ROW80 Round 4, Episode Fourteen

Check out the Happy Dance – mine – for lo!, I have completed a short story.

Goals: Let’s just forget that my original goal for this round was to finish writing the first draft of one incomplete novel (Project RC).

Notes: Lots of stuff has happened in the background while I’ve been muddling through this ROW80.

I’ll blog more about this later, but for the time being I am facing the end of 2012 with a nice boost of achievement.

In the last week I’ve finished writing a short story which turned out at novelette length (7500 words), so when I’ve given it the final run-through I’ll do a print copy too.

I enjoy doing the print versions. Something about the electronic versions seems a little “flat” to my way of thinking. I know the story’s the same, regardless of how it looks on the page, but chefs always say “The first bite is with the eye” and I reckon they are onto something. If it wasn’t important, all blogs would be in Helvetica 12-point.

I also dug up some old research notes and found a link to Lester Dent‘s Pulp Fiction Short Story Guidelines.  There are numerous versions all over the web, but mine came from Dirty 30s! which describes itself as “a pulp or noir sourcebook for any RPG set in the 1930s“. Never mind role-playing games (for the moment), it’s a handy resource for fiction writers too. Shame it’s only for the 1930s though; I’d like to find something similar about the Edwardian period.

One fascinating point in the Wikipedia entry for Dent, BTW, is the amount paid for short stories in the pulp fiction markets of the 1920s – $450. That’s about £300. Anyone earning that sort of money for a magazine short story these days?

Updates: Every Wednesday and Sunday until the challenge is over, as per the Rules.

Links: Find other ROW80 participants here.

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