The Story Thus Far

The Ladder of Sadness

At the 2026 Rainforest Writer’s Retreat, held each winter at a lodge on Lake Quinault on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, author Daryl Gregory gave an hour-long presentation he titled The Ladder of Sadness. He attributed the title to Gardner Dozois, the revered writer and Asimov’s editor. At an event some years ago, Daryl asked him for career advice, and Gardner prefaced his reply with, “Well, Daryl, it’s all a ladder of sadness.”

On hearing this, my imposter syndrome leaned back in its chair, folded its arms, and frowned in my direction. See! I told you.

Daryl’s presentation resonated with me, and in recent months my approach to writing has shifted a bit. I have more clarity now about what I control versus what others control. It might seem an obvious distinction, but collectively, writing and editing and navigating the business of writing is like mapping an iceberg. There’s a lot going on beneath the surface.

Admittedly, I haven’t been trekking over this ice for long, but over the last few years, I’ve learned a few things that some of you, new writers in particular, might find useful.

So, if you’ll indulge me...

It Can Be a Long Road

A bit of context might help frame what follows, so here goes.

I started my first fantasy short story, “The Captain’s Compass”, a year before Covid shut down the world. It began as a narrative illustration of a magic system I’d been toying with for a long time. I’d intended to write a couple pages about an artificer crafting an arcane compass that could divine the weather—winds and storms, their relative directions and strengths, and so on. But two pages became ten, then twenty, and before long, I had an 4,000-word short story.

My obsession with worldbuilding drove some of this narrative entropy but more than anything, I had become enamored with my protagonist, a well-intentioned, deeply flawed man, not unlike myself. I had to know what happened to him, so I kept at it. When I finally found the ending of the story, well… I had a moment. I wrote the final paragraph, then rewrote it a few times for good measure, because that is what I do, then leaned back in my chair and started to tear up. I do that now and then. Yeah, that sobbing guy sitting behind you at Hamnet was me.

After regaining my composure, I printed it and handed it off to Susie, my wife. The thing to know about Susie is that while she’s a great copy editor, she does not read fantasy fiction. Like, at all. She knew it was coming though, so she dropped everything and read it, then read it again with red pen in hand.

It was not perfect, and while she didn’t fully grasp some of the concepts—what the hell is an elemental?—she liked it well enough and gave me a ton of things to think about. After a few weeks trembling at the prospect of editing the thing—did I mention I cried when I finished the first draft?—I dove in and made some changes.

Then… I sent the revised draft to family and friends. Everyone on the TO line. Unsolicited. Yes I did. Hey, I wrote this thing, have a look if you can make the time, no rush, thanks… um, cheers!

A few people told me they loved it and left it at that, my mom, for example (moms are savvy that way). A handful thanked me for sending it and shared their thoughts. Loved this bit, confused about that bit, um… where’s the rest? But a couple people, actual writers, sent me pages of feedback.

Pages? Seriously? I thought this thing was done.

And so, draft number three happened. It took me quite a while. Months to pick it up again and a month more to finish it. When it was done, I thought I had something, so I sent it to Clarkesworld, as one does, and had a rejection within 36 hours (I have nine from Neil Clarke now, and cherish each and every one of them). Undaunted, I sent it to Beneath Ceaseless Skies and a week later received a gift of an email, a rejection from the BCS Editor, Scott Andrews, with actual feedback! Yes, he does this. I can count on two hands how many times he’s done this for me, and dream of a day when he just sends me a thumbs up emoji and a contract.

From there, I started and finished a fourth draft but something didn’t feel quite right. I couldn’t figure it out, so on a whim, I found a developmental editor, agreed to terms, and sent it to her.

Her critique profoundly changed the way I thought about “The Captain’s Compass”, not the story itself but how I was telling it. Buried in her incredible, detailed feedback was a suggestion to either get rid of a minor character or give him something to do. I went with the latter option and began the fifth draft. Over the next few months, “The Captain’s Compass” became “The Ethics of Elemental Servitude”, an 8,200-word novelette told from two POVs.

There was a sixth draft—because of course there was—but in late 2022, I sent “Ethics” to a small press I enjoy, a webzine called The Worlds Within. In early February of 2023, the Managing Editor, Emily Jones, accepted “Ethics” and a month later my first work of short fiction was published.

I didn’t earn a dime but after four years, it was out there.

On Writing

Process? Wait… There’s a Process?

So, what is my writing process? Honestly, I’m only just now beginning to understand it. It’s emerging, but a few things kind of seem true.

First, I prefer to write in three-hour sessions. It takes me an hour or so to really get going, and after three hours I find I need to get up and do something else for a while. I have neck issues and a dog and sometimes I need food, OK? Two three-hour sessions a day is ideal but that’s hard to justify every day. I tend to favor morning and late evening sessions.

Second, I don’t pay much attention to word count. I generally know my weekly progress but tracking session- or day-level word count metrics stresses me out. I confess that until recently, the Rainforest Writer’s Retreat word-count board terrified me. I finally got over it this year.

Third, when I sit down to write, I take the time to edit what I wrote during the previous session. Might be ten minutes, might be an hour. I find this helps me get back into the voice/POV of the story and makes it easier to get into a flow state. It also gives me grace not to over edit while playing in the white space of what comes next.

Finally, I am a plotter, not a pantser. I sometimes wish I could be the latter, but I’m just not. The science fiction novelette I’m currently shopping around has a 4,300-word planning document filled with character studies, narrative explorations of POV and voice, and an astonishing amount of tech design and worldbuilding, most of which isn’t explicit in the story. But oh, it’s there.

Those are highlights of my process. Mine. You have to find your own. Just write, complete something you want to share with family or friends or the entire world, and repeat. Do that and you’ll find yours. But keep this in mind… as your life and circumstances change, don’t be surprised if your cherished, hard-discovered process undergoes some changes of its own.

Writers Do Go On About Writing

Like most of you, I’ve read a few books on writing. I devoured John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction over 30 years ago, and while I remember few specifics, I like to think I’ve retained some of its wisdom. I read Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones during that same period but it didn’t land well with me, though I did not understand why at the time. In retrospect, it’s probably because I’m wired as a plotter not a pantser. I should probably revisit both of these books.

More recently, I’ve enjoyed Chuck Wendig’s entertaining books about writing. Damn Fine Story is a damn fine book about building powerful narratives, and Gentle Writing Advice is a hilarious guide to not losing your mind on your writing journey. Chuck knows you’ve got this, even if you have your doubts.

I’m also a fan of books on usage. Dreyer’s English, by Benjamin Dreyer, is an indispensable gem, and I’ve been known to consult my frayed copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style now and then. Strunk and White has had a place on my desk since my days as an archaeologist writing massive reports for the Feds during Seattle’s long, dark rainy season.

And, if it’s a Thesaurus you seek, my god, do I have a series of books for you. Check out Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s Writers Helping Writers Description Thesaurus Series. Honestly, just buy these books. You can check them out HERE.

Finally, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The 10% Solution: Self Editing for the Modern Writer, by Ken Rand, published by Fairwood Press. I don’t consider a story finished until I’ve run through Rand’s editing Micro and Macro Lists. You can get it HERE.

You won’t discover your process in books about writing, of course you won’t, but you will find the occasional grand insight and some useful exercises that may help you find your way.

Read a Book!

Read! Read a lot. Read stories in the genre you favor as a writer, and delve into adjacent genres. Here’s an idea… read well outside your genre, stuff you would never think to write. Read non-fiction to open your mind to our own world. If you write short stories, read them. If you write novellas, read them. If your dream is to sell something to The Deadlands, read the stories and poetry they publish. Know your genre and know the publishers that serve it up to the reader community.

You know what to do.

On Editing

Embracing Feedback

Over the last year, I’ve learning that how I go about finding a market for my work is informed, at least in part, by the journey a particular story has taken from conception to final draft. No story idea I’ve ever had has survived the scrutiny of an early reader.

The market wants something from you, whether that market is a critique group or a handful of first readers, or a publisher sitting in a niche in the broader marketplace of speculative fiction.

Your work, your hard work, will change along the way, often in ways you could never have imagined at the outset. Hand it to your trusted critique group or an editor or a publisher – preferably all three – and see what you get back.

Listen to the feedback, embrace it. Take in what resonates and ignore the rest, then evolve your story. The process ends when you find an editor who wants to publish your work.

Though, they’re probably going to want a few edits.

Early Readers

My editing process goes something like this…

First Draft

As I mentioned earlier, Susie reads the first draft of each and every one of my stories. She hands me copy edits and asks a ton of developmental questions.

Second Draft

I decide what to change and make the appropriate edits. Then I read the entire thing out loud. Reading your work aloud can be revelatory. You’ll discover cadence issues and awkward transitions and unnoticed pockets of exposition buried in the narrative, all manner of things, really. Once I’m happy with the second draft, I send it to my critique group.

Third Draft

For me, this draft is devoted to addressing feedback from the amazing creatives of the Issaquah Writers Critique Group. They’ve been around for a long time, and I had the good fortune to join them a few years ago. In that short time, I’ve learned more about writing and critique from these wonderful people than I ever could have on my own. If you don’t have a critique group, find one, and take heart, it may take some time to find a good one.

Critique group feedback can range from inline edits, like missing commas and repeated words and formatting issues, to developmental notes that focus on setting or story arc or character. What I look for most in this context is shared observations. These can come in the form of consistent written feedback across multiple readers or might emerge as a wave of consensus—nods and such around the table—when someone makes an interesting point.

At the end of the critique, I compile the written feedback and my own notes from the session, decide what to change and what to leave be, and edit my little heart out. This tends to be the toughest draft to turn around for me.

Once it feels done, I run through the editing principles outlined in Rand’s The 10% Solution. Then I read the story aloud again and learn, to no one’s surprise… nope, not there yet. So, more edits and at long last, a completed third draft.

At this point, I hand it off to Susie for proofreading and poof, it’s done. Magic!

Now, this is where it gets dicey for me. This is where the compulsion to send it to friends and family becomes a twitch in my eye. Think of it as a sort of First Readers thing. Novelists do this all the time, or so I’m led to believe. They hand off polished manuscripts to a few people, other writers for the most part, who have committed to reading their work prior to agent/publisher submission.

My version of this has, let us say, evolved from the days of my first work of short fiction. I’ve learned, for example, to solicit first, and I’ve rediscovered the BCC line. Amaze! Amaze! So now it’s… Hey, I wrote this thing, would you like to read it? If so I’ll send it to you, let me know, no rush, thanks… um, cheers!‍ ‍

But beyond the joy of sharing my stories with people I love, I don’t really get much in the way of useful feedback at this point in the process. So, I have work to do to get this step right. I might need to follow the example of novelists and find a couple First Readers who know what’s what. As it happens, I know a few very good speculative fiction authors.

As to friends and family, well… they can read it when it comes out, right?

n Drafts

There may be even more drafts in your future. Lots of things can prompt them, as you’ll discover. Keep going. You will get to a Final Draft.

Engaging Formal Editors

There are many types of editors in the publishing industry but let’s have a look at what might be the most important editor roles to understand as you are working towards a Final Draft, particularly early on in your career.

Developmental Editors focus on the big picture. Does the story structure work? Are the thematic elements meaningful and do they land? Do character actions align with their motivations and are outcomes earned? Feedback from a developmental editor is detailed and can hit hard. Take the time to understand it and work with the editor to plan your revisions. I can’t say for sure what the right timing is for engaging a developmental editor, but sometime post second draft seems about right for me. You might need it earlier or you might never need it.

Line Editors fine tune your writing, one sentence at a time. They look for POV shifts, changes in narrative voice, awkward transitions and missing elements, and repetitive use of words and phrases. There’s a lot more to it than that, but you get the idea. The right timing for this kind of feedback is probably as you’re working on your Final Draft.

Copy Editors dive deep into the mechanical structure of your writing. They use a style guide—in fiction, typically The Chicago Manual of Style—as a framework for their feedback. They are looking for grammatical errors, continuity problems and anachronisms, and narrative inconsistencies. As to timing… again, Final Draft.

Hiring an editor can be expensive. Pricing is dependent on the service you’re looking for and word count.

A good critique group will provide you with excellent developmental, line, and copy edits on your shorter fiction but for longer work, you’re probably going to be working with formal editors at some point. My critique group has provided detailed feedback on the fantasy novella I’m currently shopping around but I haven’t engaged with formal editors just yet. I’m assuming that if a publisher is interested, they will provide the editing services required to get my novella to market. If I decided to self-publish, I’ll need to find line and copy editing services, ideally one editor that can wear both hats.

If you are looking for an editor, ask your writing friends or chat with editors at a Con. If you are in the Pacific Northwest, another option is to search for an editor on the Northwest Editors Guild website.

On the Business of Writing

Finding a Publisher for Short Fiction

So you’ve got what you consider a Final Draft. Congratulations! Finishing a story is a profound accomplishment. It might bring tears to your eyes the first couple times you do it. Maybe every time. Finishing a story is the most important thing you can do that’s entirely in your control. Sure, you’ve had feedback along the way but you wrote it, you made the decision about what to change and what to leave as is, and you made the updates.

Well done! Now what?

The good news is that you don’t need a literary agent to navigate the short fiction market. This includes micro and flash fiction, short stories, novelettes, and even shorter novellas. Most longer novellas and all novels generally require a literary agent to drive the publisher search.

Here’s what I’ve learned over the last few years.

Submitting Your Work

Tools

There are a handful of tools out there to help you find a home for your work. I use both Duotrope and The Submission Grinder. Both allow you to search for a publisher using a robust set of criteria, such as genre and subgenre, word count, minimum payment, allows simultaneous submissions, allows reprints, and so on. These tools also track your submissions and archive outcomes.

I prefer Duotrope. It has the more modern UI of the two and has robust, easy to use search filter options. That said, I find that Submission Grinder often returns more results for the same query. I tend to check both of them but use Duotrope to track all of my submissions.

But how the hell do I choose which publisher to submit to first, you ask? There are 25 in my search results!

Here’s how I approach that nice-to-have problem. I have a prozine-first policy. I start with a well-known publisher like Clarkesworld, and when I receive a rejection, I simply move on to the next relevant prozine. Eventually, I dip into the semi-prozines, and after those, I explore less well known small press markets. In short, I start high and settle low.

I haven’t sold anything to a prozine—not quite there yet—but I’ve had two semi-prozine sales. Everything else has been sold to anthologies or published in small press webzines.

It’s a Trap!

As with any business, there are some traps to navigate along the way.

First, you can do this! Yes, you are the first trap. Don’t get in your own way. When your story is ready, don’t hesitate. Shop it around. When you receive a rejection, take it in, acknowledge it, and move on. If the rejection came with feedback, recognize it as the gift it is. Listen to it and make changes if the comments resonate. Keep moving… on to the next.

Second, you aren’t going to make a living in the short fiction market, so don’t fixate too much about getting paid, especially early in your career. Most writers have day jobs or, like me, delayed their writing careers for decades until they could afford to write without worrying too much about pay.

As to pay, to put it simply, prozines pay more than semi-prozines, and they in turn pay a bit more than most small press webzines. You’ll find some markets that pay over 10 cents a word, some that pay 3 cents a word, and quite a few that offer token payments. But most offer nothing at all, just the joy of seeing your work in print.

Third, beware of submitting a story to more than one publisher at a time. Some editors allow simultaneous submissions, meaning you can submit a story to them, and to any other editor that permits this approach, concurrently. This can be enticing given the long slush pile queues at many publishers. Why not blast away and see what you get, right? Sure, but I bet you have a preferred publisher in that batch of six submissions you just sent out, and I bet you had a bottom choice as well.

It’s hard to turn down an offer to publish, and don’t even try to slow play an offer while waiting for one of your preferred publishers to finally get back to you. Editors don’t like that, as I found out recently. If you can’t help yourself, make sure the publishers you submit to simultaneously are all roughly in the same place on your preferred publisher list, and you might want to make sure they all have roughly the same response times.

Finally, avoid fee-based publishers. If money is to change hands it should flow in your direction. Be wary of submission fees, subscription paywalls, and editing fees. These markets are far less selective than paying and most non-paying markets, and likely have low circulation rates, which means virtually no one is going to read your stuff. The revenue stream of these businesses is funded by fees from writers, not circulation and devoted readers. I’m certain there are exceptions but I haven’t found any yet.

Contracts

All offers to publish, whether paying or non-paying, specify usage Rights in a contract. Most of the contracts I’ve agreed to have been informal, nothing more than an acknowledgement of terms over email covering the Rights of the publisher to do X with my story for some period of time, after which the agreed to Rights revert back to me. I have signed a couple much more formal agreements but nothing too complicated just yet. In other words, my experience is limited.

There’s a great deal of Contracts-related information on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association website. You can find the Contracts landing page HERE and an exhaustive introduction to publishing contracts HERE. Have at it.

One Last Thing Before You Go

Notably absent from this long post is any mention of AI. It has no place in my writing and editing processes.

Do not use AI to write, and do not use AI to edit what you’ve written. If you do, you will learn nothing along the way, and worse, you’ll be leveraging the stolen intellectual property of established authors and their publishers.

DO. NOT. DO. IT.

I’m working on a post for later this year on the subject of this climate- and mindshare-devouring shitstorm, so stay tuned.

Thanks for taking the time to slog through all this. I really do need to learn to write shorter, more frequent blog posts.

If you have any comments or would like to share your perspective or experiences, post them below or send me an email at siense@gmail.com. I’d love to chat with you.