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Anthology Question!


Anthology Participation  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. As an author, what keeps you from participating in the anthologies?

    • Not Interested
      1
    • The themes don't appeal to me
      10
    • Don't have time
      19
    • Didn't know about the anthologies
      2
    • Not sure how the anthologies work
      5
    • Didn't know I could participate in the anthologies
      2
    • Other - Please let us know in the comments (or you can PM Renee Stevens if you don't want to say publicly)
      4

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I try. Occasionally, i run out of time while writing and the anthology is out before I am done. At other times, life just gets in the way. 

I'm finishing one right now for the Fall and if things work out, might have one for both topics. Time will tell. However, I love the anthologies and seeing how everyone takes the topic in such different directions. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just came across this topic for discussion and read through the comments. I tend to think the anthology based on a prompt is only one approach to a collection of stories and possibly there are others to investigate.

Perhaps a collection of short stories based on a genre would offer readers and authors something less broad. I tend to think of an anthology as having something in common between the stories by different authors, more than simply a prompt. It might be a theme or a genre, for the former you would need to specify the theme as for example, a modern day drama (set in the 20, 21st century) which revolves around an accident. The anthology would have a title like, The Accident - a collection of short stories by six different authors (or however many contributors). The book would have an introduction to each author, along the lines of, James X has contributed a great number of stories since joining GA in xxx, etc. Or James X is new to GA. This is an author promotion, highlighting their work or some of their work, and an incentive to contribute. If the anthology is genre based, it might be Sci-fi or Mystery along with a defined theme.

Then we come to - a collection of short stories. If it's an anthology of short stories, as one author mentioned, and I agree, as a reader I don't want to read stories of 25,000 words or 20,000 words, those aren't short stories, they are novellas, short books. For myself short stories should be 2000 to 5000 words, those numbers are flexible, but the idea is to be able to pick up the anthology and read the individual stories like a chapter in a book. So 20,000 words is way too long.

The collection of stories does need to be tighter than a prompt. As a reader there are certain types of story I prefer, I don't want to pick up a collection which mixes genres because, put simply, I don't like every type of story. What I do want is to pick up a collection of stories on the theme I like, introducing me to new authors who write those sorts of stories.

So I suppose it comes down to this being an exercise for authors to throw things together around a prompt or an anthology for readers who would like the short stories on a theme they enjoy which introduces undiscovered new authors whose works they may go on to read?

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1 hour ago, Talo Segura said:

 I tend to think of an anthology as having something in common between the stories by different authors, more than simply a prompt. It might be a theme or a genre, for the former you would need to specify the theme as for example, a modern day drama (set in the 20, 21st century) which revolves around an accident.

The anthologies are based on themes.  I think having a common theme that can be applied to different genres is cool.  If I saw a theme that was only based on a genre I didn't like to read, I wouldn't want to check it out.  

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/7/2019 at 12:37 AM, Talo Segura said:

Then we come to - a collection of short stories. If it's an anthology of short stories, as one author mentioned, and I agree, as a reader I don't want to read stories of 25,000 words or 20,000 words, those aren't short stories, they are novellas, short books. For myself short stories should be 2000 to 5000 words, those numbers are flexible, but the idea is to be able to pick up the anthology and read the individual stories like a chapter in a book. So 20,000 words is way too long.

Short stories are generally considered to be between 1000 and 7500 words or, in some cases, 10,000. Between there and about 20k, you've got novelettes, which are essentially long short stories; they follow the same basic recipe. Novellas are generally between 20k and 40-50k, depending on who you ask. 

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1 minute ago, Thorn Wilde said:

Short stories are generally considered to be between 1000 and 7500 words or, in some cases, 10,000. Between there and about 20k, you've got novelettes, which are essentially long short stories; they follow the same basic recipe. Novellas are generally between 20k and 40-50k, depending on who you ask. 

I have a novella ongoing on the site right now, it topped at around 30,000 words.  If it's 50,000 or more, I would consider that a novel.    

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2 minutes ago, CassieQ said:

I have a novella ongoing on the site right now, it topped at around 30,000 words.  If it's 50,000 or more, I would consider that a novel.    

Yeah, that tends to be the general cut-off, though some say 40k. My story Lavender & Gold clocks in at about 46k and I think of it as a novella rather than a novel.

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On 9/7/2019 at 12:58 PM, Brayon said:

OTHER:

Couple of different reasons, from the one listed, but couldn't select more than one.
1. The themes don't appeal to me.

2. Don't have time.

Revisiting this, as the 2020 themes are out. I don't see myself participating next year because I have limited time because of college and now looking for a job too. I could try to budget time, but the final selection of 2020 themes are not talking to me.

Again, GA did the absolute best in getting to  a selection of themes, and I'm not sure how else choices can be made. The four final ones just don't work for me.

Perhaps if there was a Wildcard Anthology, where one could write anything. A "showcase" Anthology where an Author submits a general piece.

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9 minutes ago, Brayon said:

Revisiting this, as the 2020 themes are out. I don't see myself participating next year because I have limited time because of college and now looking for a job too. I could try to budget time, but the final selection of 2020 themes are not talking to me.

Again, GA did the absolute best in getting to  a selection of themes, and I'm not sure how else choices can be made. The four final ones just don't work for me.

Perhaps if there was a Wildcard Anthology, where one could write anything. A "showcase" Anthology where an Author submits a general piece.

I usually don't think I can write for a theme, but then something else will spark for me and I can adjust it to meet the theme.  It's part of the fun.

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11 hours ago, CassieQ said:

I usually don't think I can write for a theme, but then something else will spark for me and I can adjust it to meet the theme.  It's part of the fun.

I often read the themes and realise that I have something unfinished that would fit, or an old idea I could adapt. Lets me get back to a story I've abandoned. This has happened for me in both the 2019 anthologies, actually.

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7 hours ago, Thorn Wilde said:

I have something unfinished that would fit

Yes, indeed. My last antho entry was exactly that. This current one (thanks again, by the way) started life as a prompt response. 

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