I have unsold stories...

[tuulia]

I don't want to put them up for free yet, but it's not so easy to find a publishing venue fit for

- a horror-ish story about a woman who dates her own clone
- a pulp-detectivey modern-day erotic short story
- an slice-of-life erotic short story - no real content beyond the characters, the sex and its negotiation
 

Comments

[sharpest_asp]

That first one... any of the old pulp sci-fi mags still accepting submissions? Amazing, If, Astounding... hell if I know who/what the names are. But that sounds like something Amazing would have taken back in the day.

[tuulia]

Ooh, are those still around? If not, I wish they were. Analog has a long history that included the pulp phase, but I think they take themselves rather seriously these days, which means they wouldn't want stories by women with such a purely psychological focus. It's definitely more Twilight Zone than... whatever the Platonic ideal of "hard scifi" is.

I think in terms of style the second one would be a fit for the Thrilling Detective type of pulp magazine; a beta reader specifically said so. It needs some work, though, as it was written for a romance oriented anthology (that folded) in a hurry, so the mystery is barely there.

By the way, what happened to that story you were posting on Wattpad? Time and other interests got in the way? 'Cause that happens.

[sharpest_asp]

By the way, what happened to that story you were posting on Wattpad? Time and other interests got in the way? 'Cause that happens.

Hardcore focus on an older universe. I can't quite find my angles on 'Seeds' because I kept getting distracted by the other project. And then I yanked it down in response to that scraping issue, and dumped it onto menagerie_fics until I can find time to reformat it and continue.

The verse I am working on instead is eating my brain, because a lot of the reworking I am doing to expand one character and the social context of the story is screwing with my actual OC. It's SO HARD to rework a universe, and figure out the new stimuli to produce things that are so BASIC to the character that you can't bear to edit them out.

[tuulia]

I completely understand. I have several unfinished stories kicking about, too, and I also escaped Wattpad after the scraping incident. I wasn't that sold on Wattpad, anyway. I loved the idea of a platform for free original+ fiction that could be found through subject searches and a have an element of community, but at the same time it didn't feel like my kind of thing. And, childishly, that shade of orange was setting my teeth on edge. I have an undeserved dislike of certain shades of orange.

OC? Are you writing in a universe established by someone else, but with a new character? That's challenging and fun in a way completely original universes aren't, because you have a set of rules and canon you can't mess too much with!

[sharpest_asp]

OC? Are you writing in a universe established by someone else, but with a new character?

Not really? I tend to say OC instead of muse quite a bit, because I do write fanfic in addition to original verses. The actual title for this one in particular would be 'pain in the rear that occasionally eats my brain or takes over my life' if I were perfectly honest. But that's a bit much even if I abbreviated it. He is a Main Character in the most annoyingly 'pay-attention-to-me' way possible.

[tuulia]

I don't know what you mean by muse, but I do understand the idea of using the term OC to distinguish from borrowed characters, like saying "original fiction" to distinguish from fanfiction. I'm guessing muse, then, is more or less the same thing as "OC".

I sort of see OC characters, or characters called OC as opposed to just "characters", as particularly moveable - you can plug them in several different situations without losing their personality or the thrust of their developing characterization. I have a few like that, though I've never done anything very interesting with them. The problem is story vs. character: A story usually should CHANGE a character to be a good story, but a character who you see in a very specific, established way is resistant to change.

I also have one universe with characters I haven't moved around but that somehow function like "OCs" (muses?) in that they seem more colourful and... fixed, somehow, like comic book characters. A character called Ursula, from the pulpy detective story above, has some of that as well. With time and ideas, I could see myself writing her a series of mysteries during which her own character changes very little. But then I also have characters like Thelema the ingenue, who's story IS her character. Plug her in a different world and background, and it just wouldn't work. Same for Nate the killer, or Timon Task. You can change some things about Nate's world, but you always have to have the background of a rundown town, the formative murder, and the crossing of a desert.

PM or email (blog name saaritsa at g mail dot com) the problems you're having? Maybe I can help brainstorm a way out.

[sharpest_asp]

Muse is ... character that is very strongly a piece of my brainstorming for the universe I am working in? In a lot of ways, this character is THE character around which the universe evolved, so his characteristics are harder for me to be willing to change. It's like having a voice inside my head when I go to write that tells me how the character should be written. Like your Thelema, I think, the story is his, so if I change the background from before he's on stage, it... gets sticky.

I may take you up on the brainstorming some time later. Right now, I really ought to get my tail to bed, as I have work in less than 12 hours.

Many good thoughts to your submissions!

[tuulia]

Oh, hah, so a muse is the OPPOSITE of what I thought it was! Now I'm even more intrigued about what the specific problem is. I'll keep an eye out for that mail. But right now I should also go. :)