Submission Statement: July-September 2019
Getting caught up on these submission statements. Here’s my submission activity for the last three months.
July/August/September 2019 Report Card
- Submissions Sent: 16
- Rejections: 10
- Acceptances: 6
- Publications: 3
- Submission Withdrawal: 0
This averages out to about 5 submissions per month, which is far less than I’d hoped to send. Six acceptances is certainly nice for a three-month span, and the number of rejections is about what I’d expect (though I did experience a 32-day stretch of no rejections). I’m sitting on 66 submissions as I write this, which means I need roughly 11 submissions for the next three months to hit my goal. That might be tough, but we’ll give it the ol’ college try and see what happens.
Rejections
Ten rejections for this period.
- Standard Form Rejections: 8
- Upper-Tier Form Rejections: 0
- Personal Rejections: 2
Mostly your standard form rejections of late, though the two personal rejections provided good feedback. I’ll go over some of that feedback below.
Spotlight Rejection
This is a rejection for a flash fiction story that I think perfectly illustrates where some flash stories (including mine, obviously) go wrong.
We found the premise interesting and liked the characterization a lot. However, we there’s a lot more to this story that we’re not seeing. There’s so much action that is going to happen after the story ends it feels like we’re being cut off before we get to the good stuff. (The good stuff in this case being children getting turned into snacks lol,) And for Anton the driving motivation is never shown in scene- the bullying happens before the story starts – which made his emotions seem a bit remote to me. This makes the story read more like a part of a larger whole than like a complete story on its own.
This feedback points out a common flaw in a lot of flash fiction. Essentially, we’re getting the middle of a longer tale. Therefore, the story is ultimately unsatisfying because it ends before we get to the good stuff. You can fall in love with a premise or characterization–as I did here–and not see the forest for the trees. So based on this feedback (which is spot-on), I’ll revise this story, make it longer, and write that first and third acts.
Acceptances
Six acceptances in the last four months: three flash fiction acceptances and three microfiction acceptances. Not too bad. I’m getting to the point where I have enough flash fiction publications to put together a respectable anthology. I should really do that one of these days. 🙂
Publications
I had a fair amount of publications in the last three months as stories accepted as far back as last year are finally getting published alongside more recent acceptances. The first three are free to read, and the last one is chapbook for sale by the publisher.
“The Thing That Came With the Storm” published by the Molotov Cocktail
“The Grove” published by The Molotov Cocktail
“Ditchers” published by Aphotic Realm
A Point of Honor published by Radix Media
The United States has instituted archaic dueling codes overseen by a government agency called the Bureau of Honorable Affairs. Victims of slander and libel, among other crimes, can force their tormentors to face them in state-sanctioned combat. Jacob Mayweather is challenged to a duel by a man he has never met. The accusation is for a considerable crime, and Jacob must choose whether he will fight or be blacklisted as a duel dodger.
And that was my, uh, third quarter. Tell me about yours.
4 Comments on “Submission Statement: July-September 2019”
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Effectively Wild – A Baseball Horror Story
Night Walk & Other Dark Paths
Acts of War: Flashpoint
Acts of War: Aftershock
Acts of War: Stormbreak
Aeryn Rudel's Rejectomancy 
Do you attribute not being on pace to hit your submission goal to a lack of time to submit or a lack of material to submit? I find I have plenty of material but less time to submit. Of course, if I had your acceptance rate, I’d have less material to submit. Congrats on all the acceptances!
Little column A, little column B. Big projects (that take up a lot of time) have kept me from writing as many short stories as in years past. Fewer stories, fewer submissions.
And congrats on 2d in The Arcanist’s Monster Flash contest!
Thanks! 🙂