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Plotting Paid Off For Me (in 2025) When I started writing fiction a few years back, I naively (and a bit arrogantly after publishing a novel) stumbled into the fray on another writing website, about plotters v.s. pantsers debate. Some of the pantsers got pretty nasty back then, insinuating that plotters were lesser writers, far less creative. In spring and summer of 2025, I got the opportunity for a freelance writing contract. Writings script dialog for characters in an online game. I posted about how that one contract dwarfed my total earnings in traditional publishing. "Note: My Best Fiction Writing Payday Ever T..." An even bigger payoff came in the early fall, the company came back and asked me if I could write a full outline for a new story. About ten thousand words, they need an outline, a plot summary they call it, so they can plan their production assets for artwork. They gave me the tone, genre and some general parameters. The follow-on scripts have to follow the plot. I got the contract to write the outline, develop character personas, and write scripts for about 300 scenes for the entire story. My wife was in shock as money  rolled in for three months. Her teasing, good natured, about the big paydays for my stories stopped. (for now) This freelance writing paid off more than financially for me as well. @ I learned to tell a story almost completely with dialog in scripts. @ I improved my story tempo and pace. @ We also needed add on scenes, writing outside the outline. Pantsing it for a while was fine. @ We also tweaked the plot as we went along, as the characters spoke to us, pantser kind of vibe. It was mostly luck stumbling into this opportunity, but I’ll take some luck along the way. The real joy for me is still traditional publishing, and in 2025 I managed to get stories in seven anthologies. A busy year, a blessed year in my writing journey. Persistence has paid off for me with writing, but looking forward is more productive than looking back. I will appreciate this moment as the rejections and setbacks come my way. |
Reasons for Rejections On Feb 2, 2026, S🤦♂️   shared an item from an email he got from a publisher, What Makes You Not Choose A Story. See "20260202 E-mail From A Publisher" As someone who chases short stories in traditional publishing, I found it to be very interesting to see the views from the other side of the submission looking glass. I reached out to an editor/writer who has picked two of my stories for anthologies she has curated in the past and asked a similar question. The most common reason for rejecting stories for anthologies. This is the list from her with some minor edits to keep her feedback confidential. I particularly like her last point, lots of good stories are not chosen. Common reasons for anthology short story rejections: Too long or too short (if I like a story enough, otherwise I will send it back and ask for a rewrite to fit the length requirements) Doesn't fit the submission call – Not written well enough, unfocused, poor plot exposition, etc. Blatant political content that overshadows the story. A plot development or a twist that you can see from a mile away. Too derivative of another work, --- for example, for XXXX, we got a submission that was very similar to the plot of The Wicker Man and added nothing new. No room -- too many good stories have come in, and you have to choose, or a story resembled another one the editor liked better |
A Rejected Stories List If you are chasing after traditionally published short stories, you have accumulated a directory of rejected stories. In the last two years, 11 of my short stories have been published, 3 of which were previously rejected by one or more publishers. They took tweaks, improvements, and adjustments, but the basic core of a good story was there. I have had a success rate of about eight percent acceptance, so the rejected list has grown fast, even though some stories have been submitted multiple times to different publishers. The directory of rejected stories grows much faster than the accepted stories. Soon, it’s difficult to remember all of those stories. When you see a new call for submissions, maybe one of your old rejects is a good starting point. I haven’t kept a list, but I do have a well-organized directory of short stories, Rejected, Pending, and Published. Flipping the directory has become a little bit awkward. How about a list? I finally decided. I like lists. Should be easy to create a list with a Windows command. Well, it took a little research, but here is how you do it without having to type it out manually. Use the Windows command prompt. Navigate to the directory with the cd command. Be careful to use the full path name. The use dir \b > textfilename.txt to get a text file with only the file names, you will find it in the folder. You can pull it into your word processor and add notations and summaries or just have a list. Turning lemons into lemonade. |
| I also realize another way to do the same thing, using my submission tracking list of all submissions. Sort for the rejections only. Okay, more than one way to skin a cat. Not that I would skin a cat. |
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BOOK LAUNCH! BOOK LAUNCH! BOOK LAUNCH! Check out my story The Anxious Entomologist in the Anthology Lesser Cryptids of Appalachia. 2025 was a good year for my traditional publishing efforts. Seven of my stories published in 2025!
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HARD TO PUT A LABEL ON THIS STORY, EXCEPT EXCELLENT. GIVE IT A READ. IT WILL FILL YOU WITH MANY EMOTIONS.
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Writer Stuck in A Loop Did you hear the story about a writer who got stuck in a confusing loop as he was editing a story. He was using a synonym dictionary to help avoid repetitive word usage. He accidentally typed synonym as the word into the search dictionary and got stuck as he kept reading it over and over. He thought he typed in the word he wanted to replace, he kept asking himself, why is it spitting back these useless suggestions . . .another word . . .alternate word . . .alternate expression. I know what I want! I did it once, but I didn’t really get stuck. |
Incredible Writing Milestone If you didn’t catch it! S🤦♂️ has just had his 100th Traditionally Published Short Story released. A testament to persistence and skill. Drop by his Notebook and give him a scribble |
Major Publishing News from Amazon Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  keeps going and going and going .......
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Is It Ever Too Late? A man is struggling to make ends meet and is dealing with regrets from a lifetime of bad decisions. Is it too late to change his life? Even as life throws more challenges and temptations his way. If this story sounds interesting, give it a read and give me your thoughts about it. Just under 2000 words.
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House of Dynamite and the President Late this month the movie “House of Dynamite” came out in theaters. One of the themes, founded in reality is the short time frame a president has to make a decision to launch nuclear weapons in the event of an actual or suspected attack on the United States. The public literature from experts in this area suggests time frames from ten to thirty minutes. A decision that is made by a president without any checks and balances, that could nearly end life on the planet. This week President Trump stated, “because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.” Department of War and nuclear weapons testing, sounds ominous. Experts and advisers were shocked, dismayed, and confused. Nuclear testing involving detonation of devices has not happened in 30 years, what is he thinking? What do you think about President Trump having his finger on the button? Go to the political taboo forum "Trumps Finger on the Nuclear Button" by Damon Nomad and give your views. |
ATTENTION HORROR WRITERS LOOKING FOR A REAL CHALLENGE According to the Horror Tree, an anthology based on the setting of the Shining is in the works. Apparently, there will be an open call soon, capped at 500 submissions and accepting one story, the others are filled by invited writers. Paying $2000 ahead of royalties according to the article. This is out of my league, but someone on WDC might be game. From the Horror Tree: Screenwriter Jamie Flanagan is putting together an anthology based on the infamous hotel from Stephen King’s ‘The Shining’ and it already features work from: Michael Bailey, Chelsea Cain, Johnny Compton, Mike Flanagan, Christopher Golden, Justina Ireland, AI Jiang, Alma Katsu, Brian Keene, Daniel Kraus, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Chuck Palahniuk, and more with Ellie Pritchett editing. Source https://www.horrortree.com/advance-notice-full-call-will-be-posted-when-availabl... |
THE EXCITING ROLLER COASTER RIDE OF TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING I have had a long string of rejections, and as usual, the good news seems to come in clusters. This week brought a new book launch. Today brought an email with an acceptance and contract offer to publish a new story in an upcoming anthology. This is one of those stories I stuck with through previous rejections and refined and tweaked it. In a twisted sort of way, the rejections make the acceptances more meaningful. WRITE! SUBMIT! REJECT! PUBLISH! REPEAT |
BOOK LAUNCH! BOOK LAUNCH! BOOK LAUNCH! A publisher just released a new anthology with my story, BONE STEW. It’s been a while since I have had a new one go out. Feel free to purchase and publish great online reviews of my story.
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Dead Presidents and US Currency The decision to place a person's likeness on US currency, including coins, has been a decision treated with dignity and careful thought. The US Treasury is considering a one-dollar coin commemorating the 250th anniversary of independence (1776-2026) for next year. Of course, dead presidents were considered the front-runners. In 2016, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco confirmed that "a living person may not appear on U.S. currency." "To avoid the appearance of a monarchy, it was a long-standing tradition to only feature portraits of deceased individuals on currency and coin." (Emphasis added by me.) Front-runners amongst presidential historians are said to be Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. Imagine their shock and awe, surely, when the US Treasury recently confirmed the proposed design of the new coin is, yes, of course, the current president. The reverse side of the coin is particularly fetching, the president's fist raised with words FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. I wonder whose idea this was? I would direct any discussion and commentary to the forum "TABOO forum: politics" |
Amethyst Angel ♡  - He's not kidding. It's not even the most disgusting thing the King Orange One has done this week. |
| Amethyst Angel ♡ - See news articles www.politico.com/news/2025/10/03/treasury-department-trump-dollar-coin-00593368 www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/10/03/donald-trump-commemorative-coin-legal/86504452007/ |
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Here's my take on plot v pants: "20240120 Plotting and Pantsing"