Tag: Sci-fi

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Mar. 2nd, 2018

Are we there yet?

Anyone who has spent five days in a conference room, six nights in a hotel bed, and played Russian roulette with every meal in a strange place not famous for its culinary delights (yes, I’m a foodie; sue me) knows what I’m talking about. By this point, I’m just ready to be done. The end can’t come fast enough and even the upcoming TSA “experience” is something that doesn’t look as bad as the memory of the most recent TSA “experience” fades. Even the support and camaraderie of my fellow writers, the companionship of my husband, is not enough to make me want to face this day.

I have to give you a little background on this one. I didn’t want to write this story and despite the nine hours (in one day) it took to get it on paper, it was the most difficult one for me personally. The theme was “passions,” whether it was something that led to passion or a crime of passion.

A preference was stated for crime/mystery and science fiction or fantasy were not allowed. Seeing as I mostly write science fiction and don’t read crime/mystery I felt totally unprepared. The additional requirement that it NOT be an intellectual puzzle, but focus on the emotion made it even more difficult.

I wanted to skip this assignment altogether.

I didn’t for two reasons. First of all, I was always that student, the one that never blows off an assignment, never turns in anything late, etc. (Yes, you can hate me; I’m used to it.) Second of all, I’m paying good money to be here, so I’d be short-changing myself. Third, I do know what I’m passionate about. Anyone who knows me well knows this.

Even though I finished this story on the day I got the submission guidelines, I waited. By Wednesday, I knew that if I didn’t send it out now, I would not send it out at all. I had several big fears about this one, beside it being too close to my heart. I wasn’t sure how much of a risk this story would be. I also wrote it in first person (a distancing technique) and I pulled back even further by using a lot of filters, even though this was the “Disney” version of events.

The summary: Fictionalized account of true events and crimes under the Ceaucescu regime as told by a survivor of communism. Renata’s childhood experiences drive her passion for and love of America.

• Editor 1: Pacing issues but still got into it; startlingly good.
• Editor 2: Wow; really well done; compelling narrator voice kept him in there; liked wrap; really nailed emotions; played on the heart strings; parts had a dreamlike quality; backed away from the emotion in places; showed atrocities at arm’s length; powerful prose; loved the ending; move in closer (i.e. close narrative distance by removing filters for example).
• Editor 3: Without question a powerful story; not sure it’s a crime of passion; they’re government crimes; might not fit concept; no idea who is being lectured; need a cause for narrator’s reaction, so it’s not a general conversation.
• Editor 4: Agrees with editor 3; thought character was too passive; wasn’t powerful for her.
• Editor 5: Worked for her because [the editor] lived through the Cold War; liked it; character’s passivity is exactly what communism would do to a human being; would’ve bought it.
• Buying editor: Spectacularly written; disagrees with editor 1 because the literary nature of the story needs big paragraphs to slow down the reader and let him see the horrid life the character saw; the character is talking to all of us who dismiss other people’s painful stories, so it doesn’t need details about the person being responded to; the passivity is absolutely logical; the character is NOT passive at the end; passionate for new country;  it’s about the character learning how to be active; works well; great writing; difficult things that are being addressed; buy.

I was still recovering from the word “buy” from Kristine Katherine Rusch when Dean Wesley Smith (editor 1 in this case) said he went back to re-read this particular story after working with me on my space opera pacing issues. He told me that if I can get this kind of emotion and power into everything I write, readers will be flocking to me in droves.

I tell you this not to brag, but because I know that as writers we tend to focus far too much on the criticism we get rather than the praise. We don’t hear or take in positive things like we hear or take in negative things. While this may be especially true of writers (including myself), I think it’s very much a human trait, and it’s there for a good reason—survival. Our brains are wired to respond to threats so that we can run or fight, and this tendency to give the negative power over us is part of that survival mechanism.

I come away from this intense and exhausting week, a better writer.

My purpose in sharing this, especially with all of you writers and would-be writers, was to show you–really, truly, show you–that a rejection is not fatal, and that it is contingent on many factors.

Please, please, please, note how many times something was “liked” but not bought. Please note the difference between taste, personal preference, and the wide range of possible interpretations based not just on the editor’s life experience, but also on editorial goals/requirements:

• Did this story fit the theme?
• Did the word count justify extra length?
• Was the writer willing to make changes knowing that even with requested changes, it might be rejected?
• Was the story fixable in the time the editor had?
• How did the presence of other stories influence the take on your story?

One unique aspect of this workshop was that editors bought pieces submitted to other anthologies. That’s how I ended up with two sales. One to the anthology I originally wrote it for, and one to an anthology which rejected the piece I wrote for it but bought a story I wrote for a different anthology.

You won’t find that in a slush-pile setting, but its equivalent is “send it out again.” Find another market for it. Even one element of the story can fit another theme and get you another chance to have someone say “buy.”

So send it out again.

And again.

Postscript:

You may recall from my first post about this workshop that we were supposed to read the stories as if we were buying them, i.e. generating a table of contents for each anthology, as if we were buying. It was essentially the equivalent of saying “I liked it” and nothing else. Only three of the other writers in the workshop included The Greatest Crime on their buy list. Remember when I said that only the buying editor’s opinion matters? This is why.

Not only are we the worst judges of our own writing, other writers don’t do so well either. By the way, I didn’t go look at the lists. I don’t know which of my other stories made it onto the lists (someone else in the workshop brought this story’s “count” to my attention). I avoided looking at the list because in the end, other writers’ opinions don’t matter either.

So take those opinions with a grain of salt—a big grain—as well.

It’ll save your sanity.

And your writing.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Mar. 1st, 2018

The fifth story was an exploration of dragons.

The first thing the buying editor admitted to was the fact that she did not articulate what she wanted as well as she thought she had. Unfortunately, that wasn’t apparent until she got the stories and it was too late to do anything about it. This brought up another important point about things that influence editorial decision-making. When they get a lot of stories that aren’t quite right (for whatever reason) the pressure on their time increases. They need to keep an eye on these time pressures, so they are more likely to buy stories that don’t need work.

So, one editorial lesson learned was that articulating the requirement/expectations for the stories is critical to not getting a bunch of stories that are an automatic no. For example, clarifying that the dragon be essential (rather than incidental) to the story would’ve avoided some automatic no’s; another element that should have been clarified was the requirement that the story could not be one where it was just a human in dragon form.

We also found out that sometimes a rejection is more about what’s going on in an editor’s life at the time than anything else. One editor had just lost a friend to cancer and could not bring herself to read any stories involving hospitals. Another editor was too close to a national disaster and could not read anything related to that disaster. The details don’t matter, just know that sometimes your story may hit a note or a chord that is too painful for an editor to endure and your story will not be read. Nope, there’s nothing you can do about it, and no one is going to put all their issues into a submission call for the world to see.

There is also the chance that an editor knows too much about a subject and will reject your story because it’s their area of expertise and something in your story didn’t work for them. A non-expert, on the other hand, would never get tripped up and think it worked just fine. The area of expertise could be anything from actually having lived in a town you described, the editor writing in that historical period or sub-genre, or being a subject-matter expert who did their thesis on the subject.

As far as my own story for this anthology, I knew right away that I wanted to do something Arthurian. I loved The Crystal Cave and the movie Excalibur. One of the elements I wanted to use was the idea that the Land was the Dragon. I loved the scenes where Merlin calls forth the breath of the Dragon (the fog) to stage Arthur’s conception. But I also wanted to twist it and not make it about Arthur, but about Merlin.

Summary: Zimeu—a dragonkin—travels to Alwion (Britain) in disguise, to help save mankind from a coming dark age, but he arrives too early. On his way back, he crosses paths with a woman who is about to die in childbirth, and uses his magic to save her and her son, leaving mankind with a guide (Merlin) rather than the leader (Arthur) he’d originally intended.

• Editor 1: Doesn’t read dragon stories (If you’re wondering why some editor who hates dragons was reading here, it’s because they each were part of this workshop, but were not buying for this anthology.)
• Editor 2: Despite hating dragons and dragon stories, pulled in by dragon in lab/library; quality of the writing pulled him through the rest of the way; loved element of shift and balance; loved tension and dialogue; loved birthing scene; strong maybe.
• Editor 3: Loved the dragons; loved Arthurian overlay; writing felt rushed; needs more emotion; would’ve sent it back in for rewrite for emotion.
• Editor 4: It was great; liked idea of dragon culture as root for Arthurian legend; intellectually appealing; maybe pile after 1st read but read for emotion; would need to take the context of entire anthology into account to see if it could fit.
• Editor 5: Not up on Arthurian legend; still liked it without recognizing references.
• Buying editor: Agrees with Editor 3; minored in Arthurian legend; no because dragon could have been a mages and the story still could have worked; needs to be more fleshed out.

Post-mortem:

I was not surprised to hear that the writing felt rushed (it was) or that it didn’t have enough emotion. These deadlines were just brutal. I came in under 5000 words and had a 6000-word limit and should’ve pushed up against that limit and given it another pass. I should’ve written a clearer ending.

Emotion in fiction:

One of the things I’m reluctant to write about is the definition of what passes for “emotion.” There seems to be a preference for characters who are overly dramatic, who are damaged and traumatized on a deep level (preferably on multiple levels). There is almost no recognition of the fact that some people just get over it and move on (or aren’t overly emotional in the first place). Emotion is, after all, a spectrum. But if you’re going to require that the story NOT have a human disguised as a dragon/alien/monster, then it does beg the question, wouldn’t the emotions of the non-human be NOT human or at least different than ones you’d expect from a human character?

I think this is why aliens (or any other non-human creature) whether anthropomorphized or not, really is just human, with one exaggerated attribute. The best analogy I can think of is Star Trek. Exaggerate logic in a human and you have a Vulcan. Exaggerate aggression in a human and you have a Klingon. At the end of the day, whether the Hollywood prosthetics come off or not, we relate to a disguised human trait.

Would an alien based on broccoli be anywhere within the realm of our experience?

This is a separate issue from emotional impact to the reader.

The lack of character emotion was discussed in the context of some military stories, bringing up the same question: are military people so used to dealing with traumatic things that they don’t react emotionally? I think the answer is “yes” in some cases. In real life, people distance themselves and build up emotional callouses in order to be able to function. But in fiction, the preference seems to be for people who don’t do that, even when the story context calls for it, as in a military piece. I suspect that some editors get that and the standard for a military-themed anthology might be different.

Yes, genre matters. A lot.

Part Six

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Feb. 28th, 2018

 

The theme for story four was “chances,” and although there were plenty of clues in the submission call that it was to be a romance anthology, it was never explicitly stated. Two people that take chances to be together didn’t say “romance” to everyone in the group, and I can see why that would be the case. If you don’t write romance, your version of “two people taking chances to be together” could manifest in other ways—a father and daughter trying to find each other when war comes to their world. Therefore several well-written pieces just didn’t make the cut because they were not, technically, romances.

Others had romantic elements, but the romance wasn’t the main focus, but a sub-plot.

But romances are right up my alley and since one of the examples in the call was “Anthony (conquerer) and Cleopatra (conquered)” that was the first plot bunny I chased down the wrong hole. For four days. Yep, I gave up on it some time late on Thursday and went to bed knowing I’d have Friday and the weekend to start fresh. Fun times. Fun times.

I woke up on Friday knowing exactly what I wanted to write — another prequel story in my space samurai saga WIP, this time focusing on a tid-bit of the origin. Since the novel I’ve been working on takes place some time later in the timeline (in medias res and all that) this gave me the opportunity to go back, not quite to the beginning, but to explain some of the why that leads up to the events in the novel (no, it’s not out yet; sorry folks, but this is what happens when an idea that’s been rattling around in your head for years begins to take form and what you think will be one novel becomes five—some ideas are like tribbles).

So, almost three thousand words over the  8000-word limit, I was done. On Sunday night.

Synopsis: Tearjerker romance (yes, it has an HEA) in a space opera setting where two foot-soldiers from rival Houses are thrown together as they struggle to save their species from extinction. In order to survive the hand dealt them by history and fate, one must conquer and one must surrender.

• Editor 1: Tough to wade into it; starts slow like a literary piece; work on pacing.
• Editor 2: Bujold vibe; massive paragraphs stopped her; gave up and went to middle where pacing got better; didn’t have emotional hook because the opening was bad; hit the paragraph key more often; it’s all there, but presentation was wrong in paragraphing; well done; too much work to fix the beginning; fix pacing.
• Editor 3: Names and details were too much; got interesting on p. 5; got kicked out around p. 18.
• Editor 4: 100% my kind of story; great world building and setting; all comes together; loved it; loved the concepts like the genetic engineering; super-resonated with him.
• Editor 5: Had trouble getting into it on 1st page; really liked despite it being SF;  agrees with co-editor.
• Buying editor: Bujold-type of story; read the set up aloud to get a better sense of where to put the paragraph breaks; repaginate with new paragraphs; adjust sentence length; should be a fast read; plot is fabulous; no buy because of style points; nothing wrong with plot or characters or the way it was set up but first seven pages were tormenting.

After the verdicts came, the editors of the “Strange” anthology said they wanted to put it on their maybe list and Dean Wesley Smith took me aside on the next break and took me through re-paragraphing and fixing the opening. He basically told me that “When you think you’re over-paragraphing, you’re probably doing it right.”

Interesting little story from the old days when manuscripts came in manila envelopes. Basically, they’d pull out the first page. If it was formatted correctly, they’d keep pulling it up past the title in the middle of the page, and keep going for a few lines. If there were no new paragraphs, they’d slip the first page back in and send the manila envelope back to the author. The manuscript didn’t even get pulled all the way out of the envelope, much less read!

Despite the no’s from both editors who said it had a Bujold-vibe I was thrilled at the comparison because that’s exactly what I was going for. I want to be the next Lois McMaster Bujold. And it was a relief that no one said anything about being confused. Later, in my conversation with Mr. Smith, he told me that all my information-flow issues (people getting confused) were actually a paragraphing issue. The information was all there, but I’d buried it. I had the most wonderful sensation of light bulbs turning on, gears clicking into place, and fireworks going off.

At lunch, I had a chance to talk to Ron Collins, one of the editors for “Face the Strange.” He thanked me for writing Dominion, said it hit all his reader cookies. I asked him, “You really think it fits Strange?” and he said, “Oh yeah, two people from rival Houses dealing with each other. Sure it does.”

After four days I had a “maybe” on what I thought was my strongest story (despite it being written in far too much haste) but from a different anthology, one whose theme I hit entirely by mistake. Now, some of that had to do strictly with preference (he liked that type of story and the paragraphing was not enough to stop him, and the strange names and sci-fi terms were things he got into rather than turned him off) and some of it was just pure dumb luck.

I’ll take it.

Since it’s a “maybe” and the final table of contents for “Strange” is still being assembled, I won’t find out until the end of the workshop if I’m really in or not. But I’m in the running. And if I don’t make it, I know exactly what to do next—I’m going to fix the paragraphing issue and send it off to another market. I’m told that most of the rejections from this workshop tend to sell well to other markets.

Time jump to three days later:

I won’t keep you in suspense on this one. It’s just too exciting not to share. This story went from the “maybe” list to the “buy” list, making it my (officially) second sale. Remember what I said about sci-fi being about characters. And word-counts being pirate code.

Part Five

Part One

Part Two

Feb. 27th, 2018

The story for the third week had to do with strangers dealing with each other. And it was another one of those that made me scratch my head, especially the part about not wanting to read anything icky since it was a parent-child editorial team. No definition of “icky” was provided.

In retrospect I realize that my fear of putting in any details about sexual attraction actually kept me from adequately fleshing out the emotional aspect, which was something they did want. But, apparently, I can’t write anything that doesn’t tend towards having a romantic aspect of some kind—yes, it’s a personal flaw and probably not one I will fix since I like my romantic tensions too much.

This story started with an image of a blonde woman in a white suit and pumps, holding a pearl white briefcase, getting ready to go through a stargate.

I had no idea she was going to end up in Hell, no idea I was going to use a character I’d used in another (unpublished) story, no idea it was going to be about what it ended up being about, no idea that I was going to play off the Persephone/Hades myth. I had no idea I was going to bring in the concepts of war being hell, of military traditions, or a statement on totalitarianism.

If you’re not familiar with Abigor, the Duke of Hades, I suggest you google it. I loved the idea of the Devil having his own Secretary of War and that Abigor was always portrayed as a handsome knight. And I just couldn’t pass up the idea of a demon being a handsome knight and having a former angel fall for him. Yes, it should’ve of been more of a romance. Hindsight, thou art 20/20, you useless little …

The story ended up as former angel meets demon (because they would be strange to each other).

Summary: Eir, a Verity (a human lie detector who used to be an angel) ends up in Hell, when Abigor, the Duke of Hades, snatches her from a time stream. After confirming the truth of his vision about a threat to all of Creation and the battle plan needed to win, she partakes of the food at his table so that she can return to Hell and join him in the vanguard.

• Editor 1: Not his kind of story
• Editor 2: Beautiful writing ; not interested in a hell story.
• Editor 3: Really enjoyed it; enjoyed concepts; loved Missing Man table; ending wasn’t emotionally connected; enjoyed the writing; maybe pile.
• Editor 4: Liked it; she was such an interesting character; needed more of a reaction more to the Devil and to Hell; she’s not traumatized enough; maybe pile.
• Buying editor 1: By middle the feeling was on theme; interactions between angel and demon are kind of core of everything that’s going on; loved ideas and politics within hell; loved commentary on totalitarian fascism but ending wasn’t deeply connected; didn’t understand why did she ended up with him; didn’t get the relationship; reluctant no.
• Buying editor 2: Reactions to hell should be more intense; present problem at the front; interesting, but not enough.

The word limit was 6000 and I actually came in at 4700 but mostly because I ran out of time. I think if I would have had more time, I would have pushed past the word limit. A truly excellent story over 10,000 words was bought for this 6000-word limit anthology.

Post-mortem:

The take-away for me here was that I need to tell more (cringe) or I need to add more word count with showing and just look at word limits as suggestions or perhaps pirate code. I also need to write the story as it wants to be written rather than approach it with constraints. It might’ve gotten rejected for being too icky, or it might not. Now I will never know, but I think that if I’d told my critical voice to shut up, I would have made the characters more emotionally engaging. I could’ve always gone back and cut any ickiness  (which I later realized meant explicit sex) and just kept the emotional aspects.

Tid-bits:

Again, without going into specifics since I’m not at liberty to discuss who said what about whose work, the following things were said about different stories, as well as for the same story:

• I expected one kind of story but your story went in the wrong direction. No buy.
• I knew how it was going to end. No buy.
• I like how you twisted the end and surprised me. No buy.
• I loved this story and you kept me reading until the end, but sorry, no buy.
• I hated everything about this character. I wanted to strangle him. Buy.
• There’s a lot of manuscript level problems, but it’s a buy with a rewrite.
• Your story has several issues, but if you’d be willing to make some changes, I might be interested. But I might not, since the changes I’m asking for may make the story a different story that wouldn’t fit.

Some of the “no buys” came down to “no matter my personal opinion” there are other considerations such as I already have too many stories of this kind and can’t fit yours in. Or the story is too unique and doesn’t fit with the others. There were also other minutiae that are impossible to know ahead of time, all coming down to editorial taste. For example, “I don’t read stories set in hell.” Now that’s a tidbit that would be impossible to know unless you knew the editor or heard them speak on a panel.

I know that it’s going to surprise many of you to hear that editors are human. Yes, they are. They have preferences. They have biases. “Not my thing” and “not for me” were often heard. As was, “I kept reading because it was a [insert author’s name] story.”

Veterans of this workshop obviously had an advantage. They knew the preferences of editors with whom they’d worked with before and could write for them better than someone new. I’m not complaining, I’m just stating a fact, acknowledging reality. If you think about it, it’s just the way things work, everywhere, with everyone.

So, not only is taste a key factor, so are relationships. If you became a writer so you wouldn’t have to network, you’re in for a surprise. Let’s take the editors out of this entirely and think of this from the perspective of a reader. A reader who liked your previous work, whose trust you’ve gained, will give you more leeway with your next work than a reader who has never read you. If they liked your last book and you insert something they might not love in your new one, they’re more likely to set aside those things they don’t like and/or to trust you to deliver in the end.

Part Four

Part One.

 

Feb. 26th, 2018

The workshop’s second assignment was another difficult one. The theme was “Broken Dreams” and the editor specified that she didn’t want the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Even with the 8000-word limit, I wanted to skip this uncomfortable subject.

But I had to try. Otherwise, I’d be wasting my time and money, and losing a chance at getting some valuable feedback and insight on how to do it better later.

I’d been researching privateers for some reason (probably because something shiny flew by and led me there) so the first thing that came to me was to do a story about a guy that got cashiered and lost his opportunity for command. This turned out to be one of those cases where I was doing pure discovery writing (I had no end in mind at all) and no idea how to get there. I started with a character and waited to see where he took me.

After a couple of false starts, the character took 5500 words to take me here:

Romantic space opera about a cashiered naval officer turned privateer who takes a job to hunt down and destroy a ship with bioweapons. Instead, he finds the dead sailors betrayed by his government, and the woman trying to bring them, and the truth behind their deaths, back home.

• Editor 1: Not SF; not enough setting; fake details; didn’t read that far into it.
• Editor 2: Liked opening; Lucy reminded him of HAL; light sci-fi; enjoyed story; not sure why it didn’t become a buy; maybe list
• Editor 3: Absolutely loved first line; middle was confusing; loved the ending. Still a no.
• Editor 4: It is SF: it works; loving it as I go through 1st half; lost setting at explosion; information flow issues on manuscript level; lost towards end so it went from a maybe to a no.
• Editor 5: Got confused in the end; feels like it’s not done yet; the characters had just discovered conspiracy; questions about what happens next; needs to be a longer story.
• Buying editor: She sets the bar for SF higher than for other genres; this story can be quite powerful but manuscript has no setting; needs more details; there are town-level details but no planet-level details; needs to be longer; over-write it and over-describe it so we can see it; setting and characterization is not there; no buy.

Post-mortem:

In addition to the discomfort of the subject matter, I allowed previous input from other writers/editors to get into my head. I’ve been told—more than once—that I shouldn’t put novel-level setting details into my short stories. On more than one occasion, someone I trusted has hammered me for over-writing and over-describing and not getting to the plot quickly enough. Because it’s sci-fi and sci-fi readers read for plot. This is grade-A gold-plated BS. I’m a sci-fi reader and I don’t read for plot. I can’t be the only one. And I knew that. And I still let it influence me and get into my process.

Writing this story turned out to be an important object lesson about not allowing others into my process and writing the stories I want to write. Because while some sci-fi readers may not care about characters, I do. And my stories are better for it, as you’ll see later (guess which one I did sell?).

But I was, again, not surprised that this particular story didn’t make the cut. The whole theme of broken dreams turned me off. It calls for tragedy and sadness and I like to write happy endings. What was interesting is that at the end, the buying editor did actually chew us all out for not wanting to deal with this difficult subject.

Her main complaint was lack of emotion and keeping characters at arm’s length. We didn’t want to go there. We didn’t want to be there, suffering with those characters. And I think that’s definitely true.

Like with the superstition story from the first week, I would’ve never touched this subject, not even with a ten-foot pole. And now that I know that I should be over-writing and over-describing, I will. And anyone who rejects my sci-fi for that reason, well, it’s their loss…

Several pieces that were intellectual rather than emotional were also rejected despite being solid and well-written. Again, we are back to what the editor wanted.

Feedback summary:

Without giving you the details of the submissions (they are not mine to give), or the source of the comments, I would still like to share the substance of why stories were rejected.

1. Story/characters at arm’s length—in other words, we were not in the characters’ heads/hearts, feeling things with them. It’s an issue of narrative distance, one I’ve often talked about, and a specific pet peeve of mine as well. This is why I personally don’t enjoy stories written with narrative distance (omniscient, distant third, 1^st person, present tense). We were told that 1^st person present tense is the second most distant narrative tense (second person being the most distant). It is appropriate in one instance–PTSD. Like first person in general, 1st present tense distances the reader from the story, but even more than first person past tense. I’ll be the first one to celebrate the death of this “1^st person present tense” fad; it’s like nails on a chalkboard to me and those were the only stories I couldn’t read.

2. Lack of setting. The “fake details” mentioned above mean that the writer didn’t give enough of a description of things to make the setting solid and specific. It’s an issue of showing vs telling, as well as information flow, i.e. requiring a reader to rethink an assumption they made based on too little information.

3. Lack of clarity.

4. Loss of point of view.

5. Needs to be longer (i.e. feels superficial, not enough detail; reads more like an outline).

Conclusion:

I hope you’re detecting a trend here, even among subjective opinion. Some things work better than others when the submission requirements call for emotion, i.e. character over plot; setting over talking heads in a white room.

What’s a white room? Image a stage with white walls, a white floor, white furnishings, upon which people in white Morphsuits (full body suits that cover everything, including the head and face) are going through the motions and delivering dialogue. You can have plenty of plot in this white room full of talking heads. But you won’t have emotion because your characters are no better than cardboard.

I have yet to see a submission call for talking heads in white rooms. Maybe you’re into those kinds of stories, but that’s not what any of these editors wanted.

Part three.