Recently I have been writing a new story. Fantasy-horror, I suppose, though much more fantasy and not much horror. This is my first completed genre story in a while. I edited one in January, and have written some smaller things here and there, but this is the first time I’ve gotten to “THE END” of a story on my “potential topics” list in a while.
I won’t say much about it, but I will use a few posts here and in the next couple of months to chronicle how I’m going about crafting this story, how I’ll revise it, how I’ll plan to submit it. So: since I just completed the first draft and now plan to let it sit, I’ll just give a few thoughts right now.
Working title: Death at the Door
This will certainly be changed. “Death at the Door” was just a way for me to name it so I’d have something other than just a story number to remember it by.
Word count: About 11,400
So this is “long short story” or “short novella” length. But I like what has gone into it so far. My plan will be to cut at least 10% of the words for my next draft, then get some feedback, then rewrite as necessary. Sometimes this adds words, sometimes cuts. My expected final word count is somewhere between 9,500 and 13,000.
Writing days: 16
Started January 29, finished February 18. Skipped 6 days in the middle. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t writing. Most days I was working on something else.
Writing sessions: 17
I was aiming for 500+ words each day. Got that on Feb 13 with 2 sessions. Two days, on Feb 15 and 16, were 330 and 220 words. I was dealing with some other crap those days and didn’t make quota. All the rest were pretty solid. Today I made a big push for the end and got 1,900 words to finish it out.
Next Steps
I’ll let this sit for a while. I think in the rest of February I’m going to do a lot of writing practice (exercises, free writing, etc.) and also look back through some of my older, unsubmitted stories and see if I can pick out one to edit and finalize. Probably won’t come back to this until the end of March. After my revisions I’ll throw it out to a couple of review groups – maybe my Odyssey friends, maybe an online forum. Maybe by then I’ll have a local writers group who can critique for me.
After revision, I’ll start submitting. Because I would be thrilled to win, I’ve found myself submitting to Writers of the Future first for most of my stories recently. This one is no exception. But since I don’t expect to win, I’ll then send this on to Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, etc. Watch for updates later on this process.
Stephan Writes 