Not in vain

I did a heavy edit of the first draft of my new short story last night and this morning, and managed to reduce it in length by about 8%. It’s amazing how easily it can be to run a line through a perfectly good sentence or paragraph, only to agonize a few minutes later over a couple of words.

Then I did something I’ve never done before—I sent it to the anthology editor, confessing that it was only a second draft. The reason: this is a very niche story written specifically for this book, but on spec. The editor already rejected one of my stories, so I knew there was a possibility he wouldn’t accept this one. While it’s not exactly a “vampires on absinthe” story, chances were that if he didn’t like it, I’d have a really tough time finding somewhere else to send it.

In other, briefer words—I didn’t want to spend more time polishing it if he thought it was a turd.

To my delight, he really likes the story. He had a couple of specific suggestions for revision, which is a rarity among anthology editors in my experience. I received helpful editorial feedback for my Borderlands 5 story, for the one in Corpse Blossoms and for one of my Shivers tales, but beyond that the extent of change requests has been limited to grammatical. One of his requests threw me for a loop because it affects my “solution” to the problem posed by the story. However, he got me thinking that I can go in a different direction with it and be even truer to the story’s setup. It creates a few logic problems that I’ll have to sort out, but he has a point, because my late introduction of a new element is a little unexpected and the story will be tighter without it.

This is probably the longest I’ve labored over a story. I started it several times, attacking the concept from three or four different—completely different—directions. It wasn’t an easy write, and there’s still significant work to be done on it, including a reconceptualization of the ending, but it was a satisfying experience. I’m glad I stuck with it.

Once I get a more formal acceptance, I’ll announce the market. I have to come up with a better title for it, too.

One week from today, I’ll be at NECON! Woo-hoo! Can’t wait.