Stories within Stories

I've read several submissions recently that have featured a character telling a story about other characters. I find that this technique rarely works in the short story form, either as a way of introducing backstory or as an alternate way of telling the primary story. A few problems are inherent in that technique:

• The story feels less immediate because the connection with the protagonist is distanced
• There's a credibility problem: can we believe the character that is telling the story?
• Formatting can be difficult, especially when you have to use quotes inside quotes

So, if you find a character in one of your stories telling a story, think about taking the "telling" character out and writing the story from the POV of the true protagonist. If the backstory is complex but also essential to the story, then consider rethinking the plot. How can you make it more immediate?

Submissions Update

We've gotten through all the submissions for the summer issue. That means that if you submitted a story earlier than midnight on May 15, you should have heard from us by now. If you have not, feel free to assume that our response got lost in cyberspace and submit it elsewhere.

Thanks again for all of the great submissions. We're getting 45 to 60 submissions per month, which means we considered around 200 stories for this issue. We ended up holding 25 for voting, and we accepted six. 

We're very excited for our next issue. It will have great stories, an exciting interview, and much more!

More on Rejections

A couple more things about Electric Spec rejections I would add to Bet's excellent post. Electric Spec's "standard" rejection letter is writer friendly, IMHO. We do that for a several reasons. First, most of the stories we get are pretty good, or at least have some bright spots that make us think the author has potential. We know it's hard being a writer and even harder getting a rejection, so we don't want to rub salt in the wound with a discouraging rejection e-mail. Instead, we mean it when we say we want to look at something else from the author it they think it would be a good fit. (This does NOT mean we want to see your trunk stories that have been rejected by everyone else!) Second, we recognize that considering stories is a very subjective process. One editor may love what another one hates. Third, we don't want to leave a bad taste in a future author's mouth. It's bad enough getting a rejection, but if the rejection is nasty, you're unlikely to be motivated to submit to that 'zine again (unless, perhaps, they pay lots of $$, which E-Spec does not).

At times (very rarely), I will add an encouraging p.s. to stories that stand out but are not really right for us. Other times (even more rarely) I will take out the nice, encouraging parts out of our standard rejection. I only do this when it appears from the story that author is clueless about how to write a story or lacks a basic understanding of English.