Chuck's Feedback On The October Workshop Anthology Finalists!

Why two months ahead? Has it always been like that?

I believe they're ten months behind.

Yeah, these stories were submitted in October 2009, of course. We couldn't very well have Chuck's feedback on stories that haven't even been submitted yet.

What we have is an unfortunately telescoping timeline based on certain difficulties inherent in a tiered screening process. You've got to keep in mind that we have multiple layers in the screening to ensure fairness, and that, at every step of the way, we're reliant on volunteers who all have other demands on their time. There is no budget for this project. It runs on a lot of good faith effort.

The saving grace is we only have three more months of material to sort through and then we can proceed to the next stage of things.

Great critiques! I almost forgot how much I love reading these. It's great this time through as well because I read all of the above stories so it's nice to hear what Chuck thought about them.

One problem: I can't read Chris's critique. It's not coming up. The link goes to the original thread for his story.

congrats, so great to see so many familiar names up there

Strange how September got skipped. I assume those critiques will be posted next?

Strange how September got skipped. I assume those critiques will be posted next?

September wasn't skipped: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000160/the-september-big-list#comment-2...

Congrats to the finalists. And I'm taking away some extremely useful comments on tension and narrative.

But where's the 6th review? There's been 6 finalists for months. Did it get lost this time, has Chuck had a change of heart, or is this an over-sight?

Can I please be the 6th? That'd be great. I've had enough of being on the long-list, spending months refreshing the forums for news, and then not making the final cut. So please just post up my Chuck review.

Thanks.

Indeed. It wasn't. Thanks Gayle.

I believe I may have neglected to add the September finalists to the index page, though. That can be remedied in minutes.

The finalist judges had a hard time choosing a sixth, and settled on five this time. Principal reason: the best contender for sixth place was too long. Chuck has expressed a reluctance to look at any more 30-page stories. It's too much for his conception of the way the book should come together. Sorry if that message got lost in the shuffle, but for future reference, it's better for anthology purposes to polish your story into the best possible 10 or 12 pages.

How many stories will approximately be in the final product?

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/workshop/chucks-reviews-of-top-submissions

As soon as we complete stage one, which involves processing three more months of material into finalist selections, the beginning of stage two should be to settle upon which story to include from anyone who has multiple finalist entries.

If you'll scan the list, you'll see some names repeating: Keith Buie, Gayle Towell, Brandon Tietz, Gus Moreno, etc. I don't know if Chuck will make the call, or the authors, or outside editors, but I know that the anthology won't include more than one story from the same person. So that will be the next step in narrowing things toward a publishable set. It's important that these authors have the opportunity, as soon as possible, to do what they will with stories that won't be included in the book.

Once that reduction is made, I'm crossing my fingers that one story from each finalist author will fit inside the finished product. It depends, in part, on what the publisher is willing to do, the expenses involved, and the market expectations for a book of this kind. Many of those constraints are beyond our control, and beyond the current state of our conversations. But an awareness of size constraints on the finished product is why Chuck isn't looking at any more 30-page stories.

OK, seems like hard work. It's sad publishers could make stories disappear, someone would have their heart broken.

Will I be able to get the anthology in Sweden? It's kind of low profile, right? If it won't be imported, do you ship oversees from this site?

Thanks for the reply VP.

This obviously makes sense, and anything that makes the project viable must be good for us all. I just hope this doesn't hit anyone already through as a finalist. I can't think of anything that long that has gone through, but that would suck!

We'll know for Anthology 2!

Cheers, Chris

It will be available through this site and other outlets for online ordering, as well. Don't have the full details just yet.

That's the idea, man. And I'm with you on hoping no ones story gets chopped over word count. None of these things we're discussing are secrets or radical emergent surprise data--some things just didn't get emphasized enough. I talked months and months ago about the preferred length for these stories, but it seemed right to provide a strong suggestion and not a hard rule about it.

And I'm pretty sure I also nudged the nominators to stop selecting stories that were 26 or 28 pages long. But the nominators ultimately follow their own compasses. If they name a story, I'll send an anonymous version of that story to the finalist judges, without question. But those editors are likewise free to kick one back or discard a story based on their own criteria and judgment.

It pays to read the clues and adopt suggestions early, rather than looking for promises or hard rules.

And yes, it's a learning process for all of us, and there will likely be a Cult Anthology II that we can approach from a stronger base of knowledge. Chuck has told us himself that the first book should be clearly marked as Volume 1.

Amazing replies VP. Thank you very much for the info and time you are putting into this.

You mentioned how there are still 3 more months of nominations to be revealed. How can this be? Nov. + Dec. = 2?

You also mentioned in a previous post/forum that the finalist stories selected might not be able to submit a new draft for the anthology and published as first submitted to this website. While you might be correct, I sure hope not as I'm sure the ss authors, CP, and the publisher would rather have a stronger version of the story with CP's notes incorporated.

I would hope that the finalists would be allowed to submit several drafts before publication and at some point the editor or CP would change/fix the story before being published.

I have always wondered how much novels are changed by editors before publication without consultation/consent... but if they are publishing it, they do have that right, and I am sure CP or the publisher's editors would do the same.

...

Numerous people spoke up and begged us to continue the process throughout January, 2010. Chuck okayed looking at January submissions, to complete 12 full months of reading for us. Therefore, Nov + Dec + January remain.

(Gosh, do I even want to ask what "ss" stands for?)

Let me break this down:

1. There are reasons 'Eligible' and 'Not Eligible' (for the Anthology) are toggle choices the user can set and change on a submission at any time. Almost no one has reserved a story from consideration until after working it through several drafts in our Workshop, but that option is intended for use. Therefore, it's important to recognize that the first point of discretion resides with the author.

Absolutely no one on staff wants you're first draft workshop material to hit the Anthology "as first submitted" or "not at all." That is not our agenda.

Presumably, your work is already pretty tight if it got nominated for inclusion, as the nominators aren't prone to selecting sloppy first-draft material. But why don't more people put a story through at least three distinct drafts before even tagging it as "Eligible?" I put "Barber of Deadsville" through six or seven drafts, myself. I just did those revisions offline before submitting it to the shop. Maybe others do the same.

But please, get the main point that we only endorse and encourage the writer's own due diligence in the process of putting a story through multiple revisions. Writing is re-writing and we support it. Secondly, a major aspect of the Workshop experience is learning to edit yourself, incorporate suggestions from others, and get your story very polished before a publisher even sees it.

2. Loads of people here had the vision of an Anthology where Chuck would write the introduction, help us get it published, promote it, and the stories within would all be our strongest, most finished work. Our concept for that included additional rounds of revisions where finalists would have the chance to incorporate all of Chuck's suggestions into their final drafts. I certainly saw it that way. But then Chuck informed us that he would not look at stories a second time. He said it's too disheartening for him when people don't heed his suggestions. I'm reiterating what I've said in the other thread now. I don't know how to make it any plainer.

It also came to light a few months back that Chuck may possibly conceive of the Anthology as a hybrid between our concept of it and the long overdue writer's craft book that he had initially planned to write with Tom Spanbauer. That would mean the book will have a teaching angle. Part of that teaching angle would be Chuck's notes attached to drafts that haven't yet incorporated those notes. Another round of revisions that incorporated Chuck's notes would make the notes themselves contextually indecipherable and irrelevant.

Before anyone moans too much about not putting their best literary foot forward, if we can't do an additional round of edits, you should take a moment to consider what it means to be a part of this at all. For one thing, a pedagogical aspect to the book opens a huge market for it. You may not realize this, but non-fiction outsells fiction all to hell and back. Loads of Americans, especially, want "just the facts, please." What's more, "How-to" is a hugely popular species of non-fiction. And finally, ironically, "How to Write Fiction" is a huge sub-genre of "How-to."

If I'm right about Chuck's conception for the book, it could end up in the reference section at the bookstore through multiple printings and even multiple editions. It could also become a classroom book on college campuses.

The alternative--our most-finished work with Chuck providing only the introduction and the initial push--would be ego-stroking for all of us, yes, but to the outside world, it might as well be titled:

"A Collection of Short Fiction by a Bunch of Writers You've Never Heard of Who All Hang Around that Fight Club Guy's Fansite."

I'm sure you don't want to see our proud work on the remainder table at Barnes & Noble, selling for less than half the cover price within two months of release. And then disappearing for good. Never reprinted.

3. I may be wrong about how much the teaching angle is going to play a part in the market positioning for this book. There's a lot we have to discover as we go along. There is even a chance that the eventual publisher will direct additional edits and invite the authors to participate in those edits. I really don't know. But I do know this isn't going to be a bad thing for anybody included, even if Chuck won't look at your same story twice.

An acquisitions editor won't read past your first five pages if your work isn't already professional grade. Assuming that it is, he or she, or possibly a near colleague, may suggest Big-Picture conceptual changes that resolve continuity errors, improve the plot, or make the book more palatable. They will suggest these changes to you, the author. They will not make such changes for you. They don't have time. At the end of the day, it's your baby.

At the next stage of things, a copy editor (either a junior staffer for the publisher or a freelancer they farm out to...) will go after all of your typos, misspellings, non-standard usage, and whatnot. The copy editor doesn't just make the changes and transform your draft and then it heads to the printer; rather, he or she suggests certain changes, traditionally writing in the margins and between lines with a blue pencil. Then something called a "galley" or "proof" (or just your manuscript seriously marked-up) comes back to you. As the author, it's your job to challenge or approve all of the copy editor's suggestions.

In some cases, you do need to challenge them. Stephen Graham Jones, for example, has wrangled with copy editors who always want to change "coke" to "Coke." Standard copy-editor thinking is that it's a proper brand name and requires a capital letter. S.G.J.'s thinking is that he's using the term in the generic, to mean any brown fizzy beverage his character may prefer. In the South, you can order a "coke" without meaning Coca-cola. Maybe you just want any sort of "pop." It's a regional thing. A yankee might say "soda" instead. I sometimes say "soda" just because it sounds better than "pop" and can't be confused for an action comics sound effect. And restaurant workers here in the mid-south don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. "Soda," to them, means baking soda.

We could debate for days whether writers and we, the people can win words away from corporations and use once reserved brand names in the generic, but I say, with the Barack, "Yes, we can." And I'd like a coke, please.

More to the point, these are copy-edit considerations and provide an example of how corrections aren't always correct, and why you, as the author, are the final authority and must approve (or not) every suggested change to your manuscript before your work goes into a full print run and out into the world. It's all on you, baby.

And if you don't care enough about language to fight with a junior editor over a capitalization, then you're entering the wrong profession.

Caveat

I've explained to you the way it works with a traditional press.  The story may be different if you go with a subsidy publisher or a POD company or some new hybrid business model in publishing that may or may not be legitimate.  Just beware.  What you'll get at a publisher with lower standards won't be more editing, but less. 

Instead of something heavy-handed (some jerk just making changes without your approval) the borderline scam outfits in publishing won't spend the time or the money to get your work edited in the first place.  They'll put it out to the world in a form you'll later regret. 

Or, they'll recommend a "book doctor" to you, a miraculous freelance editor who can take you by the hand and transform your unpublishable manuscript into gold.  That person, of course, is a business partner inside the same corporate umbrella as the publisher, who will charge you a fee for the editing work.  It isn't unethical to be a freelance editor, but it is unethical to hide your real connection to a referring partner. 

Whatever you do, don't get caught on the sucker treadmill where you pay for a dozen different services on the way to getting published.  A legitimate publisher pays you, fronts the money for publicity and editing services, and will tend to politely ignore you if you aren't already a pro.  A scam outfit will flatter you, cajole you into footing the bill for a bunch of things yourself, and they don't really care about the quality of your work.
 

In fairness, it isn't all black & white these days between traditional publishing and scam outfits.  New models are emerging.  Just because something is different doesn't mean it's a scam.  Deeper pockets and longer history don't automatically confer legitimacy on a company, either.  And traditional publishing at its best is an irrational business and sometimes a nightmare.

Nonetheless, keep in mind the way the money should flow--from them to you.  (Unless you're subcontracting aspects of a genuine DIY approach and you know exactly what you're doing...)

In traditional publishing, even if your advance is small and your royalties look like a pipe dream, it's the publisher who absorbs editing, production, and publicity costs.  They take the financial risks, not you.  A traditional publisher also takes a lion's share of the profits, when there are any profits.  But the rarity of profits in publishing fiction is what makes their business model insane.  That, combined with their complete incapacity for predicting trends.

As for you, you get the prestige and recognition that comes from having crazy people willing to wager based on your talents.  In the meantime... 

Things to spend your money on instead of vanity publishing:

• retreats
• conferences
• workshops
• classes
• subscriptions
• reference books
• ms printing & postage
• adventure travel
• fine dining
• booze
• dedicated writing time at home
  (the cost of avoiding another part-time job)
• fun fill-in-the-blank item here

# # #

stop posting incredible replies immediately.

you sure did, Mark, you sure did.

admittedly, they're fucking awesome spells. they're just a little overwhelming once you get on a roll. but yeah, so good.

Yeah, I can't wait for this anthology to see publishing light, but Vig's replies here, there, and everywhere would also make a handy-dandy how-to book. Perhaps in the next tweaking of the site, we could get a link on the right that takes us to a compilation of Vigorous Puppy posts?

(while I'm not serious, I'm also not being sarcastic, just expressing my appreciative awe, thanks Mark for all you do here!)

aw hells yeah. that would actually be a not-to-bad idea. Mark is constantly making essay-length posts that are so helpful. i mean, i have learnt an abundance of information about the industry purely from Mark's throw-around posts.

someone should start sifting through the threads for Vig-wisdom.

Amazing VP. Thank you so much.

ss = short story

I'm a freelance magazine writer, and some editors change my articles so much, sometimes I don't recognize them in print.

Glad to hear the publishing world does not do so without consent of the author.

Oh, yeah. Journalism obeys its own rules. Newspaper writing, for example, follows the completely boring formula of giving all your most important facts up front, so the editor can cut the article just about anywhere for length and make it fit the issue.

With magazines, there is typically an editorial voice all writers are supposed to adopt, so that you sound like the brand instead of yourself. Top feature writers with big reputations might get more leeway than the average staff writer, but writing in the house style is always prized, if not absolutely required.

Over in the land of what we're faster to call "creative writing," people who work on scripts for television or film often have very little control of the final product. A writer will get pulled from a project and another assigned. Studios do what they want. Whether an employee or a work-for-hire freelancer, a script writer is often a tiny cog in a giant wheel.

Book publishing is probably the ultimate medium for creative control and the integrity of a single author's voice and artistic vision. But it's also extremely hard to break in and even harder to be world-class. It's a less practical career choice than journalism. Deciding to be a bestselling novelist is like deciding to be a rock star.

except you get less pussy.

I don't know, some of us come already equipped with our own pussy...

hmmm...conundrum.

Back to my singing lessons, then.

That is so cool to know that you are intending to include one story from each finalist. I only had one picked. I thought you were only going to pick one finalist from each month. I already feel like a winner.

Yes, everybody is a winner. Especially if you've gotten a story into the finalist circle even once. No matter what happens next, you have what you learned through the workshop process and everything that got you to that point. And you have notes on your story from a bestselling author. When's the last time Clancy or King or Grisham did that for you? Not lately, right?

I think this book will hold more than 12 stories. Based on recommended length per each, 12 stories would only be 120 to 144 pages. I consider that kind of thin for an anthology, don't you? An anthology should be barbecued ribs and scalloped potatoes and not just the three-bean salad. It should be the whole picnic.

Of course, we'll hit a weight limit somewhere. At a certain degree of bloat, the book won't look viable to the market. It might need a price point beyond the publisher's conception for positioning it, or whatever. But I think there's loads of room for us inside those constraints. Some aspects remain to be seen, of course. And many questions will only be resolved as we go along.

Any chance of any sort of monetary gain for those involved? The money doesn't matter to me, but I'm just curious.

great stuff vp, as always, very encouraging, and i must admit, pretty exciting to be a part of this, whatever the outcome is - and the bottom line? we all pushed ourselves to write and contribute - i think i must have submitted at least one short story a month, so if you only get twelve shorts stories out of this experience, even if they aren't polished yet, well that's a good reward too

Very exciting shit going on. Glad to make finalist again (Gayle fuckin' rocked it).

I know it's a long ways away, but I'm already foaming at the mouth for vol. 2 subs to start up.

-BT

And even if the book has wild sales figures for a short story collection (which it might!) how well would the royalties break out across the total number of writers?

I don't know what the final deal is going to be, but I'm guessing we should weigh this more in terms of opportunities and doors opening, rather than money.

That's what I figured. I just needed something to tell my friends to make them shut up. Whenever I tell people about getting published the first thing they say it, "Dude, how much are you getting paid?"

The prestige is good enough for me.

And that means, if you've only been writing short stories, so far, you need to finish a novel. Get thee to thy manuscript, oh scribe! Open thy Word file!

Inclusion in this Anthology could lead to a conversation with an agent which will lead to a question of whether you have a novel in the works which will lead to you saying:

"Yes, of course I do. Sure, I'd be happy for you to take a look."

This is an excellent point VP. With this in mind, should there be any profit spread across the authors, I suggest that everyone just donate their teeny weeny portion into a cache that is donated to benefit me, because I am super fucking poor and nine grand in debt, and haven't found a job in 1 year and 4 months. You can actually have the coders hide this agreement in some online document, that is already checked, and unless you uncheck it, such as the yahoo toolbar with quicktime updates, you unwittingly agree to donate your share to Daego Charities. See how easy? Good, good. Done and done. We can discuss transfer options in the PM.

Daego Relief Fund. Check.

I was finally about to go pick it up a couple of days ago, and can't stop listening to it and I can't stop reading the lyrics.

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