This is the first victim of my ‘5 strikes and you’re out‘ rule for short story submissions.
The fifth rejection was a very pleasant one but it commended the submission cover letter and rejected the actual story, not a great sign to be honest.
This was originally written for the Writing Magazine ‘Seance’ competition in January 2009. If anyone wants to use it on or offline, then just let me know first.
Well, Max Barry did a word cloud for his online novel ‘Machine Man’ so I thought I’d try the same with ‘Railroaded’…takes my mind off rejections anyway.
Using the online service at Wordle you can easily create your own, my one above is also live on their public gallery here.
Quite interesting; Isaac, Amy and Poppy are the main characters, Gerard, Estelle and Julius are other characters. I seem to the use word ‘one‘ quite a lot, I can’t remember why though.
I also use the words ‘looked‘ and ‘back‘ quite a lot, which makes more sense as Isaac, Amy and Poppy are on the run most of the time and always ‘looking back’. Maybe I should find other ways to say ‘looked back’ though…’turned behind them?’…no.
I use ‘father‘ more than ‘mother‘. I use ‘Yes‘ and ‘Yeah‘ much more than ‘No‘. I use ‘DNA‘ more than ‘Chair‘, which makes sense as DNA is a theme and the characters don’t have much time to sit down.
Now I’ve looked at it for a bit, I’m not sure what it really tells you. I suppose you only have to worry when words such as ‘Once upon a time‘ or ‘It was all a dream‘ show up larger than most.
With the unveiling of Belle de Jour as a highly educated cancer research doctor the other day, the reactions have varied from surprise that it wasn’t one of the esteemed journalists previous guesses, relief that it’s over and shock that it may glamourise prostitution.
I’m more intrigued about struggling doctorate students having to resort to offering personal services so they may become professionally qualified to look after us in the future.
Apparently this isn’t a new thing, I’m just living in a cave.
So, I’m a citizen of a country that doesn’t fund it’s top students adequately? I kinda knew that.
This week I cracked open a brand new notebook and started writing a few notes which will hopefully grow into my second novel.
I’ve had the beginnings of an idea for a while and kept it on Gas Mark 5 in the back of my mind but thought I should concretely start writing as soon as my New Year hangover subsides.
I’m determined that this second one will benefit from the knowledge and confidence that I’ve been through this process already, mainly, I want to finish the first draft much quicker, hopefully by the end of 2010.
I watched Question Time the other night, the one with the racist nut on it and was struck by a comment from one of the questioners in the audience who seemed to have some kind of beef with some of the language being used.
You can see her full comment for yourself here on YouTube, I’ve linked to the specific bit in the video.
But here’s the text of the bit I’m referring to…
The parties must listen because, one of the things, I am sitting here and every time Jack Straw or somebody or one of the panel says ‘Afro-Caribbean’, I am cringing…Afri-CAN Ca-RIB-bean!
Talk about grammar Nazis! I missed the memo where ‘Afro-Caribbean’ was now an offensive term.
In Railroaded I thought of an easy way people could exchange personal information with mobile phones.
The other day I came across the ‘Bump‘ iphone app that now does exactly that. Instead of pressing a button you simply turn the app on and ‘bump’ the phones together.
I admit their execution is better but I still prefer my name for it!
Just downloaded it onto my iPhone, now I just need to find a willing victim to bump with…I mean ‘exstrange’ with.
Mr Salmon Rushdie uses it and say it’s his favourite app, maybe that’s how he pulls all those good-looking, tall women?
Below is the relevant bit from Railroaded, Chapter 1…
“Look I’m getting confused here. Things aren’t adding up. Why don’t we ‘exstrange info’ then we can see where we are.”
‘Exstrange Info’ was a term used to exchange personal information on mobile devices. Each person would hold their mobile device close to each other; press a button at the same time for one second and all relevant information would be stored in each other’s mobile device, therefore rendering each other ‘ex-strangers’.
Isaac apologised and said he didn’t have a mobile device.
I’m a science fiction fan but not a die-hard nerd so I had never heard of the sub-genre of ‘Mundane Science Fiction’.
Probably not a positively eye-catching sub-genre on the face of it but the idea behind it is it only uses science and technology that is either acheivable or extremely, very nearly acheivable.
I like this idea.
Spaceships, aliens, living on other planets, sentient robots, time-travel, etc are all sci-fi mainstays but they’re also way, way, way into the future…and that’s if they’re actually physically possible.
Mundane Sci-Fi deals in facts and near future, Earth based science fiction. The wikipedia page is good, listing a few ‘laws’ of mundane sci-fi.
There’s also a great blog, Mundane-SF that keeps you updated with non-lightspeed based science fiction. On that site I found this speech which is a great intro into mundane science fiction – ‘Take the Third Star on the Left and on til Morning!’ by Geoff Ryman
Railroaded is near future based in 2066 and I consciously stayed away from flamboyant flights of fancy and extrapolated every piece of technology on something existing today. I found it keeps the story more believable, helps shape it more realistically and therefore makes it better alround.
So I think I’d firmly place my sci-fi scribblings into the mudane category…you know, unless I think of a really great way to execute the aliens escaping from robots through wormholes idea.
The pain! The humiliation!
The second rejection for ‘Railroaded’ plus a rejection for a short story just to twist the knife a little more.
I’ve just finished another short story and going to start another one this weekend…because I just can’t get enough rejection in my life.
I got my first Asimov magazine and in it there is a novella and a couple novelettes. Not knowing the difference between all these varieties I fired up the old searching fingers and consulted the great internet for some answers.
Dearest Google, what the hell is the difference between a novel, novella, novelette and short story?
Of course Wikipedia came back with a page that nailed the answer by using the definitions as set by the Nebula Awards, which are;
- Novel = a work of 40,000 words or more.
- Novella = between 17,500 and 40,000 words.
- Novelette = between 7,500 and 17,499 words.
- Short Story = under 7,500 words.
So it’s strictly down to word count…or how arsed a writer can be with their idea…I jest!
Are there any other literary forms? Surely a mammoth text of 200,000 words deserves its own category?
Just thought, Flash Fiction is another one. Accordingly, Wikipedia says there is no defined length but normally less than 1,000 words.
Thinking about it, I think 5 seperate forms is enough otherwise it’ll get stupid with every 1,000 words constituting a change of definition for your work.
“What do you think of the novel?”
“Well, first things first, technically it’s a ‘Flash Novella Postcard’.”
“Oh…is that good?”
“O’yes, it’s this year’s ‘Nanonovelette Vignette’.”
“Oh.”
I recently read a good short story in the July/August edition of Interzone Magazine called ‘Silence and Roses’ by Suzanne Palmer but it’s not online anywhere for you to read it. So if you can’t buy that edition of the magazine then visit her website here just to say hello.
Instead, here’s a brilliant short story from the master of robots. I first read it a couple of years ago and it blew my small, little mind to bits. Don’t read the last bit…whatever you do, don’t read the end first.
Apparently it was his favourite short story.
Read it here – ‘The Last Question’ by Isaac Asimov.
