Hint Fiction Contest Reloaded

Last year the term "hint fiction" was born in the essay "Hint Fiction: When Flash Fiction Becomes Just Too Flashy" published at Flash Fiction Chronicles. To commemorate the occasion, a retrospective essay, "Hint Fiction: One Year Later" appears at FFC today. A lot has happened in the past 365 days, and I want to thank each and every person who has supported the concept of Hint Fiction and has helped spread the word. And to celebrate Hint Fiction's birthday, we're having another contest. What is Hint Fiction? Inspired by Ernest Hemingway's infamous six-word story -- "For sale: Baby shoes, never worn" -- Hint Fiction is a story of 25 words or fewer that suggests a larger, more complex story. These are complete stories that hint at a larger story, not a first sentence or random sentence plucked from a larger work thinly disguised as a story. To see examples, look at last year's winners and finalists, or check out examples of my own Hint Fiction.

This year's judge:

Last year Stewart O'Nan was kind enough to act as the final judge, and I'm thrilled to announce that this year the final judge will be the one and only James Frey. Author of My Friend Leonard, A Million Little Pieces, and Bright Shiny Morning, James's story "The End or the Beginning" will appear in Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, being released this November (and which, hint hint, is now up for pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble at a very affordable price).

Prizes:

• The first place winner will receive $100; the second place winner will receive $50; the third place winner will receive $25. The first place winner will also receive a slew of  journals and anthologies donated by a handful of publishers:
  • a copy of The Best of Every Day Fiction Two, donated by editor Camille Gooderham Campbell
  • a copy of The Los Angeles Review, donated by fiction editor Stefanie Freele
  • a copy of Sententia, donated by editor/publisher Ryan W. Bradley
  • a copy of Space and Time, donated by editor/publisher Hildy Silverman
  • a copy of [first year] an mlp anthology, donated by editor/publisher J. A. Tyler
  • a copy of PANK, donated by editor Roxane Gay
  • a copy of Fox Force 5, donated by editor/publisher Barry Graham
• My own publisher has also been kind enough to donate ten copies of Sudden Fiction Latino, edited by Robert Shapard, James Thomas, and Ray Gonzalez. A copy will be awarded to each of the winners and finalists, as well as to some random contestants.

Rules:

The contest starts now and will take entries until midnight April 30th eastern time. You are allowed to submit up to two stories in the comments section of this post. Any writer who submits more than two stories will be disqualified. If submitting two stories, submit them at the same time. At the end of this contest, all submitted stories will be deleted from the comments section. No reprints. Titles are not required but encouraged, as they can create an extra layer to the story. Winners will be contacted by e-mail and announced here. Have fun!

Hint Fiction Has A Face

Look at it. Study it. Memorize it. Love it. Because come November, you are encouraged to go into your local bookstore and buy multiple copies of it.

Major thanks and kudos to the art department at Norton; they came up with a fantastic concept for the cover, and I couldn't be happier.

Hint Fiction's birthday is coming up in a few weeks. There are some surprises in store. If you're on Twitter and want to stay up to date on all things hint, follow @Hint_Fiction. So far I've been sharing hint news on both my personal account and that one, but am going to start transitioning into only sharing hint news on the Hint Fiction account.

Last but not least, I've also set up a fan page for Hint Fiction on Facebook. I launched it Saturday night. It already has over 60 fans. You know you want to join, so do it already.

Pre-Order, Pre-Order, Pre-Order

The Hint Fiction anthology isn't slated to be released for another eight months, but it's already up for pre-order at Amazon for those of you kind generous folks who like to pre-order now so you'll be pleasantly surprised months down the line when a package arrives at your place. According to the product details, the book is 192 pages long and its dimensions (because we all worry about such things) are 6.2 x 4.5 x 1 inches. They also list the release date as November 1st, but I'm not sure if that's definite -- the month, yes; the specific day, no.

Alas, there is no cover yet. I've seen the color sketch, and it's pretty groovy, and once all the final touches are done you better believe I'll post it here.

In other news, remember how I'd made The Silver Ring available for free download on Smashwords? Well, it's been exactly one month (only does February count as a full month or am I slighted a few days?), and in the course of that month the novella has been downloaded, as of this moment, 396 times. That comes out to about 100 downloads a week. Again, just because it was downloaded doesn't mean it's actually being read, but still. Something to definitely think about, I'd say.

It Is Finished

... well, not really, as the process is always ongoing, but I just turned in the completed manuscript of the anthology to my editor. Time to relax. Wait -- no.

Time to finish this new novel.

New Twitterage & How Long Is Too Long?

Been quiet around here, I know, but that's because I've been extremely busy, what with this deadline for the anthology fast approaching. I've wanted to post a lot of stuff but just haven't found the time, so here I am at 4:30 in the morning wanting to share with you two things. First, I created a Twitter page strictly for Hint Fiction, because I know those interested in Hint Fiction might not want to follow me and hear my continuous babbling. When there's news to share about the anthology or whatever else, I will share it in both places, but at least with the Hint Fiction account it will be just Hint Fiction and nothing else. If you'd like to follow, please do so: @Hint_Fiction.

Second, I'm sure most people reading this blog are familiar with Duotrope. And if you're a writer and you're not familiar with Duotrope, fix that error immediately. Anyway, there's a lot of great stuff about the website, but the best is the "What's New" page, which lists new markets as well as recent response times. It's always interesting to see the wide variety of RTs reported, from 0 days to over 300 days (though note that it's not an exact science, as many writers don't even use the service). And in case you haven't heard yet, a 909 day rejection was just recently reported.

Yes, you heard that right -- 909 days.

That pretty much comes to two and a half years.

And the best part? The publication -- Dark Discoveries Magazine (be sure to check out their beautiful website) -- states on their submission guidelines "no simultaneous submissions."

My thoughts on simultaneous submissions are simple -- life's too short not to simultaneously submit. And if a magazine states in their guidelines that they don't want simultaneous submissions, then they should have reasonable response times -- somewhere between 30 and 60 days, I think, though the shorter the better.

I don't even know where the whole "no simultaneous submissions" thing first came from. It basically means the magazine wants exclusivity on your work. Which is another way of saying that they want to slack off and read your story whenever they damn well please, and there's nothing you can do about it but wait two years to hear back.

Personally, it's a big turn off for me when I see the response times of magazines being over a year. Even 100 days seems excessive.

Or am I being too fussy?

Let me ask you -- how long is too long?