The short story that I submitted on Saturday was received favorably by the two editors who’ve read it so far, one of them tells me. It still has to pass by one more editor, so it’s not exactly accepted yet, but it was passed on to him with “glowing remarks,” so it looks promising. This was a 500-word story written a couple of years ago and built around a title that occurred to me that I revamped into a 2500-word story with more substance than gimmick, so I was pleased to hear that it worked for at least two readers.
After viewing the UK version of Life on Mars, I went straight into the first season of Ashes to Ashes, but it didn’t quite live up to its predecessor. I didn’t really like the new protagonist (she dressed like she was auditioning for a Flashdance sequel) and seeing Gene Hunt relocated from Manchester to London was hard to take, too, especially since he now hung out in an Italian restaurant sipping Merlot instead of guzzling scotch in a pub. I gave up after three or four episodes, but I keep hearing people say how well the season ended an how incredible the second season has been, so I guess I’ll have to go back and give it another shot.
Last night, I finished the first draft of the story I’ve been working on since the weekend. I had written close to 2000 words up to that point, and had revised them extensively. I then fitted in the original ending to the story (which was 6200 words in its previous incarnation) and typed The End. A total of 2700 words, but I wasn’t happy with it at all. The ending had caused me trouble originally and it wasn’t well received by an editor who had rejected it a couple of years back. Still, I felt like I needed to get to an ending, and that was what I had to work with, so I went with it.
Before I went to bed, I realized where the story was going off track, and I saw my way out of the corner. This morning, I made a copy of the manuscript and deleted the last half. I salvaged a few sentences and even a couple of paragraphs here and there but, for the most part, I went off in a completely different direction from that point and the story felt alive and new again. Full of possibilities. I reached 3300 words (2000 new words for the day) before I had to stop for the morning, but I’m fairly close to the end and I even have a decent idea of what that’s going to look like. It’ll probably end up at about 3600-3700 words, but that will no doubt be reduced when I revise the new version of the second half.
I don’t think I’ve ever revamped a story so extensively after having considered it ready for submission. It went out to a couple of places in its 6200-word form, but there aren’t many markets for stories that long. I’m very grateful to the editor at Southern Gothic who took the time in his rejection letter to critique the story extensively and help me see where I was going astray and how to discover the story within the story. There’s no guarantee that this version will get accepted by the editor who invited me to submit to his anthology, but if he doesn’t like it I think I should be able to find someone who does.
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