Don't Judge Me for Judging

After assembling my own anthology for publication (Young Adventurers, due for release in December) I thought I was fully ready to help judge a short story contest that would result in an anthology for fellow publisher.  Well… maybe.

Nancy Sakaduski of Cat & Mouse Press invited me to be one of the six judges for this year’s Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest. I was honored, but still didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. Nancy is tapped into a pretty vital writing community in Delaware, which resulted in more than 130 submissions! When I got my first batch of 40 stories to review I figured I’d blow through them pretty quickly. I just needed to pick my top five choices with no reviews, comments, or explanation required. We were judging the stories based on their creativity, quality of writing, their suitability as a beach read, and how well they fit the beach theme. Eliminations should be easy, right? You know a story’s too weak  by the end of the first page.

The problem is, almost none of them was weak. This was a pretty darn good bunch of stories. I wanted five great reads to float to the surface, but it was more like twenty. I had to get really picky to choose the 5.

But then we all needed to read the entire group of semi-finalists. Six judges,  five stories each.  That means thirty counting my five, but surely there’d be a lot of overlap that would reduce that number, right? Well, not so much. We had 28 semi-finalists to consider. And shoot, almost all of these were really good! Plus there was the apples vs oranges issue: is this really well written romance better or worse than that well written humorous story? Or the thriller? But hard choices had to be made. We each shared our top three choices (although I couldn’t resist mentioning two that were an eyelash away from the top three.)

Finally, we judges met to hash out which of these fine efforts would be declared first, second and third place winners. There was lively discussion but no conflict really. These people were definitely my respected peers and we all made passionate arguments for our favorites. Ultimately we all loved the top stories to some degree so settling on final winners was not that hard. And we each got to give a Judge’s Award to a favorite that didn’t make it into the top three.

It was exhausting but SO rewarding, and I now know several authors I want to pursue for a Intrigue Publishing. If you are an accomplished writer you should look for an opportunity to judge. It’s a wonderful experience.

An Anthology Takes Shape

We at Intrigue Publishing are pulling together our first anthology. It is a collection of Young Adult stories aimed at a holiday release. For a title we settled on YOUNG ADVENTURERS: HEROES, EXPLORERS & SWASHBUCKLERS. The subtitle is, “Tales of teens saving the day in the past, the present, the future & on other worlds.”

When we put out the call for submissions I didn’t know what to expect. Similar calls for novels in the genres we publish have raised a lukewarm response. So my first surprise was the 55 submissions we received. Reading our way thru the stack gave us our second surprise, or two. I was frankly stunned at how dismal some of the stories were. Besides the bad writing, some authors totally ignored the submission guidelines. How could you read that title, and subtitle, and send a story with an all adult cast? Or a story in which the teen is endangered but saved by adults? Some writers also ignored the stipulated minimum and maximum lengths, that the stories needed to be in Word, and our chosen fonts.

BUT… I was also blown away with how good some of the stories were. Amazing prose, fabulous character development, strong plots with nice hooks, lots of suspense and satisfying conclusions. We had some tough choices to make and for the sake of length we had to say no thank you to some really good stuff.

Another big surprise was subject matter. I expected westerns and pirate stories. However, we got nothing set farther in the past than the Cold War era. As it turned out, that was fine.

Building an anthology is very different from writing a novel. An anthology has to be shaped. You can’t just throw the stories together randomly. They need to have a flow, a rhythm of sorts. Some stories are faster pace, some more deliberate. Some have male protagonists, some female and some both. Where should that humorous story pop up? Or the one that’s a little scary?

As it happens, the stories shook out nicely. We settled on 18 stories: six set in our familiar world, six science fiction tales, and six set in fantasy worlds. It was easy to group them that way. Our heroes and heroines face thugs, spies, monsters, zombies and a variety of aliens. Protagonists vary from stone serious to sweetly smart-ass. There’s a story that may move readers to tears and one that will make them laugh out loud. But in every case a brave and resourceful teenager saves the day.

There’s lots more work to do, but now that it has taken shape, I can’t wait to introduce this YA anthology to the world.   

Panning for Gold

While I should be tackling the final rewrite of the next Hannibal Jones mystery I am instead focused on my publisher duties, reading through an avalanche of submissions, sifting the sand in search of 16 nuggets of gold worthy of publication.

Intrigue Publishing is taking submissions for a Young Adult anthology entitled Young Adventurers: Heroes, Explorers & Swashbucklers. We want stories of action, adventure and, yes, intrigue, featuring a teenage protagonist. We welcome spy thrillers, mysteries, science fiction, paranormal or fantasy stories. Dragons and magic are fine. Straight adventure stories are also welcome and they could be set in any time period. We’d love to see a good western or pirate story. The subtitle, “Tales of teens saving the day in the past, the present, the future & on other worlds” is an indication of the level of diversity we’re looking for. But I’ve already encountered a surprising amount of what we DON’T want.

For example, our submission guidelines clearly state that “The manuscript must be double-spaced, 12-point type, (Times New Roman or Arial.)” And yet, so far I have received stories in 11 point, one single spaced, another in a font called Calibri and one in a format called “.pages” which I can’t open with any software on my computer. If these people can’t get something as simple as font or format right how much detail do we think they pay to their prose? And if these simple instructions are too much for them, how will they respond to an editor’s input?  

The submission guidelines also included this direction: “The important requirements are that the protagonist be a courageous teenage boy or girl, that the story be gripping with a real sense of risk or danger, and that the protagonist survives or saves the day through his or her own intelligence, skill and ingenuity.”

And yet, I’ve read three stories so far in which the teen protagonist is little more than an observer or the person in jeopardy who gets rescued by an adult.

So what’s my point? It’s tedious enough reading weak and poorly written hunting for the ones the rare one worthy to be in an Intrigue Publishing anthology. If a writer doesn’t bother to adhere to our submission guidelines they are telling me that they don’t really care if we buy their story or not.  If you DO want someone to pay for your story, or novel, you dramatically increase your chances when you give them what they ask for.

And now, back to the search.