot of cultural and historical, you know, genre kind of stuff going on with mermaids. But like if I had an anthology, where I was like, "every story has to have an apple pie in it," you know, like that could be really, really broad if, as long as there's an apple pie in it, it can be about anything you want, you know? But would you say that, and we'll get more into the Mermaids Monthly specifically later, but like, are you, are you looking for like, no, I want to center the mermaid or you, you think you want, like, "I don't know. What does mermaid make you want to write?"

Julia Rios (00:09:58):
Yeah. Okay. So this is something that we've talked about a lot. So I'm working on mermaids monthly with Meg Frank, who is an artist and also has a background in marketing.

Rekka (00:10:06):
And may or may not be a mermaid themselves.

Julia Rios (00:10:09):
Yeah. They may be a mermaid, it's entirely possible. So we've, we've kind of conceived this as what I originally, my first idea, this, the whole reason Mermaids Monthly exists is because I've been editing professionally for, I think eight years now, seven years now, some long time anyway. And many times when I'm on panels at conventions, or if I'm teaching a class, people will ask me, "Do editors really have to reject stories they actually like? Does that ever actually happen?" Because I think people tell writers like, "don't feel bad. It doesn't mean your story isn't good." And then writers are like, "well then why would you possibly reject a story that is good?"

Rekka (00:10:49):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:10:50):
And it does happen. It happens so often. And it's, it's heartbreaking because as an editor, you don't want to have to reject stories that are good. And also like, as an editor, I know. I'm also a writer. I know how awful it is to be rejected. I don't want to have to tell people like, "Hey, I know you spent a huge amount of time and poured your soul into writing this thing, but guess what? I'm not gonna take it."

Rekka (00:11:13):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:11:14):
But that's part of the job. So it's an unfortunate side effect of the cool things that you get to do. But one of the reasons why stories that are good can get rejected, and it's not the only reason, is that if you're editing something for a non-themed thing, if you're like a general magazine or a general arm of a publishing company that is not specifically highly themed, you can take one item that is similar. So you could take like one mermaid story and that's fine. You can maybe take two and get away with it. The second you take three of those things, you run the risk of becoming "that mermaid magazine."

Rekka (00:11:56):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:11:58):
Or like "that imprint that only publishes mermaid books."

Rekka (00:12:02):
Hey, you know, some people want that, but it does. There are reasons why publishers don't want to do that.

Julia Rios (00:12:08):
Like there are some places where that's that's appropriate. This is fine. I would always like end this with, "this is fine if you're Mermaids Monthly, but it's not so great if you're Strange Horizons," which has no stated theme except for science fiction and fantasy.

Rekka (00:12:23):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:12:23):
And it's like, "I'm not Mermaids Monthly. So I can't take more than a couple mermaid stories."

Rekka (00:12:29):
Unless...

Julia Rios (00:12:29):
"Unless, what if I am Mermaids Monthly and I can, and all I do is mermaids for awhile?" So I originally thought I was just going to do some, you know, take, take stories for a while and do one year of mermaids. And then when I brought it up with Meg, we started talking and, and what grew out of this was something bigger and more visual than I was originally expecting because Meg's background is in art and that there is so much cool mermaid art. So we're going to have comics, we're going to have illustrations, we're going to have all kinds of little visual cues that are mermaid involved as well. And that's different from most of the other end biologies that I've done, because most of the other ones that I've done, haven't had illustrations. They have like cover art and that's it.

Rekka (00:13:16):
Yeah, yeah. Even, even some of the magazines that go further with artwork still have like a full bleed illustration that either separate sections or just, you know, is for the titles that they think are going to be the most impactful.

Julia Rios (00:13:35):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that this is going to be much more integrated. We have one bonus issue that's already come out. And so you can kind of get a sense of it because it has one comic and it has a few poems and Meg has done some sort of interstitial art bits. So you can see that it sort of does incorporate that visual art element all throughout, which is great because mermaids is such a visual theme and like under sea life. So that's very cool, and that's one of the things that I've been thinking about, like how, how different this will be is that it really does then affect everything. When we made our submissions guidelines, I realized like we were going to have separate art and prose guidelines. And we realized that we couldn't do that because, because it was also intertwined, we just needed everybody to send us stuff at the same time so that we could consider all of it together.

Rekka (00:14:24):
And so that's one thing, you know, stepping back from the specific anthology or, you know, anthology year of magazine— it needs its own name because you're doing so many really cool things with it that like, it, it doesn't, it's not fair to call it either magazine or anthology.

Julia Rios (00:14:43):
I do think it's fair to call it anthology. When you think about the idea of a TV series can be an anthology. You can have a collection of, for instance, like Amazing Stories or the Twilight Zone is considered an anthology.

Rekka (00:14:56):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:14:57):
All it means is that you're collecting things of a similar type that aren't necessarily individually related to each other, but are related to a larger theme.

Rekka (00:15:05):
Right. So when you are the editor for an anthology, you're not always going to be completely autonomous with regard to the project itself. So I'm wondering how, as you see the submissions come in and you may also not get to be the art director on the artwork for them. So this is, this is very different from what you're working on, which is so exciting. (I'm, I'm going to say that like, over and over and over during this episode.) But you do have control, usually, over the stories that you accept. So what kinda goes through your mind as you create a call for an anthology, and then, you know, the world being what it is, you might get stories that have nothing to do with what you were anticipating getting. How do you like assemble these? Like what goes through your mind as you assemble these things into a single work, that's going to have your name on it?

Julia Rios (00:16:13):
That's a really great question. And I think that one of the things that has been true for me is that when I'm doing something for a theme and I'm thinking about it something that might happen is I get something that I love that is a surprise to me that I wouldn't have thought of myself, and that can become sort of a pillar and, together with a few other things, they can kind of hold together the theme and be sort of like different poles—if you imagine the whole theme is like a tent and they have different poles at different points. And then the overall thing kind of like folds over everything and drapes there. And I think that what I usually find when I'm coming to coming up with an anthology type thing, is that I know I have a set length that I'm ultimately aiming at. So I know that there has to be a balance within that length and that if I get a few things that are different from each other, or a few things that are very similar to each other that are going to be the tent poles that hold it up, then I can kind of build around that to create the balance based on those things.

Rekka (00:17:24):
Okay. Okay. That's interesting. So when you say you're limited to a length, we're talking about like the total word count because the authors are being paid per word, and there's a budget for what the content is going to cost.

Julia Rios (00:17:37):
Yeah. And it's not just because of that. It can be because of a budget, but it can also be because that's the length, the physical length of a physical book, that you want to in someone's hands. Cause like if you buy 200,000 words, it's going to be a much thicker, heavier book.

Rekka (00:17:56):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:17:57):
Than if you buy 100,000 words.

Rekka (00:17:59):
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, at 100,000 words, you're wondering how you're going to fit everything on the spine. At 200,000 words, you're like, "should I throw some illustrations on the spine? This thing is enormous. What do I do with all this space? Maybe I'll put a recipe here. I don't know." yeah. So when, so when you, aren't the conceptual, you know, creator of the anthology, like if someone says, I want to have an anthology based on this topic, but I want to find an editor that is going to do it justice, and I decide that's not me. How do you work with the person who brings you the anthology?

Julia Rios (00:18:39):
That's interesting. So I think that anytime I've been hired by someone else to do an anthology, either I've worked with them... So in the case of Kaleidoscope, my co-editor was the publisher, Alisa Krasnostein. Alisa Krasnostein is an Australian publisher of a small press called 12th Planet Press. And basically she heard me on a recording of a panel that I had been on at WisCon about dystopian YA and like how heteronormative it is. And she was like, "would you like to work with me? And we could do an anthology of like dystopian YA." And that was her original pitch. And I was like, "I would love to work with you. This sounds fun. I think we should make it not limited to queer or dystopian." And so like, then we ended up with this idea of like diverse YA science fiction and fantasy. So it was a very broad thing, which meant that... I realized at that point that if we were going to do a very, very narrow theme, that it would end up feeling, to me, like a lot of the same story over and over again, queer YA dystopian is a very narrow theme. And I like to kind of play around a little bit more. So we talked to each other until we kind of came up with something that worked for both of us. And she got really excited about, you know, including other kinds of diversity as well, and including other kinds of stories. And we came up with an anthology that was a really lovely anthology with a lot of great stories and that were all very different and that was okay, because they could be very different and still fit with the broader theme.

Julia Rios (00:20:14):
So that's one example of what happened was, basically I talked with the person and was co-editing, but in another instance, like for instance when I did the banned books week for Cast Of Wonders, they, they know that they want to do a banned books week showcase every year, and they usually get someone to guest edit it. So they asked me if I would like to be that editor. And they told me what they generally wanted, which was, it has to fit with this "censorship turns out the lights leaves us in the dark let's turn on the lights." And then they said, "basically, you know, here's the budget that you have, you make it work." And so I'm like, you know, they were like, "we want at least X amount of episodes. So it has to be a mixture of like short stories and flash and whatever, but like here, here, you can have this submissions pile and you can do what you want with it."

Julia Rios (00:21:09):
And I did have access to their first reader team and I did actually talk to their first readers. So if their first readers really loved something, I would take that into account. And I think that's generally my experience, anytime I'm editing with a team, I will definitely talk to other members of the team, and if something hasn't grabbed me on first read, but it's really grabbed some other people, I'll then take more time to consider it cause, obviously things work differently for different people, and just because something hasn't grabbed me right off the bat, it doesn't mean that it's not a beautiful story that I will ultimately love to publish.

Rekka (00:21:45):
Right. Right. Yeah. And you can get to know the story as you work with the author and, you know, appreciate more about it.

Julia Rios (00:21:52):
Yeah. And just having the chance to ask the other readers, like, "why did this resonate with you?" can kind of also open up different aspects of it.

Rekka (00:22:00):
Right. Because as you're reading through a slush pile, I imagine there's a pressure to just respond to every one of them as quickly as possible, you know, to be fair that there's the, "I know what I'm looking for this, isn't it" kind of, you know, and then maybe you get through the entire pile and you realize what you thought you wanted wasn't in there, but now you have this sense that there was something else in there that you, you know, that was forming that you didn't realize until you get to the end of it or something. How is that slush pile experience with you as like the lead editor? I mean, I know you said you worked with the first readers, but what does that actually look like? Cause I'm not sure that everybody really understands how that process works.

Julia Rios (00:22:45):
Okay. So usually in places where there are where there's a team of first readers, basically all the slush comes in and sometimes, depending on the place the main editor won't read any of the slush that hasn't been filtered. Sometimes everybody is kind of like picking stuff out of the pile and reading it and then setting aside the ones that they like to show people later. Usually there's like a first pass that happens when I do these things where it's like, yeah, that first pass is reading things and setting the things that look good aside and setting the things that I automatically know, like maybe they aren't for the theme or maybe it just didn't grab me. It wasn't something that I felt was ready. It, whatever, whatever reason, maybe it's actually a graciously offensive, that happens sometimes. Those things will get like set aside to be rejected right away.

Julia Rios (00:23:41):
And then you'll go and do more passes, then with each pass. You're kind of your goal is to cut it down further because ultimately, you know, you're going to want a very small percentage of that stack. And then finally, after that, so if the first readers have been doing it, they'll be passing things up and I'll be reading them after they pass them up. Maybe I won't read them until we get to a second round. So anybody who has been pulled out by a first reader might get a second round notice that says like, "Hey your story made it past the first round, but you've gotta wait longer, sorry."

Rekka (00:24:15):
Good news, bad news.

Julia Rios (00:24:17):
Yeah. And sometimes those stories are stories that I read and set aside. So I'm sending the story and being like, like basically if you get that notice somebody loved your story. They loved your story enough that they were like, "this is worth looking at more carefully and seeing if it fits the overall balance."

Rekka (00:24:33):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:24:33):
And then, like I said, usually what happens for me is I'll find one or two things that I'm like, "I know for sure this thing is definitely in." So then it's like, "how do the other things match against it?" And I think with that one in specific, like I had asked a couple of people to submit things and knew that those would be in the pile, but also didn't know which ones they were, because the way Cast of Wonders does reading, they make it so that you can't see who the author is when you're first reading it.

Rekka (00:25:08):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:25:08):
So Anonymous, Anonymous Submissions from the point of view of the reading team.

Rekka (00:25:14):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:25:14):
And that was really interesting to me because I knew like one of the stories that I had asked a specific author that I really like, I was like, "could you please submit something? Cause I know you'll write something good for this." And I knew it was their story, even though I didn't know what they were going to send. And I didn't know whose name was on the thing I, reading it, I was like, "this is this author. And I already know I want it."

Rekka (00:25:37):
Yeah. That's very cool. So on that note, a lot of anthologies will solicit work. Especially for instance, if this anthology, you know, this hypothetical anthology is being funded through Kickstarter there's a tendency to say, "and we will have these names that you already know" so that people back it because they're, you know, familiar or a fan of with or of the author names that they recognize. So when, when do you get to say like tap someone that "you know, you love their work and say, I want you to write me something." And when do you only get to say, "could you submit something please? So I can consider it?" Or is that a personal decision? Like, "I don't know for sure that this is up your alley, but I want to invite you to participate because I believe you would do well" versus like, "no, I guarantee you you're in it if you write me a story" and is that guaranteed?

Julia Rios (00:26:34):
So that depends a lot on the context. And for me, if I'm doing an anthology and I ask someone to please submit something, usually usually I'm asking them, knowing that I would accept what they would write. So in the case of Mermaids Monthly, for instance, for the Kickstarter, we have a list of contributors and those are all people that I've worked with before, or have high confidence in the stuff that I've read of theirs. And we know that they are willing to do something. We ask them ahead of time, "Would you be willing to write something?" We believe they will turn the thing in. If they turn something in, we will absolutely plan to take it. The only way we wouldn't is if somehow, like they didn't have time, some life emergency came up, or I don't know, somehow it turned out that someone I'd asked had secretly been a horrible racist and wrote— like in that case, yeah. I'm not going to accept it, but I'm only going to ask people that I would never imagine would do that.

Rekka (00:27:37):
Right. Of course.

Julia Rios (00:27:39):
We had, I think, 30 names in our contributors before we—

Rekka (00:27:43):
Yeah that was the last count I saw.

Julia Rios (00:27:47):
Yeah. And the reason why was because we know all of the formats that we're doing involve a lot of like smaller things. So we were able to do that many names and still know that we'll be able to take like as many people again from the slush.

Julia Rios (00:28:00):
Yeah. Yeah, I had to remind myself like, "Oh yeah, this is running all year 30 names doesn't mean it's already full."

Julia Rios (00:28:06):
Well, it's also like, "are those 30 people all turning in a long story?" No, some of them are doing illustrations. Some of them are doing like flash pieces that we specifically asked for or poems that we specifically asked for. So it depends. And, and what you're asking people to do will depend as well. But for that, I definitely can make that call. For the Cast of Wonders one, I couldn't just solicit something and say, for sure, "I know I want you to write this and I will absolutely take it," because I knew that the process for choosing those was going to be the process that they already had in place.

Rekka (00:28:42):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:28:42):
Which is you get Anonymous Submissions, you read those, and then the team kind of makes a decision.

Rekka (00:28:49):
And in your case, you were lucky that this person was recognizable.

Julia Rios (00:28:52):
I told that person, like, "I'd really love you to submit something. Cause I know you write, well, I can't guarantee anything." And I will tell— I'll be very transparent with people ahead of time about whether or not I can guarantee or not guarantee something. But for all the people that have already asked for Mermaids Monthly, I specifically like said, "I would like you to do X thing. Would you do X thing? If you do it, I will put it in this magazine as long as it funds."

Julia Rios (00:29:17):
Yeah. And do you ask them to shoot then for a word count goal?

Julia Rios (00:29:22):
Yeah. I do. So I've— some of the people I've asked for specific word counts of stories. Whether it's a flash piece or it's a short story, some people I've said like, "you can go right up to the limit," some people I've said, "Hey, I'm looking for something that's like two to three thousand words." I've asked some people for poetry, I've asked some people for illustrations and comics. It just kind of depends. And with the illustrations and things like that, it's like, there's a difference between whether we've asked someone to do an interior spot illustration or a cover, which the covers are going to be way more expensive.

Rekka (00:29:59):
Right. The covers are more expensive. They take up an entire page and you've got to account for that when you're planning your books and your layout, the spot illustrations might be resizable depending on how the the resolution and how they flow with the words around them, that kind of thing. That's and that's so neat. I love the, the mix of art that you're going to have in this. I'm excited to see how that turns out. So when you are then considering story lengths, do you get excited looking through the slush pile when you find like lots of flash, does that make you go, "Ooh, I can buy lots of stories."

Julia Rios (00:30:35):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:30:35):
Or is it really a matter of how the, the themes fit in?

Julia Rios (00:30:39):
I love flash. I think flash is harder to do than a lot of people realize. I love it when it works. Well, I think that flash stories are such a great little break. Like it's a little hit. So if you only have a five minute break to do something and you want to just read a story during those five minutes, flash is such a great little thing to do, and a good flash story can leave you laughing, or it can give you an emotional gut punch, or you can just come out of it being like, "Whoa, I had this thought that I never had before" and you never know what you're going to get. So I really do love it when it works well. I also do think it's really hard to pull off. So I love it when people submit it and, like every other story it's still a hard sell, but statistically, because we can buy more of them, because they will fit more in the space that we have and with the budget we have, you're more likely to get an acceptance with flash.

Rekka (00:31:38):
Right. It does seem like, okay, everybody, that's your hint, that's your little trick. Cause otherwise of course, everyone's going to say, "how do I get my story accepted?" And we're still talking generally here. I haven't even gotten to the mermaid stuff, but like generally, what would be your advice for someone who says like, "I want to write short fiction and I want to sell it to markets or sell it to anthologies." because especially with anthologies, generally, there's kind of a small window of the submissions. So unless someone's got something in their back pocket that's perfect for that anthology that they've been workshopping and they've been editing and they've been revising and had beta readers and, and they've, you know, been staring at for 10 years or something. There... What you're going to see is generally like maybe a second or third draft, if you're lucky. Right? So what do you what would you say to somebody who's looking at anthologies, looking at the short window from finding out what it's even about to having to submit their story? How did, how do you approach that as a writer or how would you tell a writer to approach?

Julia Rios (00:32:45):
Well, I mean, I've approached it as a writer myself. Because I, so I also have we didn't talk about this at all, but I've also written stories that have been in anthologies. So I've done a couple of stories that have been in A Larger Reality I and II, which were Mexican and Mexican American anthology of writers that were collecting stories—I think there was one comic in the first one and the second one was all very tiny flash pieces that were up to 300 words—and then also like art. That one was mostly online. The first one was actually a physical book and also an ebook. And these were made by Libia Brenda, who is the person, I think now she's doing some editing for Constelación Magazine. I met her through the Mexicanx initiative, which brought 50 Mexicanx creators to World Con in 2018.

Julia Rios (00:33:39):
And she then later became the first Mexican woman to be nominated for a Hugo award, which is awesome. And that was because of her involvement with A Larger Reality. But for that, like she basically reached out to all of us, all 50 of us and said, "does anyone want to make an anthology that we can hand out to people at WorldCon so that we can show them what Mexican writers do?" And she was sort of expecting people to not really be that excited about it because it was going to be free, but she was like, "I will just make it, it'll be fine." And all of us were like, "yes, this sounds like a great idea. Let's do it." So we ultimately did and we made a Kickstarter for it. Even though like we'd given her all the, all the stuff, but we did a Kickstarter just to raise the funds to cover the printing costs. And then also overfunded enough that we could pay all the authors, which was great.

Rekka (00:34:28):
Oh, that's very cool.

Julia Rios (00:34:30):
But for that one, it was basically like I had a period of a couple of months." And she said, "you know, if you have something already, it doesn't have to be a new thing, it can be a reprint". But most of us ended up writing new stories and I wrote a new story for that one. And that one, it was like, okay, I know I have a couple of months and I know this is going to go to like anybody who attends WorldCon and the goal of it is to try to show what kinds of stories Mexican creators make."

Rekka (00:34:54):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:34:55):
So I was like, "I want this to show something that has to do with my feeling as a Mexican person."

Rekka (00:35:02):
In 300 words or less!

Julia Rios (00:35:04):
Well the first one was not, it was not limited to that.

Julia Rios (00:35:08):
Oh okay. All right. I was thinking, "wow!"

Julia Rios (00:35:09):
I think the first one had like a 5,000 word sort of guideline limit. And I think mine was like two to three thousand. I can't remember exactly how long.

Rekka (00:35:18):
I was going to say, to introduce yourself to the WorldCon audience, and you have 300 words. Do your, do your whole culture proud.

Julia Rios (00:35:27):
So yeah, so that one I really wanted to, I didn't have to, like, no one told me I had to, but I wanted to do something that kind of touched on my identity as a Mexican person and also as a queer person, because those are two parts of me and I feel like the, the ways they intersect are important. And I wanted to show that like, no one is one thing, no one is all one thing. And so I ended up writing this story that had to do with a woman who is kind of jumping from dimension to dimension and trying to fix a relationship problem basically. But she's running into the same people and she's seeing how she's connected to them in different dimensions. And one of the things that comes through in that is that basically all of these people are, they're different instances of themselves, but there's something intrinsic to them that makes them them and these aspects of their identity are still really strong. And for me, like that was, that was something I thought about. And I was like, "I think I'm thinking about this because I'm thinking about how this anthology reflects specifically my identity." And even though this, this person is not me, and this is not actually an autobiographical thing, that was the kind of theme I was thinking about. So that was really cool in a way to do that.

Julia Rios (00:36:43):
But one of the things that I would say to anyone who's doing anything for an anthology call is find that thing that you, that you resonate with, that speaks to you, that you want to write about. Don't just do it because you know that like so-and-so wants vampires. Like it's not enough for it to be vampires. The thing that's going to make it stand out is that it has something that you care about.

Julia Rios (00:37:11):
And so I think the reason why my story in that anthology did get some good, critical reception and ultimately got reprinted in Latin American Literature Today is because I cared about it and it had some sort of heart to it. But the good thing about that is that also if for some reason, Libia had not accepted it, which in this case it was a softball—I knew she was going to accept it, but that's, that's lucky.

Rekka (00:37:37):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:37:37):
But if for some reason she hadn't, it was a story that I could have sent somewhere else. Right. Like I could have, I could have submitted that to some other place. And ideally even when you're writing for a theme, it's something that if it doesn't work for that anthology, you can still send it someplace else.

Rekka (00:37:55):
And one thing to consider is that everyone else who was rejected from that anthology now has a new story that they're going to send everywhere else. So if yours feels like theirs probably going to have a lot of competition.

Julia Rios (00:38:07):
Yeah. So if you're just writing, whatever you think is the default vampire or a mermaid story for a vampire or a mermaid, and—

Julia Rios (00:38:14):
Hypothetical anthology...

Julia Rios (00:38:16):
Like, right, then, then you know that if you send it to fantasy magazine, fantasy magazine is also going to get everybody else's default mermaid story. But if your story has something that you care about in it, that somehow makes it stand out, it's going to stand out.

Rekka (00:38:33):
Right. So your advice, nothing to do with tricks, it has nothing to do with editing out certain words that bother editors. It has nothing to do with how to write your cover letter perfectly. It is write your authentic story.

Julia Rios (00:38:49):
Yeah. I'm sorry.

Rekka (00:38:51):
That's no, that's, that's so good though.

Julia Rios (00:38:52):
It's not the advice anybody wants.

Rekka (00:38:55):
No. Yeah. Okay. So people who want advice, that's going to shoehorn them into an anthology or make them a shoe-in to put more shoes in the conversation. Like they're looking for the answer of like, "Oh yeah, well, you know, for my mermaid thing, definitely makes sure that she's got green fins, because if that mermaid has green fins, I'm a sucker for green fins you're in." and you're not going to find that kind of advice because that is, that is not a guarantee, even if that was true for you, you know.

Julia Rios (00:39:26):
It's not the only time that that is true is if you have been asked for a specific tie-in media and you know exactly what that, that place wants, and you're doing, usually in this case, you're doing something that's like work for hire, which means that you don't own the rights to it. And you're going to get paid one fee. You're never going to have the right to sell that story again, or to reprint it or to get royalties. It's just going to be like, you write it and you give it to that company and it's theirs. Yeah. And in that case, like, there are definitely things that I've done before where if I'm doing that, I'm like, you know, maybe I'm adapting someone else's work for an app and I don't really have a say in it. And it's like, "you do this to this formula and you turn in the exact word count that we want. And it's supposed to, you know, she does have green fins and she has rainbow eyes and that's the end."

Rekka (00:40:17):
Right, right. But that's not that's not an anthology call. That's a, as you said, work for hire, like you, you play by someone else's rules in that case, you're, you're a contractor doing the work for somebody else who already had the idea and you, if you're lucky, you get to play around with things a little bit, but probably probably a totally different experience from writing for an anthology where it's an open submissions call or even a solicited.

Julia Rios (00:40:47):
I think It is in some ways, but like sometimes you'll see anthology calls from places like Wizards of the Coast.

Rekka (00:40:52):
Oh, okay.

Julia Rios (00:40:52):
And if they're asking for like a specific thing then, you know, there's probably a very specific D and D story that they want.

Rekka (00:41:01):
Okay. That's fair. I get that. I concede. We touched on budgeting for the anthology a little bit, but here you are like crafting Mermaids Monthly from the ground up.

Julia Rios (00:41:13):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:41:13):
Like what's the process for creating this project and finding the shape of it with regard to the budget and with regard to what you want it to be versus what's practical? Because, you know, I've seen anthology, Kickstarters go up and their budget like that, they're asking people to fund is like $5,000. And I realize, you know, that might be for single book and it's probably not for, you know, 12 issues' worth that might be close to 150,000 words when they're done—I don't know what your goal is total—but it always seems that people are afraid to ask for the right amount on Kickstarter to begin with. So how do you balance not coming up with a whopper of a number versus like, actually, cause I know paying the people who contribute in any way to this is important to you. So how do you create that budget when you haven't even seen the stories or the artwork yet?

Julia Rios (00:42:06):
This is really hard. And basically it involves sitting down and writing down a bunch of different projections of "what would happen if we did it this way, what would happen if we did it this way? What about this other way?"" And after you've got like 50 of those different scenarios, then it's sort of like, okay, what are the things that we think would be the most doable and the coolest that we'd be the most excited about?" so when I first started this, like I thought, "okay, I can do this. And I'll just ask for like some short fiction, that's basically it." And then I was like, "maybe I'll do short fiction and poetry because I really like poetry." and I think that there aren't enough poetry venues out there that pay authors fairly. So I was like, "okay, I'll do short fiction and poetry."

Julia Rios (00:42:52):
And then I asked Meg like, "do you want to get involved as my marketing person and maybe like help with design?" And then it sort of snowballed from there. But from there we talked about all kinds of things. We talked about audio, we talked about making the stories longer or doing other things and ultimately decided, okay, we don't want to have no stories that are not flash. We do want to have some stories that are longer stories. But it wasn't practical for us to ask for more than 5,000 words, because we were also committed to paying at least 10 cents a word.

Rekka (00:43:27):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:43:27):
So like that was one of those things where it's like, you can pay less, you can pay 8 cents a word, which I think 8 cents a word is now the SFWA minimum?

Julia Rios (00:43:36):
Yep, that is still the SFWA minimum. So your 10 cents is above that. You're definitely, pro-rate right here.

Julia Rios (00:43:40):
Just a little above it, but it's still above it. And for us, like I, we came up with that number because I was like, "what would I personally, as a writer be really excited about?" And the bottom line, there was 10 cents. So I was like, "I will, I will be committed to paying writers 10 cents."

Rekka (00:43:54):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:43:54):
Um for this reason also we have a thing where it's like, if we're doing reprints or any other things, and the amount would come in at less than $20, based on our per word rate, we will do a minimum of $20 because we don't want anyone to come out with less than $20. So like that's, that's just based on bottom lines for me where I'm like, ""okay, when I think about it as with my writer hat on, what would I be okay with? And when I think about selling a reprint, our reprint rate is low. It's 1 cents. It's 1 cent a word, but we're like excited. See your reprint stuff. The reason why I was like, it's going to be low. Is that,, for me reprints aren't the most important thing for this magazine.

Rekka (00:44:40):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:44:40):
We're going to be doing a lot of original stuff, but we're not opposed to them. And for an author, a reprint is just extra money.

Rekka (00:44:47):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:44:47):
It's like, you have already done that work, so you don't have to do it again.

Rekka (00:44:51):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:44:52):
And now, someone's just going to give you a little bit of extra cash and you get to keep it.

Julia Rios (00:44:56):
Yeah. Which is always nice.

Julia Rios (00:44:57):
Which is always nice.

Julia Rios (00:44:59):
Yeah. And it's cool to have, you know, both sides of the perspective on the project that you have edited before, but you are also somebody who submits and you know what is fair for both sides and you try to work so that everybody's getting as much of the fair experience as they can.

Julia Rios (00:45:18):
Yeah. And it's, it's tricky because it's also, like I realize that rates for... Going rates for science fiction and fantasy that are considered professional are really low compared to anything that people are doing if they're pitching nonfiction to mainstream magazines, for instance.

Julia Rios (00:45:35):
I saw somebody do the math recently that like if, if inflation had been applied to professional science fiction and fantasy rates, we'd be getting $75 a word or something by now. Can you imagine that world?

Julia Rios (00:45:49):
So it's not a large amount. Wow. I just know that in like in the 1950s and earlier, it was possible to actually make a living selling short stories to magazines. Like that was a thing that you could do. Yeah. So when you, you hear sometimes people saying like, you should do what Ray Bradbury did, which is like, write a story a week.

Rekka (00:46:07):
You should also travel back in time and live when Ray Bradbury did.

Julia Rios (00:46:11):
And I'm like, "yeah, if you live in the 1950s, you can do that. If you live now, it's like, well, that's not really where you're making your money." And honestly, like for most writers, even with novel length work, that's not where you're really making your money. Some people are lucky and they break out with these large advances and then they earn out and they get large sales and they get good royalties.

Rekka (00:46:35):
And then they get more large advances. But the rest of us...

Julia Rios (00:46:37):
Most of the time, it's like, this is going to pay a little bit, but not a whole lot and you should either have a day job or use this to create other opportunities for yourself. So like you can use it to then get speaking and teaching engagements. I think going back to your other question, like why people charge different rates at Kickstarter, it's because it depends too, what they're doing. So some people might already have certain things taken care of like either they've already paid their authors and they know that they only need to raise the money for printing a book, or maybe they have other investors somehow like supplementing things.

Rekka (00:47:21):
Or extreme optimism.

Julia Rios (00:47:22):
Right. So like you can, if you've already got a magazine that has a subscriber base, for instance, and you decide that you want to kickstart your next year of that magazine, you can kind of take some of the amount out of that, that building it from the ground up because you have that subscriber base.

Rekka (00:47:40):
Okay.

Julia Rios (00:47:40):
Um if you've got a press that's already up and running and you've already produced a lot of books, then maybe you have a clear idea already, if you're like a one person operation, that you know how you're doing your book design and you're not going to pay another person to design it. And that's labor that you're willing to just take as the cost that you're providing yourself. And then maybe like, if you're me, you're like, "okay, well, I'm working with Meg and Meg is designing and Meg needs to be paid for that work." and even though we're paying ourselves a very low amount of money, our Kickstarter is taking into account that we want to pair something because it's like, "okay, even if this cannot remotely count as living wage, I want to Mark that we are, we're doing a lot of work."

Rekka (00:48:27):
Right. And there's value in that.

Julia Rios (00:48:29):
And there's value in work. It's important to recognize that there's value in work. And if we won't recognize it, no one else will.

Rekka (00:48:35):
Absolutely. Yeah. Now what about the payment structure? Because authors who write for an anthology or a magazine get paid once.

Julia Rios (00:48:45):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:48:46):
So if a book completely pays for itself, like the profits of that go to the publisher usually, right?

Julia Rios (00:48:55):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:48:55):
Then the author would only expect to see more money for that story by reselling it as you were discussing.

Julia Rios (00:49:01):
Yeah. So generally it, it depends because sometimes when you have something with like a large publisher, if you have something with one of the big now for that exists in New York, they just had another buyout. So we've gone down from five to four. But if you have an anthology through those, so like maybe the ones that were done by saga press in the last two years, The Mythic Dream and The Starlit Wood those, if they earn out those authors might get royalty checks, that would be split between all of the authors and the anthology and the editors. But for most places, and especially in the small press world, you're selling it for one rate and you're selling it for that per word rate and you're not going to see royalties later. Main reason for me on this is that I am not an accountant. And—.

Rekka (00:49:52):
Yeah I was going to say, the bookkeeping!

Julia Rios (00:49:55):
Trying to split royalties between 25 or 30 or 50 or a hundred people is just it's—

Rekka (00:50:02):
Yeah. Because especially with the distribution to the online retailers for digital books, like it is impossible to know how, where that money is coming from sometimes. They make it so impossible to know like, okay, it was this many books and they made this much money. And okay, now you're going to divide that into how many words the book was and then pay out based on, you know, the word count for each. I mean, even if it goes well, that's a lot of work.

Julia Rios (00:50:26):
Yeah.

Rekka (00:50:27):
You know, like you might be able to write a spreadsheet to figure it out, but the way that you get reporting these days, Nope. Not gonna happen.

Julia Rios (00:50:35):
It's hard. It's a lot. And the truth is that for most anthologies that come out through small presses, they either don't earn out or like what they've raised for their Kickstarter is them basically paying for the cost of making the book. Right.

Rekka (00:50:48):
So they, they earn out by default and then that's probably it.

Julia Rios (00:50:53):
And then that's it. Maybe they make like a little bit over, but once you split that between all the contributors, it's like," does everybody actually want to check for 50 cents?"

Rekka (00:51:01):
Right. I mean, I would probably hang it on the wall. I can't even say I would cash that.

Julia Rios (00:51:08):
Yeah. So, so that's the reason why I think for most of the time, when you're selling to an anthology, you're selling it once. And that's a good reason to look at rights in the contract, because if an anthology is buying the right to then like exclusively, have your story forever and you don't get to do anything with it, that's a bad deal and you shouldn't take it unless you, for some reason really love it. Like, I guess if it's a Star Wars anthology, and you're a huge Star Wars fan, that's a different story. Maybe it's worth it for you, just so that you can have a book on your shelf that's a Star Wars book that has your name in it. That's totally fair. But that's a personal decision that you're going to be making. And like the great thing about this is that people are making lots of movies and different things based on short stories. So like Ted Chiang's Arrival, like the movie Arrival is based on a novella.

Rekka (00:51:56):
Yeah. In fact, I've heard advice that like they make better movies, generally, based on the source material than when someone tries to turn like, say, a 10 book series into a movie.

Julia Rios (00:52:08):
Yeah. Well, like a novel can make a good TV series and sometimes you can have a good adaptation of a novel into a movie, but when you're working with a short story length, it's easier to adapt that into, into one movie length thing.

Rekka (00:52:20):
Yeah.

Julia Rios (00:52:21):
And Hollywood gets excited about that. So if you can have your backlog of short stories and somehow you attract the attention of someone in Hollywood, then you're also like, by the way, I have these other ones.

Rekka (00:52:32):
As long as you make sure that anthology publisher did not take your media rights.

Julia Rios (00:52:38):
Which, ideally they would not have taken your media rights. And also like they ideally won't take exclusivity for a very long time. Like most places are gonna take it for maybe a year, maybe two, depending on like how their, what their publishing plan is. But like, most places are not going to say, we're going to hold onto your story forever. And you can watch out for that because then as soon as, as soon as those rights are back for you, you can sell that to someone else. You can republish it yourself. If you have a lot of stories, you can make your own collection and just kind of stick it up there as an ebook.

Rekka (00:53:12):
And first audio rights are good to keep track of too.

Julia Rios (00:53:15):
Yeah. Oh yeah. All of that stuff. So it's good to know what rights you have and to remember that, but like there are reprint markets out there, there are places like Pod Castle that will buy a reprint audio. They'll buy the audio rights to something that's already been published. Sometimes they'll buy the audio rights to something that's already had an audio version because they're gonna make their own.

Rekka (00:53:36):
Right. So how do you, because you've done this successfully wrangle all the cats that are involved? Because you've got editors, you've got authors, you've got contracted artists and designers and other contractors. That seems like a lot. So I'm glad to hear you're paying yourself for the mermaids because this is not a small job.

Julia Rios (00:53:58):
It's a lot. And I say that if you really want to make an anthology, that it is a management project, so you have to be ready to take on a manager role. And it's, it's good to remember that as much as there's fun stuff, there's also a lot of just like dotting the i's and making sure your contracts are all in and signed and that your payroll, like somebody is responsible for paying everyone and making sure that they were paid on time.

Rekka (00:54:29):
And that there's a record of it.

Julia Rios (00:54:32):
Exactly. That you have author approval on the final versions of the stories. That, that you have had a chance to see everything through a proofreader. And that you've, you've had someone double check that your layout works and all of those other things, there are so many different pieces of it. And I can't stress, that collaboration is very important, I can't stress that enough. Some people are able to do most things on their own. Like I think that think Mike Allen over at Mythic Delirium Books does most of it himself or with his wife Anita Allen, who's the other person who runs that. So they're like doing their own design and editing and everything else together, but it's a lot based on what you already know, you know, how to do. So I think the reason why Mike can do that, why Mike and Anita can do that together is because they started with a zine in like the nineties, I think. And it was like a paper zine that they would have made, you know, at home or from Staples or whatever.

Rekka (00:55:39):
Right.

Julia Rios (00:55:40):
They had a lot of time curating zines and putting them together and realizing how that worked. And then also Mike works for newspapers. So he has experience working in the newspaper publishing side of things. And he probably has experience through his job with things like InDesign. And, and because of that, he, he moved on to doing anthologies and he did like the Clockwork Phoenix series, which were all sort of self-made anthologies that he was doing himself. And because of that, he learned over the course of time, what are the things that he knows how to do and what are the resources he has available.

Rekka (00:56:15):
And what are the pieces that go into something?

Julia Rios (00:56:17):
Exactly, what are the pieces that go into something and what can he do himself? Whereas like for me, I know for instance, I know about myself that I am not a designer and I do not have that skill. I am not an artist. Visual art is not my strong suit. So, so one thing I've been doing during the promotional phase of mermaids monthly with the Kickstarter is like, okay, if we get to this number, like I will attempt to draw a mermaid."

Rekka (00:56:43):
And you did a very, very nice job.

Julia Rios (00:56:45):
"This Will be a fun exercise for all of us because I am not an artist." and yeah, I think it's a cute, fun drawing that I made of this mershark with like giant sharp teeth. But if you look at it and you look at anyone, who's actually an artist doing the same kind of thing, their version is gonna be much better. So I could make Mermaids Monthly myself, and it would be a very plain production. And that's fine. I could use something like Vellum for instance, which is basically a, what you see is what you get book designing tool that would produce a perfectly readable, simple book. And that is a totally acceptable path, but I know that I would love to have higher production values. So I have to pull in other people and Meg has major design skills that I do not have. So I was like, "Meg, do you want to do this?" And Meg was like, "sure, I'll do this." And everything that Meg has turned out is something that like, I didn't even know how to ask for it because I didn't know that's what I wanted.

Rekka (00:57:46):
Right, right. Yeah. Having the expertise on your team is so critical whether it's yours or whether you recognize that you need to find somebody else.

Julia Rios (00:57:56):
It is. And as for the rest of it, like making a list. So having like multiple spreadsheets with task breakdowns, having processes in place that you invent and recheck as you go along and revise. So for instance, with Megan, I, every time we do a contract, one of us puts it together. They send it to the other person for review. We go through multiple rounds of like, "Hey, I found this typo," or "I think this clause needs to change." But like our rule is we don't just send it to the author before it's gone through the, the two-person review system.

Rekka (00:58:32):
And then I assume you have, you know, spreadsheets of all the authors and what they've signed or what they've turned in or what they've gotten in terms of edits. And if they've gotten those back and if the final proof has happened and all of that, there are a lot of steps. And then you multiply that by however many authors you're going to have involved. Plus then, you know, the different processes for artists and their visual work. So that's, that's so much. So obviously, you know what you're doing.

Julia Rios (00:58:58):
[[Laughter]]

Rekka (00:58:58):
So now let's like, just get really excited over mermaids monthly because people who are listening to this live have until the 12th of December 2020, Saturday to fund help fund on Kickstarter. I'm sure by now it's already funded because it's going swimmingly.

Julia Rios (00:59:17):
Let's hope that your words are definitely prophetic and that will happen.

Rekka (00:59:22):
So at this point, it's, you know, you've got, I think the last count I saw was something like 8,600 to go of a very you know, I will say it was an ambitious goal because you were, you were planning to pay people fairly including yourself. So that's excellent and everyone's behind you, which is really, really cool to see that the funding is going well, it's consistently going up. I think everything I've seen has been really, really positive and a lot of people are really excited about this anthology. So tell me, aside from not wanting to reject more than three mermaid stories, like, what are you, what are you hoping for at this end, before you've seen any of the submissions?

Julia Rios (01:00:06):
Well. Okay. So I'm hoping to find things that surprise and delight me. I'm hoping to have fun. I know that some of the stories will be like sad or scary. That's, that's a thing that I'm sure will happen.

Rekka (01:00:21):
And you did invite people to, you know, do dark stories if they wanted.

Julia Rios (01:00:24):
Oh, yeah, I'm not saying we don't want those, but I'm also hoping that there will be some percentage of mermaid stories that we get that will genuinely just be delightful, mermaid romps. Because I think especially after this year that we've all just been through, like having some fun things to just sort of be a little beam of, not sunshine cause we're underwater, but you know, we just need those cute bioluminescent jellyfish to let us, say...

Rekka (01:00:52):
Oh, gosh, I'm like, you're going to get a submission from me that's going to end up being like a mermaid roadtrip story with lots of bioluminescing.

Julia Rios (01:01:00):
See, I love this! I love it. So I'm excited to see what we get and I'm excited to see all the different ways that people interpret it because I can think of lots of different creative ways to do it, but I know that all the things that I think of are not what other people will default to.

Rekka (01:01:15):
Which is what's so great about anthologies.

Julia Rios (01:01:17):
Yeah, I love that. I can't wait to see what we'll get. So one of the authors that I solicited a story from that I'm really excited about is Debra Goelz, who has written a novel that is published through wattpad and it is called Mermaids and the Vampires Who Love Them.

Rekka (01:01:36):
Oh that's excellent. This is very promising.

Julia Rios (01:01:38):
It's a YA novel about a mermaid who goes to like a special academy for supernatural creatures and gets a vampire boyfriend.

Rekka (01:01:47):
Nice.

Julia Rios (01:01:47):
Uh there's a lot of other stuff going on in the, in the plot of this book, but like that's the gist of it. And the title sort of gives you a sense of how ridiculous and fun it's going to be. Cause it's called Mermaids and the Vampires Who Love Them.

Rekka (01:02:01):
Titles for short stories are so great. Like novels, I, you know, everybody jokes about the formulas. They fall into like noun of noun or whatever, but like short stories, sometimes the, the titles like could win awards by themselves. They're just so fantastic.

Julia Rios (01:02:17):
There's lots of really good ones. So yeah, I'm really excited to see what Debbie comes up with for us, because I asked for something that's set in the same world maybe, and like maybe does like a minor character. She had a seahorse that made an appearance and some other things like that. So it was like, okay, you have a really fun story. It's completely sort of like off the wall and not something that I would normally expect, like how do a mermaid in a vampire even date? Like what, how does that work.

Rekka (01:02:47):
Vampires in bathing suits, I guess?

Julia Rios (01:02:49):
Right? but also the thing I really loved about her book was that it centered on sort of friendship and empathy. So it's got a big ensemble cast and friendship is really centered. And I was like, "I love this. I love that." There's no like, love triangle drama, that all of the plot conflicts are coming from things that these people are solving together. And there's like a lot of friendship and empathy. I love stories that center friendship. I love stories that have like a kind heart to them. And I also, like I said, we're welcoming dark stories as well. I think there are also great stories like that and I'm planning to see some of them and publish some of them, but I will— I'm excited to see what kinds of things people will do in the spirit of fun and kindness with mermaids. I think that mermaids can lend themselves to that kind of fun thing.

Rekka (01:03:39):
Yeah. Now what about the interpretation of the word mermaid?

Julia Rios (01:03:40):
Ah, yes!

Rekka (01:03:40):
Are you, are you expecting to get mermaids without fins? Are you expecting to get mermaids that are reverse mermaids with the fish part on the top and the lady part on the bottom as it wasn't Futurama? Yes.

Julia Rios (01:03:58):
Yes. The answer is yes. If you can imagine any kind of thing that you might think might be a mermaid. Yes. I expect to see that. We're also kind of expecting this to go to all undersea life. So things like selkies might count. And I would expect to see things that I haven't even imagined before. So like I'm imagining— things that I can imagine are things like, okay, well, what if it's a mermaid? But it's like top half is not human. Like, what if it's a fish bottom and a capybara top like that could exist. I don't know.

Rekka (01:04:37):
You mentioned seahorses before and I'm just like, "Oh my gosh, like 13 year old me just got a chance to combine mermaids and like her best horse girl self." And this, this could be very, very, very fun.

Julia Rios (01:04:50):
Yeah. So, and I'm looking for all the fun stuff that you can think of that sea horses as an animal are really interesting because they they don't differentiate sort of sex for carrying children. Like they either any gender of seahorse can have babies. So that's sort of like an interesting, okay, when you take that into consideration, like how does seahorse romance drama and child-rearing play out? Like, I don't know.

Rekka (01:05:20):
That's so good. Yeah. I am, like just the names that you have on the editorial list is really exciting. You have like a whole, a whole mess of names. Some, most I'm familiar with some I'm not, which is also very exciting. And I know you've announced that like at a certain point you have a couple who were both contributors who are going to write a story together.

Julia Rios (01:05:46):
Yeah. So we actually, that's part of an ongoing series that we're going to be doing and that's even in, we released the submission guidelines, so you can see them all on our website.

Rekka (01:05:57):
We'll have all the links in the show notes.

Julia Rios (01:05:58):
But one of the things that we're doing is an Each-to-Each section where it's a reference to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot, which is a famous poem. There's a part in the end of it where the narrator of the poem says, "I've heard the mermaids singing, each-to-each." And that narrator later goes on to say, like, "I do not think they will sing for me." And I'm like, fine. Who cares? You're just a dude. But what are the mermaids—

Rekka (01:06:20):
But the mermaids are singing to each other! Which is awesome!

Julia Rios (01:06:23):
What are the mermaids singing to each other? Cause that's what I really want to know. So for that, my idea was like, okay, what if we had different creators creating things for each other? And based on the things that, that they were creating. So like either they're creating it together at the same time, or it's a call and response, or something like that. So the open submissions for that, as open to anyone, is that you can submit prose or poetry. That's very short, like up to 250 words or up to 10 lines of poetry or a sketchy type piece of art that's like not something that you would consider a final polished masterpiece thing, just like a really quick piece. And if we choose you, then we'll match you up with one of the other people and have you make something in response to one of their things and have them make something in response to one of your things.

Julia Rios (01:07:19):
And so those people are like, "Oh, this is going to be like art and prose?" And it might be, but it might also be like art and art or poetry and poetry. Like we don't know exactly what we're going to match up, but for the people that I've already asked and I will be soliciting some other people probably as well throughout the year, those people don't have exactly the same rules. So what I did for them was asked them like, can you do a specific thing? And it's usually like a pair of flash things, or I have one writer and artist who I have doing a flash piece and an art piece that go together. I have Claire Cooney and Carlos Hernandez who are doing matched flash pieces. I have Nino Cipri and Nibedita Sen who are doing flash pieces that kind of there, I told them either to do flash pieces or to make one story that's like double the length of the two flash that is the story. But I also have three poets Amal El-Mohtar, Caitlyn Paxson, and Jessica Wick, who all three of them used to be the editors for a poetry magazine called Goblin Fruit. And so I asked them, you know, "as the goblin queens, do you think you could write mermaid poetry for me?" And I don't know if they're going to do three poems or one poem in three voices or what, but we're going to have a poem contribution from them.

Rekka (01:08:44):
That's very cool.

Julia Rios (01:08:45):
So there're going to be a lot of really cool things that I'm just basically taking this as an excuse to think, "What do I think would be really fun to do and fun to ask people to do that they would have fun doing with each other?" And then make them do that.

Rekka (01:09:00):
Yeah. Or let them do that really. Cause you've you have like, yes, it's mermaids, you know, but it's very open and you've got so many different categories of contribution that the possibilities are just really exciting to consider. Like I'd love to see your slush piles and I'd love to see like all the raw material that you gather as all of this, because it's just going to be very, very cool to see what people are getting excited about, each in their own way.

Julia Rios (01:09:25):
Yeah. I'm really excited to see what comes in.

Rekka (01:09:28):
So if we want this to happen, people, we need to back this, go back it and get that, you know, enamel pin and get the you know, the artwork on postcards or whatever all the options are. And we didn't even get to go into like when you're funding a Kickstarter, yes you're trying to write a book, but then all of a sudden you have to come up with like postcards and rewards and pins and all this. And that's even more that's a whole other episode.

Julia Rios (01:09:54):
If you want to do a Kickstarter episode, that's a different one, but we could totally go into that at a different point.

Rekka (01:09:59):
Yeah. Well, I'll have to figure out like what, what that episode looks like. And it might be stuff like SWAG, like maybe just a whole episode on SWAG might be really cool, but yeah. So you know, go pick the really cool rewards that you want, get all that swag because they put all the work into it, so people should get it. And back this project I have the link in the show notes, it'll be below the transcript and probably above the transcript just to make it easier for you. It's also, you can go to Kickstarter and search for "Mermaids Monthly," but check this out because it's going to be really, really cool. I'm excited. Obviously I came up with the story idea while we were talking and I didn't even think I had one.

Julia Rios (01:10:34):
Yeeees.

Rekka (01:10:35):
So this is just going to be really cool because a whole year of mermaids and not in a way that anyone could say to you, "Oh, you're that mermaid magazine and you would go, yeah..." No, you're going to go, "Yeah, we are!"

Julia Rios (01:10:49):
Like, "Yes, I am that mermaid magazine!"

Rekka (01:10:51):
But you've also put an end date on it, which I think is very good, probably, for your mental health and the ability to say, like, I did that thing, but now I'm done.

Julia Rios (01:11:00):
Yeah. Right now I don't have plans to do a second year if it goes amazingly well, and we all have fun with it, like who knows, we may end up deciding to do a second round of it. But if we did that, it would be like "Mermaids Monthly, year two!" But like, it would be a separate entity because I love knowing that there's an end to it. It doesn't feel like I'm going to be locked into trying to figure out how to do mermaids forever.

Rekka (01:11:24):
Right? Yeah. You aren't doing Mermaids Monthly Millennia. You are just doing one year at a time and there's going to be 12 issues. And as you've hinted, there'll probably be a nice chunky book at the end of it which would be very cool to see.

Julia Rios (01:11:38):
Yeah I mean, so one of the things that's amazing is that when we have funded, we do have stretch goals. And so once those stretch goals are released, once we fund, I think one of the things that we'll have is the add on option for like, you can add to your pledge and get a book at the end of this. So we'll, we're sort of tentatively planning that we will turn this into a book.

Rekka (01:12:00):
I mean, one always does like to put this much effort into it and then look at the brick that you've created. Right?

Julia Rios (01:12:07):
I mean, basically this is because I would love to have this on my coffee table and be like, "check out this mermaid."

Rekka (01:12:13):
Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So fund this, overfund it like your life depends on it because then maybe they can afford to print the artwork in color on the inside of this big book at the end? Cause that's a whole other issue. I love that

Julia Rios (01:12:25):
I have the whole thing is like this beautiful coffee table book. I don't know that that's ever practical, but that would be the dream

Rekka (01:12:31):
Coffee table books are not meant to be practical. That's the opposite of what a coffee table book is.

Rekka (01:12:37):
So good luck with the rest of the Kickstarter campaign. I hope you get some sleep. I hope you have nice calming beverages and cozy blankets and that you get to enjoy this process instead of just like, you know, reloading the page like I would. And you know, congratulations to you and to the entire team that you've assembled so far, because everyone is really doing something really cool and making this anthology more than most anthologies that I've seen. And that's obviously got me very excited. So is there anything you want to leave people with before we say goodbye?

Julia Rios (01:13:14):
I would just say to anybody out there who wants to make an anthology, it's possible, it's a lot of work, but you could do it if you want to. And it is open to literally anyone. Kickstarter has made that possible for literally anyone to do it. And if you are writing for them, like don't take all the things that we've talked about, about writing to themes being so hard and narrow to discourage you, because if you are called to write that story, it's a great thing to write. Even if you end up trunking it later, it just adds to your experience of having written things that ultimately will have taught you something else about being a writer.

Rekka (01:13:52):
Yes. And as in our last episode, we had Hillary Bisenieks and his Tales from the Trunk Podcast. So there might still be a home for that story, even if you have to trunk it.

Julia Rios (01:14:02):
Yes.

Rekka (01:14:04):
He's going to say, why, why do I suddenly have so many mermaids? But yeah, so that's true. Don't self reject as a person submitting to the anthologies, but also don't self reject on the concept of making an anthology if you are feeling called to make one. I agree with that. That's excellent. So thank you so much, Julia. Where can people find you online? And we will put these links in the show notes.

Julia Rios (01:14:29):
Right. Uh well, I have a website which is juliarios.com. It's very basic. It just basically has my bio and a way to contact me. I am most active, usually on Twitter, @omgjulia, which I chose because somebody else, probably one of my Brazilian clones had taken my actual name, but also because every time people tweet at me, I can imagine them being like, "Oh, OMG, Julia! I have to tell you this thing!"

Rekka (01:14:54):
Changes the context of the conversation. Doesn't it?

Julia Rios (01:14:56):
It's great. So I am omgjulia on Twitter and I, I think I'm around other places online? You can certainly find me at mermaidsmonthly.com right now.

Rekka (01:15:09):
Yes, do that. For sure. All right. Thank you Julia, so much for coming on. And I am so excited to see how this anthology shapes up.

Julia Rios (01:15:15):
Thank you.

Rekka (01:15:33):
Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of we make books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember you can find us on Twitter at @wmbcast, same for Instagram, or WMBcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand and what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful or, if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.

Back the Mermaids Monthly Kickstarter!

Tuesday Nov 17, 2020

Episode 48 - Do You Need a Podcast? with Hilary Bisenieks

Tuesday Nov 17, 2020

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Lamplight Magazine Volume 5

Hilary Bisenieks and his writing:

Twitter @hbbisenieks

Website hilarybisenieks.com

Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger

Mentioned in this episode:

David Tennant Does a Podcast With...

Episode Transcript

(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)

Kaelyn (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of We Make Books, the show about writing publishing and everything in between I'm Kaelyn Considine. I'm the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:08):
And I'm Ri—(sputter) Who am I? I am Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Kaelyn (00:13):
So, um, today in a, in what we kind of joked was a slight departure, but then it turned out it really isn't that much of a departure from writing and publishing, we're talking about podcasting and, uh, you know, is this something that you need to do or have, or partake in at all?

Rekka (00:29):
I, I do plan to, um, you know, someday have an episode about actually, how do you do this if it's a thing you want to do? Um, because much like Kaelyn's conception of this podcast was based on someone going, what, how would you know what to do? Um, you know, that's, that's something that I—now I'm feeling like we already did this. Did we do that topic already? Or if I just planned it so thoroughly in my mind, I remember doing it.

Kaelyn (00:55):
We haven't done one about podcasts.

Rekka (00:56):
Okay. So I was just, yes. Okay. I've just done that thing.

Kaelyn (01:01):
It's okay. I dream podcast too. And then think we did episodes about stuff,

Rekka (01:05):
If only we could record those.

Kaelyn (01:07):
You don't, you don't want to see those.

Rekka (01:09):
So, yeah, so I thought, like, "Okay. Someday, we're going to have to do an episode on, like, I want to start a podcast. How do I do that?" But first, maybe we take you aside and we have a conversation about—

Kaelyn (01:21):
Should youuuu?

Rekka (01:21):
—Where do podcasts come from and is that something that you're ready for?

Kaelyn (01:26):
Um, and we didn't do this alone. We had a guest this week, sorry, we buried the lede there a little bit. We're we're joined this week by Hilary Bisenieks.

Rekka (01:35):
Hilary is the host of Tales from the Trunk. And, um, the podcast features monthly interviews with science fiction, fantasy and horror authors and readings from their trunked work. And I thought it would be great to have him on, to be another voice of reason in this conversation of like, "I'm a writer. There are lots of writers with podcasts. Is that a thing a writer is supposed to do? Is that a thing I need to do? I already have an idea? Is it a good idea? Should I do this? Um, I already bought a microphone. Should I do this?" You know, that's kinda how it goes.

Kaelyn (02:04):
If you listen to this episode and you're still like, "Yeah, this is a good idea. This is something I want to do." Then you've made it past the first step because we do not make this sound like a pleasant process.

Rekka (02:16):
We don't, do we? I mean, it is fun. We have a lot of fun. You hear stuff all the time, but it's a lot of work too. And, um, when we do that production process episode that I apparently believe I already did, um, you know, we'll get into the actual process, the time we spend, you know, the hours or the costs involved and stuff like that. Um, but for now, you know, before you even dip your toe in, have a listen to, uh, Kaelyn and my conversation with Hilary about like, where do podcasts ideas come from and should you follow through on them?

Kaelyn (02:54):
Enjoy everyone. We'll see you on the other side of the music.

Hilary Bisenieks (02:55):
I have never caused nonsense in my life.

Kaelyn (03:16):
It's sometimes it's nonsense sometimes it's, um, it's like varying degrees of chaos. The chaos is a little more deliberate than nonsense is something that just happens.

Hilary Bisenieks (03:26):
Yep. Sounds right.

Kaelyn (03:29):
Yeah.

Rekka (03:29):
So this episode is about making a podcast and we've just experienced one of the reasons not to.

Kaelyn (03:37):
Do you need one? Well, that depends. Do you like high blood pressure at a reasonable level?

Rekka (03:44):
So as we said in the intro, we are joined by Hilary. Um, we gave your podcast intro, um, already, but do you want to say a little bit about yourself? Um, you didn't, you know, have me mention that you were a writer as well, so—

Hilary Bisenieks (03:58):
Oh yeah. Minor stuff like that.

Kaelyn (04:01):
Not important, certainly not for a podcast about writing.

Hilary Bisenieks (04:05):
Yeah. Uh, I am a writer who has trunked a lot of stories, which I felt made me qualified to, uh, make a podcast about trunking stories. And, uh, you can find my work in Lamplight Magazine and in the anthology Skies of Wonder, Skies of Danger.

Rekka (04:29):
Awesome. So at what point did you decide that writing wasn't enough work that you wanted to add to it?

Hilary Bisenieks (04:41):
2005, when I decided that I wanted to be a writer, but I decided... I started my show, uh, in the spring of 2019, after having some conversations with other writing friends about how I thought that I had a really good idea for a podcast, and I really wanted somebody to do it.

Kaelyn (05:04):
Oh, I know nothing about that.

Rekka (05:07):
This sounds very familiar.

Hilary Bisenieks (05:09):
And then I realized that nobody else was going to do it. Then I was told that my initial idea for a podcast was going to be extremely difficult for somebody with as little name recognition as I had.

Kaelyn (05:23):
I'm having such flashbacks right now.

Hilary Bisenieks (05:23):
And then I changed the concept slightly, uh, at the suggestion of Sarah Gailey, who, if you ever get the chance to get an idea from Sarah Gailey, do it, do it, do it. Then I launched my podcast two months later.

Kaelyn (05:43):
So Hilary, do you want to talk about your podcast a little bit? What you conceived of it as the idea from Sarah Gailey and what it became?

Hilary Bisenieks (05:51):
Absolutely. So my initial idea was I really wanted to have a podcast that was, uh, kind of along the same lines as Mortified, where I would have writers come on and read excerpts from their juvenalia. Yeah. I thought it would just be a great time because I have a lot of terrible juvenalia in my trunk and I thought it would be super fun to have a show where you just get like Hugo winners to come on and read like just, you know, their childhood picture books and stuff like that. And Sarah Gailey rightly told me, "you, a person who, while—" I am, you know, talented and kind and whatever else— "have almost zero name recognition, not really going to be able to do that show.

Kaelyn (06:50):
Yeah. It's going to be hard to, to get those people on. Yes.

Hilary Bisenieks (06:54):
Uh, and so they suggested, I initially pitched it as like, "Oh, you know, nobody else is going to do the show. I should try to do this show" and pitched it to, uh, Sarah Gailey and some other friends. And they said to me, "I wouldn't be comfortable doing that, but you know what would be absolutely amazing is if you had one where people came on and read stories that they had trunked," and I was like, "Ohhhh."

Kaelyn (07:27):
And Hilary real quick, just for people who may be listening and don't know the phrase "trunked."

Hilary Bisenieks (07:32):
Oh yeah, yeah. Uh, so trunk is put your story in a trunk, decide that you can't sell it for whatever reason. Uh, there are, I think as many reasons to trunk a story as there are stories.

Kaelyn (07:45):
Yeah. Yeah. So like, if you, if you hear somebody say like, "I'm going to trunk this," it means "I'm not shopping this anymore. I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not going to query this even, you know, I have an agent and my agent is like, guys really, sorry, this is not—"

Hilary Bisenieks (08:00):
Yeah. My, my most recent episode of the show, uh, at the time that this goes up is, uh, talking with Jennifer Mace. And, uh, she brought onto the show, an excerpt from what was going to be her debut YA and then, uh, as we talked about on the show, she just couldn't sell it. It just wasn't fitting with the markets. And so she and her agent made the decision to stop trying to shop it around and move on to the next thing.

Kaelyn (08:35):
Uh, as, as an editor, I I'm radiating appreciation now for the ability to take a step back and say, "I've written this thing, I've spent all this time on it. This iteration of it is not going to sell. I like it's a, it was, I hopefully had a lot of fun writing it, but it's just not for public consumption."

Hilary Bisenieks (08:55):
Yeah. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, the, the idea pretty much spiraled from Sarah saying "if you had a show where people read their trunked stuff, I would totally be on that." And,

Kaelyn (09:12):
Things just went from there.

Hilary Bisenieks (09:12):
Uh, yeah, I, in, within a day I had a name within, I think two days after that I had a mock up sketch for my logo. Uh, thankfully I went to a college with a bunch of amazing creative people and like knew an illustrator already whose work I thought would work well for the concept I was going with.

Kaelyn (09:37):
I am, I'm having such flashbacks like right now, it's like, this is like this, this is almost exactly what happened to me with this. So, uh, you know, people who've listened to this show before probably heard me tell this story, but, um, the way this got started was I was, I was out with friends, somebody brought a new boyfriend and was doing the good new boyfriend thing where he's trying to like talk. I mentioned, you know, I, I have this publishing company with a, with a couple of friends and he was like, well, you know, "if you've write a book, like, what do you do then?" And I'm walking through all these steps and he's like, "well, how do you find that? Like, how do you know this?" Like, and I was like, "I just know it, like, you know, and there's things even I don't, I don't know."

Kaelyn (10:27):
And, you know, I had had a couple of glasses of wine or whatever, so I get home and I'm just Googling all of this stuff about like bookmaking process, you know, and there's like partial information. I was like, "wow, there is really no centralized kind of walkthrough of like the broad steps of what happens, you know, when you write a book and how it gets published." So I spoke— I woke up the next morning and I had written down a whole bunch of bullet points and scratched some things out. And what had, I reorganized them into something coherent. And I went to our publisher, Collin Coyle at Parvus Press and said, "I think we should do this limited run podcast series. We'll go through all of this. We can change, you know, we'll do 15 to 30 minutes an episode, depending on, you know, how big the topic is. Um, you can do it with, you know, guests on and stuff."

Kaelyn (11:19):
I had no intention of being on this. I don't like the sound of my own voice. I especially don't like it recorded. I think it does not sound like me at all. And Colin was like, "yeah, let's be honest. We don't really have time for that. And, um, but it's a really good idea, but maybe you should do this instead." So then Colin mentioned this to Rekka.

Rekka (11:44):
About that time I'd already had about, uh, you know, I think just slightly under a year of podcasting, um, with the different podcast and my podcast co-host lost all his free time and I was kind of trying to float it along and I was getting ready to give up, honestly, and I had a conversation with Colin, um, and he's like, "so you need a new cohost." I'm like, "yeah, I really do." And he's like, "so, uh, Kaelyn, who you met at the Nebulas. And he's like, she's got this concept for a podcast."

Rekka (12:12):
I said, "so Colin says, you want to do a podcast with me." And she's like, "no, God, no!"

Kaelyn (12:17):
I said, "I don't want to do a podcast. Somebody else was supposed to do the podcast. I just had the idea and I could edit it." Yeah. Sometimes it's—.

Hilary Bisenieks (12:26):
Podcasts just happen.

Kaelyn (12:28):
Yeah. So, but I will say that like one of the reasons Rekka and I decided to go through this—and we spent a lot of time looking for reasons that we shouldn't—was, is anybody making podcasts out there about publishing and the writing aspect of publishing? And we couldn't find anything and I was shocked. Um, there was like one thing that was like, uh, a graduate project from somebody doing like their master's degree.

Rekka (12:56):
It was all of like six episodes. And that was like three years ago.

Kaelyn (13:00):
It was very, very dry. I couldn't believe that there wasn't something out there that just talks about like, "Hey, here's an episode on, you know, what query letters are. Here's what it means if your book is distributed," you know, um, these very basic things that are hard to find concentrated information online about.

Hilary Bisenieks (13:28):
Yeah. Like, that's kind of the same angle that I came out with my podcast. One, once I jelled on the idea of trunked stories specifically, um, was like, there are so many podcasts about, you know, writing things and how to write good. Um, you know, we've got Writing Excuses, we've got, you know, Ditch Diggers with all these things, but there's no podcasts about, okay, "I wrote the thing and I couldn't sell it. And what do I do next? And like, how do I move on?"

Rekka (14:02):
Yeah.

Kaelyn (14:04):
So this podcast got started because I couldn't find anything else that was doing this. I went out of my way, Rekka and I both did, scouring the internet, trying to find anything, even a website, that was kind of like funneling all this information into one place. It sounds like you kind of came upon, you know, a unique idea as well. And so back to, you know, the central theme of this, Do You Need a Podcast? I think one of the ways to answer that is, is somebody else doing it? Are they doing it better than you're probably going to do it? Is that, you know, do you have the time for this? Is this something that the world really needs, is to hear this podcast? And I know this sounds like, I don't know if condescending's the right word, but you know, like sounds like weird advice coming from somebody who didn't even want to start a podcast and then did. But, um, you know, I think there's... This is something intrinsic to writers. No, no offense guys, but you guys like to talk, so to speak, in terms of, you know, getting words out into the world, um, a podcast is a way to get more words out into the world.

Rekka (15:19):
But there are an awful lot of writers who are terrified of the idea of actually speaking aloud to other people.

Kaelyn (15:24):
That's a good point. That's a very good point.

Hilary Bisenieks (15:27):
I thought that I hated the sound of my own voice before I started my podcast. And I won't say I love the sound of my own voice. That would be a very like cishet white guy thing to do. And I'm not about that, but like I've learned to get past the sound of my own voice because I was going to be hearing it, you know, on average 20 minutes an episode.

Rekka (15:51):
If you're going to edit your own stuff. You're going to be hearing your voice. And if that's going to really bother you, if you are going to feel like nails on chalkboard, every time you have to edit (cringey noises), just saying.

Hilary Bisenieks (16:03):
Maybe don't.

Rekka (16:04):
If it, if that's an incredibly uncomfortable and it's like, what's your pain point? You know, at what point are you going to say "this was a terrible idea." And the other, you know, thing to just do is just record a couple of episodes because we tend, when we release a podcast to have a couple of episodes banked up and released, like, you know, the, the new Dis— was it Disney+ or a Netflix that, um, put up a couple episodes of something recently?

Kaelyn (16:28):
Oh Amazon did with The Boys, they put, they put the first.

Rekka (16:32):
That's what I'm thinking of.

Kaelyn (16:32):
The first three out and then staggered the rest of them.

Rekka (16:34):
Yeah. So that's, that's how we started.

Hilary Bisenieks (16:37):
Yeah.

Rekka (16:37):
Um, and if you do three or four episodes, you're going to really know what it's like to edit in a crunch. You might know at the end of them, whether it's the thing you really want to do.

Hilary Bisenieks (16:48):
Yeah. I had a situation when I started the show that I recorded my first three episodes, uh, before I released anything, but I recorded them, just the schedules ended up working out, that I recorded them in reverse release order so that, thankfully, my most polished episode where I like had the best idea of what I was doing was the one that came out first. And then there was, I won't say like a dip in quality, I think there, like I still stand by all those episodes, but there's a dip in self-assurance that happens as you listen across the first three episodes where by the time I was recording with, uh, Sarah Gailey, I was like, "Oh yeah, I know exactly how to podcast for this format at this point." And when you get to the episode I did with RK Duncan, who like, you know, I say right up front, like, "this is the first time I'm doing this. This is going to be a hot mess."

Hilary Bisenieks (17:52):
And like, luckily, like in that case, I've known... Like me and Robin have been friends for 25 years. So it wasn't like a huge deal that it was a hot mess because we could just like, you know, jive off of each other, but it really helped to have that idea of like, "Oh, this is actually how you do a podcast" by the time I started recording more episodes and banking episodes out. And certainly by the time I started recording with people who I didn't have an established relationship with.

Rekka (18:32):
So to that point, do you, um, do you feel like you have a format, like a, uh, you know, a template that you go into every episode with, where you basically know how you're going to intro, you know how you're going to start the conversation, you know roughly how you're going to segue into the story and then how you're going to lead out again?

Hilary Bisenieks (18:53):
Absolutely. Uh, I, and that's something that I, you know, had to pick up over these first three episodes. I had sort of an idea when I started, before I recorded the first episode where I was like, "this is what I think the flow is going to be." And it turned out that that worked pretty well. And so since then, like when I do episode prep with people before they start recording, it's just, "okay, here's the format if you hadn't, haven't had a chance to listen to the show," you know, obviously I'd love for everybody to go listen to Tales from the Trunk, available wherever fine podcasts are sold. But I recognize that there's only so many podcasts hours in a day.

Rekka (19:34):
Yeah. You're lucky Hilary, you, you gave yourself a theme for your podcast that is really wide open. You could talk about anything because you have a guest and your guest has a story. So first you get to just have a conversation with your guest and then your guest reads you a story and that, and those two things don't have to relate. You don't have to organize things. Do you, um, do you plan your, your conversations out ahead of time? I mean, it is kind of an interview format, but do you just kind of start with one question and see where it goes?

Hilary Bisenieks (20:02):
Basically start with one question and see where it goes. There are times where I have specific questions that I want to ask. And, um, when I have those, I will, when I, when I invite a guest on, I send them a recording ReadMe to tell them how my recording workflow works and what their part is in that. And I send them a questionnaire that gets basic information, you know, how would you like to be credited? What name should I address you by during the show? What are your pronouns? Uh, are there any topics that I should absolutely avoid? What's the name of your story? Um, and then just like a bunch of, "I might ask these." Uh, the only question I always ask— only two questions I always ask. One is, you know, "why did you trunk this thing?" And two is, I always try to trick my guests into giving me some words of wisdom by the end of the show.

Kaelyn (21:10):
Excellent. We know what to do now.

Hilary Bisenieks (21:13):
Normally I, I asked them, I frame it as, uh, "the TARDIS has showed up in my podcasting studio and come take a step inside this time machine with me, let's go back and talk to [young writer guest] about what you wish you would've known."

Kaelyn (21:30):
Yeah. Yeah. So if you're at home right now, you've been stuck inside for months and you're thinking, you know what? I think it's time to start a podcast. The other question is, do you have time for this? This is, you know, this is a lot of time, but then also beyond that, are you good at talking about things? Um, if you're going to be doing this by yourself, can you talk in an engaging way for, you know, 30 minutes to an hour? If you're doing this with someone else, are you friendly enough that you can talk to them for thir—? And if you're interviewing somebody, are you good at interviewing people? Um, which I think we, you know, say like, Oh, whatever, I'm just going to ask them questions. That's not, you know, that's not how this works. And—

Hilary Bisenieks (22:15):
That's not an interview.

Kaelyn (22:15):
Yeah. And, well also Hilary, I'm sure you've, you've come across this plenty of times is that, you know, some people aren't great at being interviewed and it's the, the job to kind of make them comfortable and get them to, you know, open up and talk.

Hilary Bisenieks (22:28):
Yeah. I went to college for creative writing. And so I took a lot of creative writing classes, both in fiction and in nonfiction, basically all of the, like long-form journalism classes that were offered at my school.

Kaelyn (22:44):
Oh fun.

Hilary Bisenieks (22:44):
From a professor who was not a full-time professor, her first job is being a journalist. And so she was able to like really talk us through it. And like one of our first assignments was an interview where the whole thing was just doing "Q, whatever," "A, whatever." That doesn't make it engaging interview piece. And so learning about the narrative structure of interviews, I think really helped me there. And just generally, like, I'm, I'm an introverted person, but I can turn on the extrovert, you know. But one of my goals for the show was just to be like a very quiet kind, queer place to be, and like bri— myself, bringing that energy makes it, I think, easier for my guests to come on and like open up about things. And I'm never like, you know, pushing, like, "tell me about your childhood," but just like, you know, "tell me about this story. Like, let's dig in a little bit like that."

Rekka (23:58):
When you are listening to the author, reading their work, your like acoustic feedback is so just like gentle and kind and wonderful. It's like, you'll just hear— um, Kaelyn, I don't know if you've listened to an episode yet, but you'll hear Hilary just go, "Ooh," as someone's reading. And to get that kind of feedback is really nice. And I'm sure that adds to that like friendly, Like I'm not just here on a stage reading this thing out with a spotlight on my face. I can't see anybody. Like, I'm actually sharing this with somebody.

Kaelyn (24:25):
But that's a really good point again with, you know, should you start a podcast or, you know, is this a good idea to? You have to understand this is an audio medium. Um, if you are, and it's funny listening to Tales from the Trunk, I dare say that Hilary, and stop me if I'm about to put my foot in my mouth here, there's a little bit of acting, if you will?

Hilary Bisenieks (24:47):
Oh yeah.

Kaelyn (24:47):
Maybe some over exaggeration, you know, things that you maybe wouldn't vocalize because you need to vocalize, because this is an audio medium. They can't see the expressions you're making on your face. So whatever you're thinking, you've got to get out of your mouth somehow without interrupting.

Hilary Bisenieks (25:03):
Yes. And I am nodding along as you're saying this, but.

Kaelyn (25:08):
In our audio medium.

Hilary Bisenieks (25:08):
And that's only for the benefit of you two.

Rekka (25:11):
I'm just going to add to the list of things to consider when you are trying to decide if you are going to start a podcast. Um, and sadly we know if you are already asking yourself this question, you're probably going to try it anyway.

Hilary Bisenieks (25:23):
Oh yeah.

Rekka (25:23):
But, um, well, the one thing to consider is what do you hope to gain from doing this podcast? Because, um, if you are a writer and you are hoping to reach a wider audience of readers, you're going to create a much different podcast than you would if you were someone trying to help other writers, you know, improve their craft, or get a foot in the door with publishing or whatever you're doing, those are two very different targets. And if you write, if you, um, if you create a podcast for writers, then that's great, It's going to help some, you know, you'll probably network and make friends or something like that. You can mention it, you know, you'll go to conventions and conferences and you'll meet people and hit it off and invite them on and you'll have guests to interview, but you're not going to increase book sales.

Hilary Bisenieks (26:18):
Yeah.

Rekka (26:18):
Even if you were, um, making a podcast to specifically about your writing and your books, you're probably not going to increase book sales, right? So, keep that in mind.

Kaelyn (26:28):
Yeah, because if you're podcasting about your writing and your books, presumably you're a bestseller of some kind, and there is an audience that is very interested in hearing your process. So that's more of a "first sell lots of books then podcast about it," not the other way around.

Rekka (26:45):
And chances are, if you're selling lots of books, you are also expected by your publisher to write a lot more of them. So now you're on deadlines and you don't actually have time to edit your own episodes. And like, maybe, maybe consider how this works a little bit. Now, there are people out there who write, um, and like podcast about it in a blog format where it's, um— Like Mur Lafferty's I should be writing for example, which is a very long running podcast is very popular and is literally Mur, usually in a car, um, saying like, "well, I was frustrated today and you know, like it wasn't flowing" or, um, "I really wanted to work on this thing, but I have a deadline for this other thing. And I can't tell you about it because it's under contract." So like, you know, there's the, um, the thing that you get out of like that podcast, for example, or that I get out of it is just this, like, I'm not alone in doing it. And, um, and the purpose of like another podcast might be like more performance, an audio drama. You know, somebody actually writes a story and performs it over a series of episodes. And then they have seasons and each season is either a new story or seasons like TV shows. And, um, if you can find an audience for that, then that actually might help your writing. But, um, keep in mind what you want to be the end result of this. If you just want to chat with a friend and you're like, "we say really smart things, we should record this" then like that's also an option, but what what's it, if its intent is just to be a little like self-gratifying, then that's also fine. As long as you know that when you start off.

Hilary Bisenieks (28:25):
I will say it's a lot of work to just be self gratified. I could not do this if that was my only goal. I love, don't get me wrong, I absolutely love making my show. And I love, like I've, it's opened doors for me in terms of like meeting new people and getting to the, on other podcasts like here and I was on an episode, um, uh, I think a Patreon-exclusive episode currently, of Rank and Vile, but, uh, like it's so much work to do upon. I'm not doing it just to like stroke my ego.

Kaelyn (29:07):
I would go so far as to say that it is in some ways, very similar to writing a book. Um, it's something that everybody thinks, "Oh, whatever, that's easy. I can just do that. I have lots of ideas. I have lots of stuff I need to say." And then when it comes down to actually doing it, you know, like, they're like, if you go back and listen to some of the early episodes bracket and I did, they're not bad, but they're not, the conversation is not as smooth as it gets in later episodes because, you know, we do this together, obviously. Now, if this were just me on my own, I, like, I, it would just be like me getting some words out and then crying a little bit and then, and starting again. Um, but I think everybody, there's certain things that everyone's like, well, "that's easy. I can do that."

Kaelyn (29:56):
Um, writing a book and starting a podcast are definitely the, uh, at the top of that list. Neither of them are easy things to do. Neither of them are straightforward processes and there are a lot more steps in there than you ever think there are going to be.

Rekka (30:10):
And let's be real doing one doesn't necessarily benefit the process of doing the other.

Kaelyn (30:15):
And by the way, doing one doesn't mean that you're going to be good at doing the other. Um, you know, just because you write a book and maybe let's say you've even had that book published, that doesn't mean that you're going to be good at doing a podcast about writing that doesn't even mean that you should do a podcast about writing.

Rekka (30:32):
I feel called out.

Hilary Bisenieks (30:37):
I don't have a book out. I'm fine.

Kaelyn (30:41):
It's a lot of work and it is not as easy as it seems just to, not even in terms of the work itself, but in terms of like coming up with meaningful things to talk about on a consistent basis, um, you know, even like with us, like we do a different topic every week and what happens is we tend to, you know, go in spurts where we come up with a whole bunch of ideas at once. And then we were like, okay, "'we've got to sit down and come up with the next group of ideas and plan and plan this out. Um, you know, Hilary I'm sure for you, it's, you know, it's a week to week, well month to month, of trying to find people to come on to talk to?

Hilary Bisenieks (31:22):
I will say it was last year. And I think partly through the networking that I've done and partly through just like gaining some recognition, uh, it's become a lot less of that. Uh, at, at the start of this year, I think I had, uh, like half of my guests already booked before I started recording my season two. And at this point I have a quarter of my guests for season three booked already.

Kaelyn (31:57):
Oh okay yeah, so you're in really good shape.

Hilary Bisenieks (32:01):
A lot of that is that it's harder, when you're working with a, with a rotating cast, to pin people down that like initially... Uh, exclusive sneak preview my January, I guess it's going to be Fran Wilde. And initially Fran was going to be on in June, but then deadlines and pandemic and everything just stacked up and we couldn't make it happen.

Kaelyn (32:29):
Yep.

Hilary Bisenieks (32:29):
So, you know, I was, I, uh, very quickly turned around and got Merc Wolfmoor on the for June. And I was able to like take that up, but only because I had planned ahead far enough to say, like, you know, I'm, I'm recording this weekend for the November episode and that's about as close as I ever liked.

Kaelyn (32:56):
Hmm that's yeah, that's, that's fairly close. Cause you know, it's November and everything.

Hilary Bisenieks (33:03):
I will have Westman two weeks after recording to get the episode together. To peek behind the curtain. I'm typically finishing the episode up with less than a week ago before release, but that's just editing. That's just, I have to sit down and pound out two to three hours of editing, as opposed to, I have to pin somebody down for an hour and a half reporting session, make sure that our schedules can line up, which especially like I live in California. A lot of my guests do not live in California. If you don't live in the same time zone as me. It's going to get more and more hairy. And so like figuring out that sort of stuff makes it a lot harder and makes it, uh, you know, it's a real commitment and especially, you know, you guys do it on a weekly basis. I do my episodes on a monthly basis. Like that consistency is something that I think is really key.

Kaelyn (34:10):
Yeah. Rekka and I did, last year, we did Submissions September.

Rekka (34:15):
Oh God, yes.

Kaelyn (34:15):
...and both of us had like...

Rekka (34:18):
Regrets.

Hilary Bisenieks (34:18):
Oh no.

Kaelyn (34:20):
It was like, what did we end up with, like nine episodes?

Rekka (34:23):
Nine. Nine episodes in September.

Kaelyn (34:24):
Yeah. We ended up with nine episodes.

Rekka (34:27):
That was too many episodes. By the way.

Hilary Bisenieks (34:28):
That's a lot of episodes.

Kaelyn (34:29):
In 30 days. It was, it was a lot, um, some of them were a little shorter than was typical, but, you know, we decided like it, and again, this is just, this is another thing if you're going to start a podcast. It is a many-headed Hydra and—

Rekka (34:44):
Just be aware of alliteration when you come up with these things that like, we're going to do Submissions September and Artwork August, you know, what that means is you're going to have to come up with multiple episodes on the same topic and have them ready to go in the same month. And if you need guests, you need to be able to schedule them to fall so that you can publish their episodes where it feels appropriate to slip that episode in. And sometimes it just doesn't go your way.

Kaelyn (35:11):
And then on top of this is the work that goes into actual it to the episode before you actually record it. Um, you know, depending on the topic, like I may end up doing several hours of research and, um, even just sitting down, gathering my thoughts before we, before we start talking about things. Um, it's, you know, if I'm, if I'm going to state anything in any sort of a definitive way, I'm to make sure that what I'm stating is correct. So again, you know, depending on if you're thinking of doing this and what you're thinking, the, the topics or the, uh, you know, the theme of this might be, you need to factor into, you know, you don't always just get to sit down and start talking into a microphone and it's, it's going to win a Grammy.

Hilary Bisenieks (35:55):
Well I don't know about you, I get to sit down and talk into a microphone for an hour and a half. It just works out.

Kaelyn (36:00):
But think of all the work that goes into even, you know, yours beforehand, like yes, it's interviews, but all the time that you have to work on scheduling that, uh, getting in touch with people. Also, I assume that you've researched your guests before they come on. Now, granted, it sounds like you know a lot, a lot of them, but like at the same time, you know, if somebody you don't really know is introduced to, to you, you're going to spend time, you know, doing some research on them, checking up on all their stuff. You also have to make sure that they're going to be someone that you want to have on your podcast and aren't just going to go off on tangents, you know, discussing the conspiracies of chemtrails that are gonna turn us all into lizards.

Hilary Bisenieks (36:40):
Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet.

Kaelyn (36:42):
You mean disappointingly that hasn't happened yet.

Hilary Bisenieks (36:47):
I'm leaving the option open that it could. But yeah, you're absolutely right. And like, you know, I, I downplay some of that, but like, you know, before I even started the show, I was making just a list of everybody I could think of who would be cool to have on the show and building out, I built out a spreadsheet that is like my pride and joy that has color changing checkboxes to let me track where in flight, every single episode is and has tabs to track—because I double booked one month then suddenly I was like, "Oh, I actually have to like, have something where I write down who's on which month and can check that box to say, okay, have a guest for this month so I don't double book." So one of the things I'll say for podcasting for the format that I do, it has been an immense joy to me, but kind of tying back to what we've talked about previously of figuring out why you're going to do this podcast.

Hilary Bisenieks (37:58):
Like, you know, I didn't start this podcast because I wanted to win a Hugo award for best fancast—I would love to win a Hugo award for best fancast, iIf you are Hugos Georg who lives in the mountain and whittles 50,000 Hugos a day, please get in touch with me, I'd love one of those. But like I do this podcast to connect with people like me first and foremost, and the response that I've gotten from the podcast over time, you know, like if you're just in it for watching numbers go up on a graph, like good luck with that. But it's not, it's a long game.

Rekka (38:45):
Yeah.

Hilary Bisenieks (38:45):
Uh, especially if you don't have name recognition, but if you're in it for like the moments of personal connection, when somebody finds your podcast and tweets at you and says, "I just stumbled on this podcast. And it's the most amazing thing for me," or, you know, you hear that one of your friends who had started listening to your podcast is talking about, like, "I think this is the best podcast for a working writer and you should absolutely be checking it out if you want to be a writer." Like those are, those are the things that have really made it worthwhile in the long term.

Kaelyn (39:26):
Yeah. The incredibly gratifying moments of this. Well, then I'm gonna finish this off with, with a question let's, let's get in that TARDIS and go back to to little—

Rekka (39:40):
I don't have my piano wire ready. I didn't know we were doing this.

Kaelyn (39:45):
So, you know, previous, younger, wiser, less, less jaded Hilary, you know, what would you have told yourself?

Hilary Bisenieks (39:56):
Oh gosh. Um, so from a process level, I would've said get a macro pad or a dedicated keyboard to make your editing flow easier. Uh, I edited the first like five episodes—I think I edited the whole first season—with like just constantly going back and forth between keyboard and mouse and having to remember a million different shortcuts. But because I was only putting out an episode a month, I didn't, they weren't sticking in muscle memory as quickly as some other things, but I have a macro tab now that just has like a knob that zooms in and out, and a dedicated save button, and dedicated buttons for all of the things I do regularly for the show. And just physically, that makes it a lot easier for me. The other thing I would have said is just like, be open, be open to what this is going to bring, because it's not ,like whatever you're expecting, it's not going to be that it's going to be it's whole own thing.

Hilary Bisenieks (41:15):
Like I, I set out to make a single season and that was, at partway through the season, I was like, "Oh, I think I can do this again. I think I can produce 12 more episodes." Here I am now, having produced almost because I started doubling up for the pandemic. But boy, I wasn't expecting to make the friends that I've made through doing this podcast that, um, you know, I wasn't expecting to actually meet like strangers to me during the podcast where like I have friends who said to me, "Hey, I think this person would be an amazing guest for you. Would you like me to link you up with them?" So just like being open that open to that and being open to it being as much about the process as about the product, but like I finish recording a podcast episode or I finish editing a podcast episode—I didn't think I would enjoy editing—but I finished recording or editing just like grinning ear to ear because, you know, for the last hour, hour and a half, I was just shooting the shit with a friend.

Kaelyn (42:41):
And you've made a thing out of it now.

Hilary Bisenieks (42:43):
Yeah. It's my schtick now, which is great. I didn't know that was going to be the thing. I was just like, "I want to have people come on and read their trunked stuff cause I think that that will be cool." And it's turned into this whole thing of like, it's a conversation where I get to like invite you into my recording studio and just like share this very, almost intimate conversation just between two friends for an hour.

Rekka (43:16):
That's part of the draw of it, I think is this, you hear other people's podcasts and they're having such a nice time just having a conversation. The one that comes to mind other than obviously the trunk cast is, um, David Tennant Does a Podcast With, which are, you know, the same sort of thing. David Tennant has a conversation with someone who is, might be an actor, might be a writer, you know, some kind of performer. And they kind of just talk about all sorts of stuff. And, um, it has that same intimate, you know, like they're having a phone call and we just happen to be able to hear it kind of thing. It's very cool. And I love that. I'm starting to like look for that now. And it's probably the loneliness of, you know, this isolated—

Kaelyn (43:59):
My favorite ones are the ones where I can tell that the people on it are actually friends and like each other and look forward to getting together to record these. Um, you know, I, I like that dynamic and I, like Rekka said, you know, I feel like I'm just getting to listen to some friends talk about something that is interesting to me.

Hilary Bisenieks (44:22):
Yeah. Yeah. I will say that one of my inspirations of like, yeah, I could do this was listening to Be The Serpent, it's just three friends goofin' for an hour. And like I started the show before the pandemic, but there was definitely an element for me of like, "Oh, they have like, that is like genuine friends doing a friendship," you know, in a performative way.

Rekka (44:55):
They have an outline, but they are definitely, yeah.

Hilary Bisenieks (44:56):
Yeah they have an outline, but like, it was still like, you know, "I want to have what they're having."

Kaelyn (45:03):
Yeah. And I think there's a lot of people that, you know, kind of get started in, in this because it's like, I'm getting to see all of these great things that I really like and want to be a part of in some way. So which, you know, hey, if you've got, you know, if you've got a good friend that you enjoy doing this with and want to, uh, you know, start, that's, that's like I said, those are my favorite podcasts to listen to.

Rekka (45:28):
But if you're forcing it, people will be able to hear that too. It'll be more work for you. It'll be, you know, laborious, to listen to.

Kaelyn (45:35):
It won't be enjoyable. Yeah. Final, final thoughts, everyone. Should she start a podcast?

Rekka (45:41):
Okay. I'm going to turn this around on you before we do final thoughts, Kaelyn, for the TARDIS, what would you tell yourself?

Kaelyn (45:47):
Oh God,

Rekka (45:48):
Because this is about all of us now, you know, like this is, this is a conversation about, we all ended up podcasting. How did that happen? And, um, you can be honest if you have regrets.

Kaelyn (45:58):
No, no, I certainly, I certainly don't have regrets. What I would tell myself is first, start having guests on earlier. Um, I think we got so excited with all of the stuff we wanted to talk about that we sort of neglected, you know, what I think has become some of our better, you know, well, not better, but best episodes with, uh, you know, when we have.

Rekka (46:19):
"Not better, but best" I like that.

Kaelyn (46:19):
Well no, like the, the fun ones where like, you know, we have a really nice conversation is, you know, where we've had, where we've had guests on. Um, I would also say, you know, there, there's a couple little things in like past episodes and of course you can look back on this and go, "Oh, that was wrong. That was wrong." Where, um, my, my regrets are primarily centered around myself and times that I thought I maybe wasn't conveying information as succinctly. In general, I would make someone else do this now, as was the original plan. No, I'm joking. I really enjoy this. I have a lot of fun getting talked to Rekka, uh, you know, and, um, especially when I used to get to go visit her, you know, before, uh, when people still used to travel places. Yeah. I think, I think most of my, my look-backs kind of stem from," I should have said this in this episode, or I should have explained this more clearly." Um, part of me would say, you know, go back and have more of a like succinct timeline of like start to finish here as was my original plan. But I think in some ways it's better to jump around a little bit, you know? So it's not like, "Hey, we did this initial run of this, and now we're like scrounging for, you know, other things to talk about." Like, I like that we kind of, you know, spread this out and it's not like a exact chronology of how, uh—

Rekka (47:37):
Yeah, like, sorry we already talked about agents. We can't go back. Now. This isn't an audio book where there was a chapter on agents and then middle of chapter 12, you're talking about agents again.

Kaelyn (47:47):
Yeah, yeah. Um, so Rekka, what, uh, what's in your TARDIS?

Rekka (47:51):
Well I have the privilege of, um, having already done two podcasts before this one.

Kaelyn (47:57):
Yeah. And to interrupt Rekka real quickly here. My list would be a lot longer if Rekka hadn't been involved in this because.

Rekka (48:05):
I got to learn a lot of mistakes for you.

Kaelyn (48:06):
Yeah. Rekka just shepherded me through this whole thing. And I was like, "maybe this" she's like, "yeah, I did that. And it made me start pulling my hair out. Let's not do that."

Hilary Bisenieks (48:17):
Oh no.

Rekka (48:17):
Yeah. Um, so in my first podcast, um, one, we recorded weekly and we recorded on Monday and it was up on Wednesday. Um, the only part of that, that I regret is just how constant the need to be like tuned into it was. Um, we did have an audio producer for that podcast, so somebody was editing it for us. Um, but then I learned that I needed to, uh, double check everything.

Hilary Bisenieks (48:47):
Oh no.

Rekka (48:47):
So somebody was editing and then I would be like, "ah, yeah, no, that's, um, that needs to be edited. Could you please take this out" where we are clearly saying this is going to get edited out? Like, you know, um,

Hilary Bisenieks (49:00):
Not in a jokey way.

Rekka (49:00):
Not in a jokey way. Um, so as I have learned many times in my life, if you want something done, right, do it yourself. Or if you want something done to your own standards, do it yourself. Which is not to say I haven't made mistakes or missed things that could have been edited out, but like, you know, nothing obvious, hopefully.

Rekka (49:18):
Um, and then, uh, so I would go, well, I did, with this one, we went biweekly and, um, we plan things out in advance. We had, um, generally a list of ideas and Kaelyn would come up basically for a weekend. So we'd get, you know, a batch of them ready, and then we'd edit them kind of one at a time to stay ahead of, uh, putting them out there. Uh, another thing that I regret not doing in my first podcast was, uh, providing transcripts for accessibility reasons and also search engine optimization. Once again, accessibility improves everyone's life. So, um, you get those keyword hits if you have every word that you said in your podcast available for a text reader to scan, um, in addition to the benefit it provides to humanity. So I'm very glad that we've been doing transcripts for this podcast.

Rekka (50:10):
And, um, I definitely definitely like that. And then a microphone set up for multiple people in one room. Yeah. We did a lot of experimenting with various microphones and, um, having to rerecord episodes a couple of times and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, there's always something to learn with the technology and it's never going to behave even when you think you've got it down. And, um, um, if you can podcast with a co-host that you can like go to have smoked barbecue, like do it, that's how I recommend doing it. It's definitely like my first podcast co-host was from Texas, but I never got barbecue as a result of being on that podcast. This podcast has gotten me much more pork belly and brisket.

Kaelyn (50:50):
And jars of bacon.

Rekka (50:52):
And bacon in jars. Yes. But, you know, like, did I think that podcasting was going to increase my readership? Um, I think I did think that originally. Um, but I, you know, obviously I've learned that, cause that was my point earlier is, you know, know what you think you're going to get out of it and know who you're talking to. So that would be something that I would have gone back and told baby Rekka, for sure.

Kaelyn (51:22):
So, all right. Then final thoughts here around the table. Should you start a podcast?

Hilary Bisenieks (51:29):
Maybe.

Rekka (51:29):
Maybe.

Kaelyn (51:29):
I was going to say maybe too.

Rekka (51:31):
I think that makes it a hundred percent accurate response.

Kaelyn (51:34):
Yeah, Yeah, absolutely.

Rekka (51:36):
I mean, only you know.

Kaelyn (51:38):
Yeah. I would say maybe if you go into it with the expectation of, I'm not expecting too much of this and if it doesn't go anywhere, then it's a fun hobby.

Rekka (51:47):
Yeah. And then, so the next episode will be, "do you need three podcasts?" The co-host I mentioned that, um, was my co-host on Hybrid Author Podcast, uh, had five podcasts at the time and was recording a podcast episode every night, sometimes two a day, uh, to stay on top of that. So like when he, when he ran out of time to do one, he, it was, you know, he'd obviously run out of time to do all of them. So that was a very sudden collapse of his podcasting world and social life. Cause then, you know, you're not talking to your friends all the time. Oh. And I would say, go find a friend to do it with. It makes it a lot more fun.

Kaelyn (52:20):
I was going to say, I mean, when I podcast, I get to talk to my friends a lot. So, you know, that's, that's definitely a benefit for us.

Rekka (52:28):
And make new ones.

Kaelyn (52:29):
Yes. So speaking of new friends, Hilary, where can people find you online?

Hilary Bisenieks (52:34):
Uh, folks can find me on Twitter @hbbisenieks that's H B B I S E N I E K S, where I am.

Kaelyn (52:45):
We'll have that in the shownotes.

Hilary Bisenieks (52:45):
Perfect, where you will find me shitposting about a lot of different things. Um, sometimes it's technology, sometimes it's writing, lately for completely mysterious reasons, it's been Philadelphia, uh, and you can find my podcast Tales from the Trunk, wherever you buy fine podcasts. Uh, it should be available on all the major podcasting platforms. Uh, so, you know, do me a solid leave me a review, all that good stuff. Uh, you can also find my links to all my writing at hilarybisenieks.com

Kaelyn (53:26):
Great. Thanks so much. Well, thank you for coming on. We, you know, this was really great. Um, you know, it's, it's, uh, slightly off topic for writing and publishing podcast, but I think we just determined not really.

Hilary Bisenieks (53:42):
Mm-hmm. Completely on topic.

Kaelyn (53:42):
Yes. So, well, thank you. We really enjoyed talking to you and, uh, you know, definitely check out Tales from the Trunk. It's, um, if nothing else you get to hear a nice story.

Rekka (53:51):
Yeah.

Hilary Bisenieks (53:51):
Absolutely. Thank you so, so much again this was super fun.

Kaelyn (53:55):
Thank you, this was fun.

Rekka (53:55):
Thanks for coming on.

Rekka (54:13):
Thanks everyone for joining us for another episode of We Make Books. If you have any questions that you want answered in future episodes, or just have questions in general, remember, you can find us on Twitter at @WMBcast, same for Instagram, or WMBcast.com. If you find value in the content that we provide, we would really appreciate your support at patreon.com/WMBcast. If you can't provide financial support, we totally understand. And what you could really do to help us is spread the word about this podcast. You can do that by sharing a particular episode with a friend who can find it useful, or if you leave a rating and review at iTunes, it will feed that algorithm and help other people find our podcast, too. Of course, you can always retweet our episodes on Twitter. Thank you so much for listening and we will talk to you soon.

Tuesday Nov 03, 2020

Episode 47 - Let Us Tell You About "Show Don't Tell"

Tuesday Nov 03, 2020

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

We Make Books is a podcast for writers and publishers, by writers and publishers and we want to hear from our listeners! Send us your questions, comments, and concerns!

We hope you enjoy We Make Books!

Episode 47: Let Us Tell You About Show Don't Tell

(Our usual transcriptionist is taking a well-deserved break. Any drop in quality of today's transcript is totally our fault.)

Rekka (00:00):
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of we make books, a show about writing publishing and everything in between. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press.

Rekka (00:08):
And I'm Rekka. I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore.

Rekka (00:11):
And you know what you've done? You have shown us that you write science fiction and fantasy as RJ. Theodore, you have not just told us

Rekka (00:18):
Although today I did just tell you.

Rekka (00:20):
You did just tell me now, but I mean, the books exist. I've seen them. So you've shown us that, but you have also talked at length about different parts and aspects of how you've written these and things that have happened to you, therefore showing us that you wrote them.

Rekka (00:34):
Or did I just tell you all this stuff? I don't know. What does this rule mean anyway?

Rekka (00:41):
Yeah. So today we're, we're tackling another one of those,uthose weird, funny little notes that you get from,ueditors and people critiquing your work. And you'll see, "show me, don't tell me" and –

Rekka (00:52):
Really frustrating because everyone says it and assumes you know what they mean, but if you haven't really processed what it means, or you haven't managed to do it and have someone say, "yes, that's what I mean by show, don't tell," like you just feel a little bit lost. You feel like maybe you are falling behind in the class kind of thing. Like why does everyone know what this means? And I still don't understand?

Rekka (01:16):
It is difficult, but I think it's one of those things that once you kind of figure out, it's a lot easier to understand what the note means. What, you know, we're trying to get at here is describing something to the reader and making the sentence do a lot of– do work in more than one way is a lot more interesting to read than just a list of descriptions, actions, emotions, or feelings.

Rekka (01:41):
If you at least identify when you're doing it in the revisions that's going to go a long way to improving your relationship with beta readers and editors later.

Rekka (01:51):
And improving your relationship with your characters, because we're going to talk a lot about that in this episode too. So–

Rekka (01:56):
All right. So let's not tell you what the episode is.

Rekka (01:59):
Let's show you!

Rekka (02:00):
On the other side of the music.

Kaelyn (02:17):
In this case, we're here mostly just to tell people things. If we just record this while showing things to each other, it's not going to be very,

Rekka (02:25):
What we're showing is our competence with writing skills and techniques

Kaelyn (02:30):
Ah okay.

Rekka (02:31):
And demonstrating, Ooh, maybe that's it. Okay. I solved it. Don't call it. Show don't tell because that confuses people show, call it demonstrate don't elucidate. Rolls right off the tongue.

Kaelyn (02:44):
Oh goodness. That's going on a mug somewhere. So yeah, but today we're, we're talking about one of the other great notes that people frequently get back from editors and agents, which is "show me, don't tell me I, I will, I think this is not as quote-unquote unhelpful as, you know, "tighten your storylines, work on your character arcs," that kind of thing. Um.

Rekka (03:12):
But it's one of the ones that people get early on in their writing because it's supposed to be so helpful, but if you haven't come across it and you don't know how to identify why it's being pointed out in your work, like what the heck does it mean?

Kaelyn (03:30):
Yeah. So there's, you know, before we, before we get started in too deep into this, let's kind of define some of the areas that we're talking about here. And it's funny because Rekka and I were talking about doing this episode and we both came to this with kind of different approaches to the show. Don't tell me like, things that were important to Ned,uwhile doing some research, I kind of discovered that what Rekka and I both think is important. Most of the literary world doesn't think is as important.

Rekka (03:57):
Well, we are genre-focused.

Kaelyn (04:00):
Yeah. Exactly.

Rekka (04:00):
That just supports that.

Kaelyn (04:02):
Yeah. So I came into this with like one of my big pet show me, don't tell me a pet peeves is characters. Urecords is world-building and,I–

Rekka (04:13):
It's not even that it was that you said characters first. So I said, Oh, okay. But also "world building." It wasn't like, I was like, "No, world building first!" This wasn't like a showdown.

Kaelyn (04:22):
It's always a showdown.

Rekka (04:22):
It was a telldown. I'll show myself out.

Kaelyn (04:28):
All right. That's the podcast, everyone. We're done.

Rekka (04:30):
Like forever. She can't take it anymore.

Kaelyn (04:34):
Oh God. Okay. but it's funny because then when I was doing research on this and most of these "show me, don't tell me examples. And what everybody's talking about is more of writing and prose and style. So the point of all of it is nobody wants to be bombarded with facts and told "this is the way things are in this book" without actually experiencing it while reading it. One it's bad storytelling and two it's disorienting,

Rekka (05:04):
But if they're reading it, aren't they experiencing it?

Kaelyn (05:07):
Well, no, they're not because that's not experiencing it, that's just being read a list of facts and statements.

Rekka (05:14):
I know I'm playing devil's advocate in case you didn't tell.

Kaelyn (05:18):
I know. Um so why is this a problem?

Rekka (05:23):
Because you bore your reader, you don't engage them. You don't pull them through the book.

Kaelyn (05:27):
Yeah. This is one of those things that, and we rarely, you know, kind of come down to this it's bad writing. It's like, I mean, really, you know, we don't, we don't talk too much about like, you know, universally accepted things that are considered bad writing, but this is one of them because as Rekka said, it's boring, it is not engaging. It's not pulling the reader into the book. Anyone can sit here and rattle off a list of, you know, facts about like the, you know, the kitchen table that had sitting at right now, it was brown and round. Light brown with wood patterns on it. It was made of wood. And that's not really interesting. It distracts from the story. It doesn't paint a scene. It doesn't give you any indication of how the character is feeling or interacting, or considering how to act based on their surroundings or their thoughts. It's bad writing. And it's well, not always lazy, but oftentimes lazy.

Rekka (06:30):
But it's also not serving a purpose other than to describe the table. And if the table itself doesn't have anything to do with the tension you're trying to build in a scene or inform you what this character might be like, because you know, you're discussing the furnishings of their house, which describes the character. Maybe more than just saying the character can afford lots of nice furniture. You know.

Kaelyn (06:58):
The, every everything, well, the vast majority of what you write in your book should be serving two purposes. If a monster erupts out of the ground to try to eat our heroes and you have to stop the action and the story to describe the monster, that's serving two purposes. One, you want to describe the monster. You want to know what the heroes are about to fight against, but two, you want them to know how scary this monster is. So the words you use, you don't just say, "it looked like a centipede. It was purple. It had a lot of legs and weird green eyes with lots of facets on them. Venom was dripping off its fangs." Actually "venom was dripping off its fangs" is a good example of what, how to describe it. But instead of stating facts about it, what you should be doing instead is, you know, "the creature erupted out of the ground, spraying rock and sand everywhere. Once they cleared the dust from their eyes, they beheld the monster before them. It was a towering behemoth of," you know, and go on like that, because what you're doing is you're showing that the readers are, or excuse me, that the heroes are freed here. And then you also don't have to tell us that they're afraid.

Rekka (08:09):
I was just going to say well can't you sum it up and say the monster burst forth from the ground and scared the heroes?

Kaelyn (08:14):
Absolutely. If you don't want anyone to know what the monster looks like. Yeah.

Rekka (08:19):
Yeah. So you would use this to do both things, show that the person is scared and the reaction without having to say this is their reaction and do the thing that you'd really like to do, which is, I assume if you're creating a monster as you want to get into what the monster looks like and the creature design.

Kaelyn (08:35):
Yeah. So in this case you know, what we're kind of talking about here is the last thing I brought up, which is sort of like the style and prose and writing technique of, you know, making your sentences do extra work for you. You're describing the monster and then you're also establishing that it is threatening and our heroes are afraid of it to, you know, circle back to some of the other ones that Rekka and I came up with here. You know, well Rekka you know, had specifically said world-building.

Rekka (09:05):
Yeah, well, mostly because when you have a genre book, you've got some sort of aspect of the world that you've invented from whole cloth. And of course, you're very proud of that. And of course you want to talk about it. And this isn't to say, like, there's the whole iceberg theory thing, and I'm not going to go into that. That's not what I mean by this. But the idea that you want to keep the book interesting, which means you need to keep the motivation of the reader of wanting to find out what happens next. If you're just describing a setting in your world. Well, it doesn't matter what happens next. That setting is probably unaffected by the plot and the story. And the time you take away from keeping that reader in the story is detrimental to their, you know, their draw into the whole world.

Rekka (10:01):
So even though you think like, "Oh, my world is so cool. I have to get all this in here." Your reader cares less and less about the world when you keep interrupting the story to tell them about it. So just like Katelyn was saying, do two things with your sentences, you know, throw a little bit of your world building into an action. That's happening in the story. You know, passing the,uneon ice cream shop where all the ice cream was neon of course is what I mean. Not that it's painted neon. That's ridiculous. You know, so like build your world building in the same way that you're going to build your emotional reactions to things in and your physical descriptions of things. So in the sense, your first example kind of was world building. Ubut it was also emotional. And so your sentences need to do at least two things. So they can be emotion and world building or action and world building, or action and emotion, or character and world like, you know, mixing match. Don't just have nouns and verbs in the right order.

Kaelyn (11:03):
Yeah. So, and then my, my particular pet peeve with the show me don't tell me is is character related. I hate reading books, I hate getting submissions, where all I'm reading about is how a character is. So this and guys, this character, they are just, so This Thing, this, that they're, so This, that it's practically coming out of their ears. Everyone knows that they're, they're, This they're just the most This that there is. And then you see nothing in their actions, thoughts, or speech that would indicate that aside from the author and then usually other characters around them telling you this.

Rekka (11:42):
Reinforcing it in a very direct and obvious way.

Kaelyn (11:45):
Yeah. So it's that's, that's one of that is my big show me don't tell me pet peeve is,uif you know, you've got a guy who's supposed to be like the most brilliant, I don't know codebreaker in the entire world, but we don't actually see him break any codes and that's not part of the plot, why is that, you know, why do you need me to tell to know this? Why is that important here? And,uubut you know, there's, there's things that I think you get a little more and you see this a lot in,uyoung adult and teen novels where,uyou know, you want the cool kid, the shy kid, the goth kid, the, you know, where we get these sort of like emotional angles and none of them are actually then displayed in the writing of the character. Uso why... You know, apart from why is this important? Why, why is it bad writing?

Rekka (12:45):
Good writing is something that someone can enjoy. So if they're not enjoying it– you know, like, okay, across the board, not everyone is going to enjoy every story, but there are things you can do to increase your chances that someone's going to enjoy the story. And one of those things is to control, for example, the pacing and the immersion of the reader in the world. And when you tell someone something, rather than show it to them, you're kind of saying, "No, no, no, no, just trust me on this," without providing the proof. Exactly. And so it's hard for a person to sink into that world and enjoy it if they're constantly thinking, "Well, okay, you say that, but where I, like, what does that mean to this character? Or what does that, how is that going to impact the story or anything like that?"

Kaelyn (13:36):
Yeah. And I think that where this comes from a lot is this, especially, you know, in genre fiction, like, you know, Rebecca and I work in is "I've come up with this really cool thing, and I need everybody to know all about it. I need them to know about how awesome this world is or how scary this monster is or how cool and bad-ass my main character is."

Rekka (14:00):
Well we do want to know these things.

Kaelyn (14:02):
Yes, absolutely. But "if I tell them over and over again, they'll get it," and that is not how you get a reader to internalize things, readers, internalize things by the actions of the characters or the interaction with the world around them.

Rekka (14:18):
Do you think this is kind of, and I hate this phrase, is this just like a "rookie mistake" where they know they need to convince somebody of this, or they know they need to include this. They just don't know how to go about doing it properly?

Kaelyn (14:30):
Yeah. And I think it is. I think it's something that you see a lot with new and emerging writers, where you've just got all of these amazing ideas coming out of your ears and you've just, you know, gotta gather them all up and get them on a page. And so what it turns into is just, you know, a list of reasons why this thing is how you say it is rather than seeing people you know, either display those characteristics or seeing the world, or even just the way that you're writing. So a lot of times, you know, as we said, when you, you're going to get into, if you Google, you know, "show me, don't tell me" it's going to be pages and pages of you know, examples and literature and all of these famous quotes and stuff about it. But it goes beyond just style and the ability and the way that you write. Within the story itself, you can't, you know, make a character a certain way by having everyone else around them insist they are that way, but them showing no signs of that whatsoever.

Rekka (15:41):
So I'm going to give an example with Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, because when you think about Scrooge, you tend to think like, "Oh, well he's a cheapskate." I mean, the name is synonymous with cheapskate. This is a thing Dickens did. He made stuff pretty clear just by the way he named people. His story is about his character arc. You think about it, and you're like, "yeah, no, people are pretty clear that Ebenezer's really awful." And you can say "Ebenezer's is really awful," if you were writing the story or you can describe him as "the cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled, his cheek, stiffened, his gait made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grading voice." Like–

Kaelyn (16:27):
Yeah, that's good writing that.

Rekka (16:29):
Yeah. And I'm not a huge Dickens fan. He got paid by the word. And so he did go on, but like he was described, he described Scrooge as "a squeezing wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching covetous, old sinner." Like these are descriptive things but they're adding so much. Right? And then not only that, but the character behaves in such a manner. You're not just told this, but he says, you know, when people come to him and this is what you're saying about like the character supporting like, "Oh, just saying, Oh, you're an old miser, Scrooge," no people come to him looking for charitable handouts for the holidays. As, you know, as being established as, as good and wholesome and Scrooge says, "are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" Like, he has an argument with people that shows how you might expect a person to behave and how this person is behaving in contradiction to that. And so it's just like a really,

Kaelyn (17:34):
No, that's.

Rekka (17:34):
It's rich. Like the way that, you know, this is, this is seven layers of Scrooge-ness that you get out of these, these, these words that are chosen. And so like in some ways it's good that he was paid by the word.

Kaelyn (17:46):
Most people in the English speaking world, even if they haven't read a Christmas Carol or seen one of the movies, which by the way, the Muppet version of it is, is the best one. Michael Kane, as Scrooge, there should be no other Scrooges ever.

Rekka (18:01):
Certainly not Jim Carey.

Kaelyn (18:03):
Most people know when somebody says like, Oh God, he's a Scrooge. Or, you know, like call you Scrooge. They,

Rekka (18:11):
It's an idiom now.

Kaelyn (18:11):
Yes, exactly. Because this was so effective in the writing. So that's a really, really good example of why this is important. Going back to, you know, like new writers and just wanting to get this stuff out there. I just think that information dumps, this insisting upon– the characters that insist upon themselves, is really distracting from the story.

Rekka (18:37):
Because you can feel it's the writer doing the insisting.

Kaelyn (18:40):
Yes. It makes you not like the characters. And I'm not saying every character in your book needs to be loved and cheered for, but you usually need at least one to love and cheer for or everyone's going to have a really hard time getting through the book.

Rekka (18:53):
Yeah. And I'm dealing with that in some of the TV shows I'm watching right now. There are so many important characters, but you at least understand their motivations, even if you don't like them or want to spend any time in their presence.

Kaelyn (19:06):
Did you just finished The Boys, Rekka?

Rekka (19:08):
I might have, yes. There's no one left to root for almost. But the, the idea of you insisting, "Mary Sue–"

Kaelyn (19:20):
Yeah, let's lean in here.

Rekka (19:20):
"Was So beautiful. Everyone loved her and she looked great in everything she wore." That's, that's great, but I'm not getting anything out of that.

Kaelyn (19:32):
Well, also, do you see what just happened there? You're not developing a character. You're giving me a list of qualities and traits about them.

Rekka (19:41):
This is like a job application.

Kaelyn (19:43):
Yeah, exactly. Let's use Bella from the Twilight series.

Rekka (19:49):
I think she's a prime example of this.

Kaelyn (19:51):
Yes. So you know, for those of you who have not read this or have not seen the movies and I, dear God, Kirsten Stewart Um so one of the really common critiques of the Twilight books apart from, you know, like apart from the "dear God, why?" Was, you know, on, a literary level that Bella is an empty vessel and there's debate as to whether or not this was the intention of the author, you know, that she'd just come off as like a very plain uninteresting character with very little personality to speak of, so that young girls reading this could, you know, easily put themselves into, you know, relate to her and say, "I am just like Bella." But what is really infuriating about this character and full disclosure—I have read all of these books. I haven't read the most recent one because why would I, at this point Um one of the things that, you know, a lot of people pointed out about this that is a legitimate critique of Twilight apart from the fact that these are vampires that don't catch fire the sun, but that's fine. It's, it's fine. We don't actually see Bella do too much that would establish her personality. If you took out the fact that this is written from her perspective. And even despite the fact that it's written from her perspective, there isn't a whole lot going on with this girl. She doesn't have a whole ton of defining characteristics other than the fact that she's in love with a vampire. That is her entire personality. We're told things like she's very smart, she's very accident prone. She's very you know, she's a hard worker.

Kaelyn (21:38):
She's really loyal. The loyalty one, maybe we see a little bit, but I'm not sure if it's loyalty or obsession. One of the running jokes through the whole book is how accident prone she is. I, I could not come up with anything other than sometimes she bumps into people in the hallway there, so this is a good example of, you know, show me, don't tell me where and granted, here's the thing: this may have been deliberate on the part of the author, even though I said, I haven't read the newest one. So,ushe re-wrote the first book from the perspective of the shiny vampire boyfriend. Okay. Uso you're getting everything from his angle and you know what, for the sake of this podcast now, I think I'm going to have to go read this book because it would be very interesting to see Bella from outside Bella, and whether or not she seems to have a personality. And I think that's exactly what this book is. So now.. Dammit, Now I've gotta go read this book.

Rekka (22:41):
Well you don't HAVE to.

Kaelyn (22:43):
No. I have to, for the sake of science. Bella, I think is a good example of in terms of characters, "show me, don't tell me" because we just keep hearing all this stuff about her without ever actually seeing her be anything except pretty much completely passive aside from acting dramatically and irrationally when it comes to Shiny Vampire Boyfriend.

Rekka (23:05):
And you say, this is an effective tool to rope in a certain kind of reader. But it seems to me that if you write a compelling character, you're going to rope in a reader of any type.

Kaelyn (23:18):
I would hope so because here's the thing, there were, she was surrounded by compelling characters, everything around her was far more interesting than she was.

Rekka (23:26):
And it was just rubbing off on her, was that the idea?

Kaelyn (23:29):
I GUESS. You know, like I didn't, I remember talking about this with someone and they were like, "I don't understand why, you know, girls, like all of these young girls love this book so much. Like, I mean the main character is like so boring." And I said, "they're not reading it for her, the reading it for the love triangle, the reading it for Hot Werewolf Guy and Shiny Vampire Boy."

Rekka (23:49):
Yeah.

Kaelyn (23:49):
Um Bella's just a vessel to carry that story along in all of this.

Rekka (23:56):
It just seems like it could also be done effectively with someone who is not an empty vessel.

Kaelyn (24:00):
Absolutely. And that's the better story.

Rekka (24:04):
Okay. So getting back to the "show, don't tell," don't don't take too much to heart from the gobs and gobs of money that the Twilight series has made. Please. We would hate for you to go down that dark and disturbing path.

Kaelyn (24:16):
–To Make a lot of money off–

Rekka (24:19):
Look, if, if that's what you enjoy reading and that's how you liked your characters... I guess?

Kaelyn (24:23):
Hey, you know what, look, everybody like knocked Twilight for a lot of stuff. If that's just something you enjoy sitting down and reading and kind of, you know, mindlessly, or in a very engaged way, going through. Awesome. That's great. But Bella is a good example of characters that we were told about rather than shown.

Rekka (24:42):
Okay. So getting back to the, the origins of this, when it's handed out as advice and who's handing it out as advice and where does it come from? Where's it supposed to take you and how do you want a new writer to interpret the phrase?

Kaelyn (25:02):
So if I tell somebody, I never just put, you know, highlight something and say, "show don't tell me," I always put a note next to there saying like, "Hey instead of you telling me about how, you know, sharp, this sword is, have the character pick it up and slice something in half." That's way more interesting than, you know, just staring at this sword and describing it in great detail.

Rekka (25:27):
Although a little irresponsible.

Kaelyn (25:28):
Well, it depends what you're slicing in half. You know, if there was a watermelon that you were about to eat anyway, then sure. You know,

Rekka (25:34):
Yeah but the sword doesn't deserve to be used as cutlery!

Kaelyn (25:38):
Depends on the sword.

Rekka (25:39):
Okay. So two characters arguing over whether or not they can use the sword to cut the watermelon. "I'm Not saying it won't cut the watermelon. I'm saying that's not an appropriate use of our family's sacred sword."

Rekka (25:49):
"And I'm saying that we all want the watermelon. I see nothing else around except the family sacred sword. Don't you think your family would want us to have the watermelon?"

Rekka (25:56):
"And we'll wash it right away. We'll hang it back on the wall over the hearth. Everyone will just think we polished it. It'll look better. Everyone will be happy."

Kaelyn (26:03):
And then we get watermelon.

Rekka (26:04):
And then later, monsters attack and the edge of the sword is dull because you cut the watermelon with it and everybody dies, the end.

Kaelyn (26:10):
Oh. Very good Rekka. Very good. Yeah. So when I highlight these things, what I'm trying to communicate to the reader really at the core of it is either one, you were slowing down the story or two, you're missing an opportunity to contribute something to the story. Be it, you know, establishing of piece of information we didn't know before, giving the characters a chance to kind of show their feelings or their emotions a little bit you know, having an action rather than a description. The author who wrote Fight Club–

Rekka (26:47):
Palahniuk.

Kaelyn (26:48):
There you go. Chuck Palahniuk. I remember reading something that he wrote and I actually, I did go and look it up before this, and he, to remember doing exactly he said. But he doesn't like what he calls Thought Verbs thinks knows, understands, wants desires. What he's saying instead is make sure you have an Action Word in there.

Kaelyn (27:14):
And by that, like, instead of saying like, you know, "understands," describe what they're understanding. They smelled something and it triggered a memory and they remembered this. They, you know, reach their hand out in the dark and touch something and realized it was the centipede monster from earlier in the story. It ate both of those heroes and unow it's hiding in the dark.

Rekka (27:38):
He's back.

Kaelyn (27:39):
Yeah. He's back, the centipede monster's here forever. So, sensory and action details are a good way to avoid telling people about it because what you're doing then is you're making the character experience something and you're making them relate things to you and have to describe it. You can't just say "Rekka smelled something," you need to say, "Rekka smelled something foul. It made her nervous. It reeked of death." Because now what you're doing is you're describing what Rekka smelled. You're giving us a sense of her emotional state. And you're implying that there is probably a dead body somewhere.

Rekka (28:14):
Right.

Kaelyn (28:15):
So you're setting up the scene.

Rekka (28:17):
And I did find the Lit Reactor article that you're talking about with Chuck Palahniuk's words. And so "instead of characters knowing anything, present details that allow the reader to know those things" is kind of how he phrases it. So instead of a character wanting something, you have to describe the thing so that the reader wants it. In the sense of Twilight, you're putting the character in that main character's shoes, except you're not doing it by making those shoes empty for the reader to step into. You're actually tying them onto the reader's feet yourself.

Kaelyn (28:50):
Okay. That's– There you go. Yeah. And that's exactly what it is, is it's immersive. Every story is told from something's perspective, be it, you know, a super advanced alien life form or a somehow borderline sentient rock. They're both still experiencing things. Now they're experiencing them very differently, but that's your job to communicate in the book, and just telling us what they're experiencing is not immersing the reader. If you're a rock on Mars, just sitting there going "wow, I'm just this rock of Mars. It's really red and dusty here."

Rekka (29:23):
See, I thought you were going for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble when you talked about being a rock.

Kaelyn (29:27):
Oh, that's a good book.

Rekka (29:28):
That's an excellent book.

Kaelyn (29:30):
Scared me when I was a kid.

Rekka (29:31):
Scared you, really?

Kaelyn (29:32):
I don't know. It's just like, so for those of you who haven't read Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, first of all, go, go read that. But it's a story of a donkey who finds a magic pebble.

Rekka (29:43):
I think his parents give it to him. Don't they?

Kaelyn (29:45):
I thought he found it in a Creek and if he holds it and he realizes he can make a wish and the wish will come true. And he's being attacked by a lion at one point, and I'm not sure geographically where takes place.

Rekka (30:00):
It was Oatsdale, of course.

Kaelyn (30:01):
He's being attacked by a lion and wishes that he were a rock because the lion won't attack a rock. Except then he realizes he's dropped the pebble and he's not holding it anymore and he can't wish himself to be back from being a rock. Yeah. And he stays a rock for a really long time.

Rekka (30:17):
Well, that's what I'm saying, this is the point of view of a rock.

Kaelyn (30:20):
Yeah. But no, it's actually really sad because his parents think like he's dead and like go, you know, search for him forever. And like, they keep like standing on top of him to like search for him and sitting on him and crying about him. And it's, it's a really weird children's book. You know, so if you're, you know, as I said, the rock on Mars and you know, it's still dull, dull, boring life. And then all of a sudden robot shows up your prose and your sensory words and your, you know, way that you're experiencing, and the things that you're seeing obviously have to change in order to communicate the excitement of the rock, because "Hey, robot!"

Rekka (30:58):
Which you can't call to or wave to, or walk over to, or offer ice cream to.

Kaelyn (31:03):
Maybe it's going to pick you up to study you.

Rekka (31:07):
If you're lucky.

Kaelyn (31:07):
Yeah. And then what if, you know, you start to fall in love with the robot, but it turns out that it's not actually the robot because it's a bunch of people in NASA controlling the robot, but you don't know that.

Rekka (31:16):
I don't know, the robot's got algorithms.

Kaelyn (31:19):
Yeah. That's true. How do you fix this? How do you avoid falling into this trap? Rekka, have you ever had to kind of reconcile with this?

Rekka (31:29):
I was just thinking like, I wish I'd grabbed the notes, but Ryan Kelley, my editor at Parvus, when we were working on Salvage, one of the things he did was point out a few areas,uwith the one character Emeranth where some opportunities were there that I had missed to make her as clever and as caring and as smart as she could have been. And so his suggestion was something along the lines of like, "this is a great opportunity to show her doing the governing that she's forced into" and that sort of thing.

Kaelyn (32:00):
Yeah. That is something that I frequently make notes of is it's not even, you know, with the writers at this point that I'm getting bored, it's that you're missing an opportunity to have this person do something and, you know, be the bad-ass that you're saying they are. Be the clever person that you're saying they are, the great leader, the great fighter, the coward, you know, any, any number of these things

Rekka (32:23):
He said when he was pointing out a spot that needed showing, not telling he wasn't saying "show don't tell" waggling a finger and then moving on like, "Oh, my job is done. What a good editor I am." He was saying, "I would suggest that you use this to build this character into the character you say they are." And now Emeranth's scenes make me get all, like we be in shivery on the regular. So...

Kaelyn (32:49):
"Show don't tell" helps develop, you know, whether it be like your world building, your character, or just even your writing technique, it's going to give you a more rich style. You know, like at the most basic level you don't say you know, "Stephanie was a selfish immature entitled girl." You write a scene where Stephanie's throwing a fit because everybody forgot to throw a surprise party for her dog's half birthday.

Rekka (33:20):
So we talk about this broadly, we've talked about children's books, we've talked about movies, we've talked about YA books and all kinds of stuff, but are there genres in which this applies less or more like, are there expectations of like, "yeah, no, I actually just want you to get out of my way with this character and let me use them as an avatar for myself in this story."

Kaelyn (33:46):
I don't know if there are, genres where it's acceptable. I'll be honest with you. This is something that I think is pretty universally frowned on. This is one of the few sort of constants. You know, that said, anytime you're writing something, there's going to be instances where you have no choice but to do a little bit of quote-unquote telling you know, be it because maybe it's a really fast-paced scene and you want to keep the reader engaged and you want to keep the action going. So it's, "he parried left. She swiped, right. He ducked, she dodged they've rolled on the ground," you know, like you're.

Rekka (34:20):
But that's action.

Kaelyn (34:21):
Exactly. Yeah.

Rekka (34:22):
It's engaging. And if we're using Chuck Palahniuk's example, like that's exactly where you want to be, is more in the physical. So if you are telling and, but it's action beats, would you say that's better than telling in thought beats?

Kaelyn (34:38):
Absolutely. Yeah.

Rekka (34:39):
Okay. So then my question is, what role in this conversation specifically, would you say adverbs play?

Kaelyn (34:49):
Ooh.

Rekka (34:49):
I feel like there's some bleed in, you know, between the two.

Kaelyn (34:52):
I think adverbs are, like any other thing in life, good in moderation. You know, there's again, and this is another thing that there's a lot of people with very strong opinions about there, about–

Rekka (35:05):
Never ever ever use adverbs.

Kaelyn (35:07):
Yeah. That's impossible.

Rekka (35:09):
Right.

Kaelyn (35:09):
It's simply, it's simply, it's like not ending your sentences with a preposition, it's like just not the way the English language works. So what Rekka's referring to here is, you know, some editors and, you know, people who get all stuffed up about this stuff. Will say, I don't want to see you write "'Oh, you'll see,' Rekka said slyly.'" I want to hear "Rekka closed the laptop and turned to me with a sly smile on her face and a glint in her eye. 'Oh, You'll see,' she said." Notice how I made it not an adverb.

Rekka (35:44):
Yeah. By not connecting it to the say.

Kaelyn (35:46):
Exactly. Yes. And yeah, there is this little kind of weird nebulous area there where like, you're like, "well, I'm describing what she's doing. It's, it's kind of an action." But at the same time, you're telling me what she's doing, rather than showing me with a sly smile on her face.

Rekka (36:05):
That's I would point out that in the, the example, your quote-unquote correction, we also have things that ground us in the space. And so one, a person who might feel the need to tell you what everyone is thinking might also feel the need to show all the actions in the right order, what hand they're using. Like "she used her left hand to close the door while she scratched her nose with her right, with the fingertips of her right hand," you know, like being very specific about everything.

Kaelyn (36:36):
Yeah. That's interesting that you bring this up because what you're doing now is you're crossing into a different literary problem. We are past the "show, don't tell" and we are into the "excessively detailed for absolutely no reason."

Rekka (36:47):
And we will maybe talk about that in another episode.

Kaelyn (36:49):
Yes. But that is, that is a good point. Is that there is a certain, you know– we get past a certain telling like capacity and into the you're now describing the placement of every single thing in the room for no reason.

Rekka (37:05):
This is a game of twister.

Kaelyn (37:05):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Rekka (37:07):
But what you did was you combined the two things to say, like, we've moved ahead with the story because the laptop has been closed or maybe "Rekka closed the laptop and grabbed her jacket. 'You'll See.'" That implies movement.

Kaelyn (37:21):
Yes. But you're leaving is she being threatening?

Rekka (37:25):
I wasn't going so much for the sly as talking about like trying to get more action in, in that sense.

Kaelyn (37:29):
Yeah, exactly.

Rekka (37:30):
In the case of being sly, then you might say "Rekka closed the laptop, grabbed her jacket and narrowed her eyes as she shut the lights off. 'You'll See.'" Or whatever.

Kaelyn (37:39):
Yeah. So yeah. Are there times where you have to, you will have to tell rather than show? Absolutely. Are adverbs a never use them? No, I mean, you will, at some point have to use an adverb, but they are a slippery slope to telling, not showing, even though they sound like you're doing a good job of describing something, they're really telling rather than describing,

Rekka (38:00):
They are skipping the cues that we want in the story and they are jumping right to the judgment. So what you're doing is you're telling the reader how to feel rather than making them feel that. But one thing you did mention earlier, real quick, that I just wanted to get back to before we wrap this up, is the idea of a fast paced scene where there's a lot of action and maybe you've just, you know, watched a Jason Statham movie and you feel like you need to really show all that action and show and describe the, say, like train– underground train tunnel they're in while they're running around chasing each other. But if stopping to describe the space they're in means that you lose that momentum, then it may still be in the physical, but it could also be more telling than we need. You know, "I nearly slipped on a loose piece of old soggy newspaper" or something like that. That's still–

Kaelyn (39:02):
Gross.

Rekka (39:02):
That brings you back into the action, increases the threat because you could fall down now, versus like "the train station had been abandoned since 1970, despite many attempts by the local politicians to renovate and drum up support for a Renaissance of the train museum, which was founded by so-and-so."

Kaelyn (39:24):
Yeah, Exactly.

Rekka (39:26):
That's world building!

Kaelyn (39:27):
We don't need to know all of that.

Rekka (39:29):
That doesn't serve your action scene with Jason Statham, who's got to get in that train car and then take off his sweater and use it to defeat his enemies.

Kaelyn (39:36):
Yeah. Because unless the enemy he's defeating is the corrupt politician that was siphoning money out of the budget to restore the train station. All we need to know is that has been abandoned for about 50 years.

Rekka (39:46):
Yeah. And some gross newspaper will communicate that better than a history lesson.

Kaelyn (39:51):
Just to round this out. You know, somebody comes back to you and is like, Hey, show me, don't tell me you're kind of going, "Oh, well, what the heck do I do with this?" Take a look at the sentence or the paragraph in particular that they're calling attention to and try– read it out loud, try to figure out if it sounds like the paragraph or the sentence is doing double work to you. Is it conveying more than simple statements of fact or very straightforward descriptions of what people are doing or how they appear or a feeling?

Rekka (40:24):
Is it a list of judgements of a thing versus list of evidence to support that judgment?

Kaelyn (40:30):
Yeah. I would say that, listen, this isn't, you know, we're being kind of catty about this in terms of, you know, like this is one of those universally considered bad things, but this is also very hard. This is one of the reasons why it's difficult to be a good writer. Because we, as humans are used to, when you describe something, you know, like, "Oh, I went on a date with this guy. Oh, cool. Let's say like, well he's tall and he has Brown hair and blue eyes and he's got a scar on his eyebrow. And,uhe, you know, plays the saxophone and he works as a barista." Like you're telling me, like, you're just listing this stuff about a guy who is a real living, breathing person, but that's a totally acceptable thing that we do all the time. Uyou know, a friend of mine is like, "Oh, let me tell you about my new boyfriend. I don't need poetic soliloquy about, you know, his feelings on the bass versus the alto saxophones,uand why he prefers one and the childhood trauma surrounding that. Umou know, I just like to know that he plays the saxophone. So that's a normal thing for us with how we talk and how we describe things to people in everyday life. However, when you're doing that, you're looking at your friend as they're doing that and you're and you know, says like, "'Oh, he, you know, plays the saxophone and he's a barista.' Rekka rolled her eyes. This was Kaelyn's fourth barista of the year. Second one that played the saxophone. Where was she finding these men?" But Rekka knows that that's going on in her head.

Rekka (42:01):
Right. But you put that in the story and suddenly there's context again.

Kaelyn (42:05):
Exactly. But for regular conversation, you don't need context. And hopefully if that's what Rekka's actually thinking, she's not going to start narrating her internal thoughts to me, because then I'm going to–

Rekka (42:15):
Oh! That's a great idea. I'm going to start doing that now.

Kaelyn (42:20):
Um so it's a hard thing to do just because of the way we're used to conducting ourselves in our daily life. We don't need to, you know, I don't need to describe to Rekka the fact that I'm sitting in my kitchen right now and I'm wearing a sweater because it's finally getting a little bit chilly here, but I still have some of the windows cracked open... Because one, Rekka doesn't need to know that two, she can see me in the sweater and probably see the window behind me. In stories you don't have that. So you need to make your sentences do as much work as they can, otherwise you are just describing lists of actions, emotions, and feelings.

Rekka (42:57):
And this might be a great opportunity to take the book that made you feel the most feelings, and give it a skim and see how their prose sounds compared to yours in areas where you're being told this needs some showing versus telling. I mean, the best thing to do is to pay more attention to people who are making you feel the way you want your reader to feel when they read your book.

Rekka (43:19):
"What Can I do to become a better writer? How should I get started writing?" And my first answer is always you need to read a lot.

Rekka (43:25):
Always. Never stop reading.

Kaelyn (43:27):
Really. Never stop reading, because having all of these things in the back of your head, you know, it's not stealing. Think of it as a research. How did this author, that I really liked this book, how did they handle this problem? How did they make sure, how did they grab me by, you know, the heart and really squeeze it for this one scene?

Kaelyn (43:45):
Like, what did they do that left me in tears here? What did they do that made me stand up and cheer? Why did I stay awake until three in the morning? Because of something I read? You know, so don't think of that as copying. It's not that I think of it as research.

Rekka (44:00):
Right. Cause you're not going to take their words and use them in your book. You're going to figure out what they did and find how that parallels what you're trying to do. And that's a good thing, you know? Chances are, they did that too.

Kaelyn (44:15):
Yeah, exactly. So anyway, I'm not sure how much advice that was on Show Don't Tell, but at least hopefully that was some information about why it is important and what people are trying to say when they point it out to you. Yeah. And if this is something you struggle with, don't feel down about that. It's hard. We don't think about practicing writing, but like you really do have to practice writing. Now granted, practicing is doing revisions, but you know, I think we think like you practice piano and then, you know, you don't really have anything to show for it at the end, but practicing can still, you know, it's the same way as like, you know, practicing cake decorating. Maybe it's not great, but you still have a decorated cake at the end of it.

Rekka (44:56):
Yeah.

Rekka (44:57):
Yeah. And you can use that to look back and say how much you've improved because your next cake has way more skill applied to it because you've learned

Kaelyn (45:05):
Plus cake! And even if it doesn't look pretty, maybe it tastes really good.

Rekka (45:09):
Exactly. You know, when you keep writing, that's how you keep improving. You're not going to sit down and plunk out one amazing novel and never write again. And it will need revision and whatever you write is going to need a second draft or is going to need at least another pass. There's little you can do to avoid that. The more that you write, the less often that you will fall upon some of these like quote-unquote rookie mistakes, you'll make all new mistakes of more advanced variety, but you will get better. And reading more, writing more, and you know, getting other people's opinions will help. There are critique groups out there on the internet, you know, that you can join and you'll get feedback of varying harshness and helpfulness, but like, it will help you. When you critique other people's work, it will help you critique your own work. Because if you can sit back and read it like you were reading someone else's work, how am I going to help this person understand what I'm trying to say I think it needs? Because sometimes you need to rubber ducky your own thoughts a little bit.

Kaelyn (46:18):
You know, at the end of the day, you hope that you get to a point where somebody puts a note in there of show, don't tell and you go, Oh, of course, right. You don't just sit down and be awesome at writing. That's not how this works. As I said, hopefully that at least kind of clear some of the mystery around the "show, don't tell me."

Rekka (46:38):
Hopefully clear some of the frustrations so that, you know, when you see those words, if they aren't paired with concrete advice, then you can back up and take a look from, you know, a little bit further away from where it is in your mind and say, "okay, what, what do I think I'm communicating that I'm not communicating?"

Kaelyn (46:58):
Exactly.

Rekka (46:58):
Because that's what it comes down to a lot of the times, it's like, okay, you say this person's great. Or you say this monster is scary, but –

Kaelyn (47:04):
You know that in your head for these reasons and you're not showing it to me, the reader.

Rekka (47:09):
Yep.

Kaelyn (47:09):
Well, I think that's, that's pretty much it. I guess that's what we got there.

Rekka (47:12):
We did manage to go on at length, despite me thinking it was going to be pretty straightforward. I got a whole bunch of these really straightforward quickie episodes planned that are going to be at least the normal length, if not longer. So if you're looking forward to those, make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast. If you have questions about any other kinds of editing tips that you've received in your manuscripts that you were like, "what, what?"

Kaelyn (47:35):
What is this note?

Rekka (47:36):
"Kaelyn, Explain this to me, please. Tell me I don't have to do whatever this is saying. "I Think did it say rewrite? Is it saying revise? No, I don't want to just tell me it's perfect." if you have any questions for us about these random topics that editors mark up in your manuscripts, and you're not really sure what they mean, or you want to know how to avoid them in the future, or advice you see that you still don't quite understand, just let, let us know, for sure, @WMBcast on Instagram or Twitter.

Kaelyn (48:09):
We like, we like these episodes. These are fun.

Rekka (48:10):
And we love to answer questions and we love to help people. So let us help you. And hopefully we have helped you. And if you feel that we have, you could really help us out by sharing these episodes with a friend who might be interestedUm do make sure that you're subscribed and not just clicking the link that we post on social media because having more subscribers helps other subscribers potentially find us. And also um, really helpful in getting subscribers to find us is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or, you know, generally any review is helpful anywhere, but the Apple podcasts really seems to still have the corner on the market for that.

Kaelyn (48:46):
That's very true.

Rekka (48:46):
And, and if you are super, super appreciative and want to show that with currency, in gratitude or in an expression of the editor's fees we've saved you, you can go to patreon.com/WMBcast. We are not trying to steal the work from the professionals. We love all editors, present company included.

Kaelyn (49:07):
Thank you.

Rekka (49:08):
We will talk to you in two weeks.

Kaelyn (49:10):
Thanks for listening, everyone.

Rekka (49:11):
Thanks everyone.

Tuesday Oct 20, 2020

Episode 46 - Prologues (Advice for People Who Aren't Famous Enough To Do Whatever They Want)

Tuesday Oct 20, 2020

Hi everyone, and thank you for tuning in to another episode of the We Make Books Podcast - A podcast about writing, publishing, and everything in between!

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