Fictionistas Office Hours takes place on the last Tuesday of every month, starting at 7am EST. This is the time and place to ask questions about the Fictionistas community and writing fiction on Substack. Introduce yourself, say hello, ask and answer questions. As a community we’ll be here all day, so come and go as you please.
We’ve hit a milestone! Fictionistas has over 2000 subscribers, and we continue to grow. Start off the conversation by sharing your proudest writing moments and milestones.
A lot of the episodes of my serial are getting looooong. Like 10,000 words a pop. I'm kinda okay with it, but it does make me kinda want to try my hand at a proper novella, but I have no idea what I'd do with it. Is there any hope in publishing something in the 30,000 words area? Or is the length just too in between.
Hi, I'm very new on this. But I've got a short story up and had 2 spontaneous followers. So that's something. I've got more stories to upload, and plan to write some opinion pieces too although I guess it will be better to keep the two in separate stacks.
I'm running with a kind of steampunky persona as opposed to my actual name. Not that my name's secret, but the chance to develop an online character just seemed too fun to miss. Does anyone have any thoughts, positive or negative, on pen names/personas?
Hi, I'm Claudia and although I've been writing for about a year on Substack and subscribing to Fictionistas almost from the beginning, this is the first time that I'm introducing myself here. But it's never too late.
I think that one of my proudest moments this year is publishing my first fiction story on Substack in March. And a milestone... I would say writing and publishing the first three short story from what I hope will be my first book.
I noticed that when publishing serialised short stories the first part always gets more engagement than the last part. I wonder how it works with books. Does the engagement decrease with every new chapter?
Great community and looking forward to reading from other writers during the day.
Hey all 👋🏾 I'm Stephen! I've been serialising my fantasy novel on Substack since December 2021. Honestly, publishing every chapter feels like a proud writing moment, though I am a few subscriptions away from hitting a major milestone at 100 subscribers. Just engaging with other writers here has also been a joy.
Here's a question for y'all....does anyone use an editing app or program? MS Word is.....ok at best. I downloaded Pro Writing Aid the other day and well....wow, I see why I've gotten five rejections for stories that I've submitted to various places. Grammar has never been a strong point of mine. Hence my comment earlier about spending the day re editing stuff I've already written.
Hi all, I've entered stories for the Lunar Awards a couple of times but never stopped by here before.
I was inordinately proud of my first sale, to Lackington's Speculative Fiction, in response to an open call. I didn't frame the check, because it was a PayPal thing, and printing that out myself would have felt silly. They're gone now, which is sad but not at all unusual in magazine world.
Hi all! I'm celebrating relaunching my stack with more focus and a firm set schedule to get my words off my desk- or out of my private computer files and into the world.
Going forward I see the benefit of dividing out the work I do into three sections- my weekly oracles, my essays, and then my stories or if I'm brave poetry.
My question is- how to separate? Utilizing the pages feature or the sections feature? How are others addressing this issue on their stack when you have multiple facets of our work in one space? I can *see* all the great tabs others create however I'm unsure how they are going about doing that on the back end.
I'm John - caretaker and lead cashier at Postcard Inkblot. Just recently Substacked my 30th short story and having done that crossed over the 100,000 word threshold. Is that a milestone? I have no idea. But, as I'm sure you all know, it is very difficult to rearrange 100,000 words into the correct order. Some of those pesky words didn't fit quite right so I had to use a mallet.
I hope your summer is going well and your keyboards are constantly clacking.
Hi all! I still consider my Substack in the "buildup" phase and am looking for tips on discoverability and finding an audience here. I've seen a lot of success stories from non-fiction authors and from authors who already had a platform elsewhere, but what does one do when they're just starting to build? Have a fabulous day, Fictionistas!
Re-watched the last episode of Netflix's THE SANDMAN last night, a pair of short stories. The second, "Calliope," concerns a writer who abuses his Muse, and the revenge taken by Dream. Good story.
Gaiman says nobody had ever written about this before, which I find hard to believe,
Hi, everyone. I'm new to this group. I'm a published novelist (self-published and conventionally)...former Doubleday editor and literary agent, although those latter jobs are in the distant past. (Happy to answer questions on the mechanics of publishing, but I can't help much with contacts at this juncture.) In any case, I already have a niche gardening Substack called Backyard Stewardship, but I'll soon be launching a Substack serialization of my new novel, which is currently available on Amazon. I am likely delusional, but I view this both as a way to find new readers and maybe make a few bucks from paid subscribers who would like to interact with me on the novel. I welcome advice on how to get this thing going!
Hello, everyone! I’m new to Fictionistas though I’ve been writing on Substack (nonfiction) since spring. I’m getting ready to serialize my first novel in September and am excited to do so. I’m celebrating six months of consistent writing.
7am Eastern, eh? Well, now I'm the guy wandering around the empty ballroom downing what's left of everyone's drinks and eating the leftover hors d'oeuvres, I guess...
What a fantastic milestone. I’m relatively Nee to this space on Substack; I switched from nonfiction beat reporting on the outdoors, to sharing speculative fiction.
I think my biggest win has been the success I’ve seen sharing my stories on Reddit. The community there seems to have a strong appetite for them.
A few respectably sized YouTube channels have reached out to me asking for permission to narrate their work in exchange for direct credit links back to my Substack, which I’m hoping will expand my reach! If nothing else I’ll meet more cool people
I hit 20,000 words in my current novel, which is only 5K short of my intended halfway point, so that's sort of a milestone. :) I'm definitely a pantser, not a plotter, and I wrote myself into a situation where the main character went and took someone's head off with a talking sword; you can get a surprising amount of words out of that.
Hello. Let me help add to the milestone. 2001, at least (probably more, honestly.) I'm celebrating my own milestone of 100, but it came up so fast, I haven't had time to think of something special to do.
I'm new here - just found out about this space and subscribed! I'm writing a mixture of fiction and background stuff about fiction here on Substack, all tied in to my new book series. It's gay romance and as such, with not as much of an existing audience, growth is gradual. But I'm seeing people coming over after seeing the link in the books, which is fun!
Hi Everybody! I write history + future essays and Sci./Spec. Fiction novels (and I lurk a lot, reading everyone's great writing, and learning from you about how to do things).
I'm coming in on the tail end but I'm here thanks to Brian Reindel, after I launched a 'Stack last September. I started it to finish a second novel, from last Halloween to Thanksgiving, with daily Substack chapters, and to start a third one. (I later find out that this is called "serial fiction", this is how new I am to it all.)
I wrote my first novel, over six "30 day" streaks, published on what is now called "X" in 2021, and I wish I knew earlier on about Substack's growing community of fiction writers.
It took a year, but I finally got comfortable with saying "Hi" in addition to hitting "send" thanks to everyone here.
A fantastic milestone, congrats! Lovely to see so many commenting in here, too.
Well, I still feel somewhat stunned by this, but my proudest writing moment/milestone is certainly having been featured at the weekend in the latest Substack Reads. I feel equal parts honoured and equal parts not worthy haha.
I'm not sure how much fiction we've had in there before (if any?), but I hope it's the start of the Substack team giving all the fiction a little more spotlight. Hopefully many of those here will be gracing people's inboxes via Substack Reads.
Fictionistas August Office Hours
Hi Everybody! Glad to be here. Looking forward to scanning this post all day!
Morning, y'all! Off today, so it's a day of editing a few stories and working on a couple of more.
A lot of the episodes of my serial are getting looooong. Like 10,000 words a pop. I'm kinda okay with it, but it does make me kinda want to try my hand at a proper novella, but I have no idea what I'd do with it. Is there any hope in publishing something in the 30,000 words area? Or is the length just too in between.
Hi, I'm very new on this. But I've got a short story up and had 2 spontaneous followers. So that's something. I've got more stories to upload, and plan to write some opinion pieces too although I guess it will be better to keep the two in separate stacks.
I'm running with a kind of steampunky persona as opposed to my actual name. Not that my name's secret, but the chance to develop an online character just seemed too fun to miss. Does anyone have any thoughts, positive or negative, on pen names/personas?
Hi, I'm Claudia and although I've been writing for about a year on Substack and subscribing to Fictionistas almost from the beginning, this is the first time that I'm introducing myself here. But it's never too late.
I think that one of my proudest moments this year is publishing my first fiction story on Substack in March. And a milestone... I would say writing and publishing the first three short story from what I hope will be my first book.
I noticed that when publishing serialised short stories the first part always gets more engagement than the last part. I wonder how it works with books. Does the engagement decrease with every new chapter?
Great community and looking forward to reading from other writers during the day.
Hey all 👋🏾 I'm Stephen! I've been serialising my fantasy novel on Substack since December 2021. Honestly, publishing every chapter feels like a proud writing moment, though I am a few subscriptions away from hitting a major milestone at 100 subscribers. Just engaging with other writers here has also been a joy.
Just posted my entry to this contest. Still open until 9/1.
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gYxY5Mr2srBnrbuaT/announcing-the-ai-fables-writing-contest
Here's a question for y'all....does anyone use an editing app or program? MS Word is.....ok at best. I downloaded Pro Writing Aid the other day and well....wow, I see why I've gotten five rejections for stories that I've submitted to various places. Grammar has never been a strong point of mine. Hence my comment earlier about spending the day re editing stuff I've already written.
Hi all, I've entered stories for the Lunar Awards a couple of times but never stopped by here before.
I was inordinately proud of my first sale, to Lackington's Speculative Fiction, in response to an open call. I didn't frame the check, because it was a PayPal thing, and printing that out myself would have felt silly. They're gone now, which is sad but not at all unusual in magazine world.
https://randallhayes.substack.com/p/when-the-hawkweed-blooms
Hi all! I'm celebrating relaunching my stack with more focus and a firm set schedule to get my words off my desk- or out of my private computer files and into the world.
Going forward I see the benefit of dividing out the work I do into three sections- my weekly oracles, my essays, and then my stories or if I'm brave poetry.
My question is- how to separate? Utilizing the pages feature or the sections feature? How are others addressing this issue on their stack when you have multiple facets of our work in one space? I can *see* all the great tabs others create however I'm unsure how they are going about doing that on the back end.
Hi all,
I'm John - caretaker and lead cashier at Postcard Inkblot. Just recently Substacked my 30th short story and having done that crossed over the 100,000 word threshold. Is that a milestone? I have no idea. But, as I'm sure you all know, it is very difficult to rearrange 100,000 words into the correct order. Some of those pesky words didn't fit quite right so I had to use a mallet.
I hope your summer is going well and your keyboards are constantly clacking.
Hi all! I still consider my Substack in the "buildup" phase and am looking for tips on discoverability and finding an audience here. I've seen a lot of success stories from non-fiction authors and from authors who already had a platform elsewhere, but what does one do when they're just starting to build? Have a fabulous day, Fictionistas!
Re-watched the last episode of Netflix's THE SANDMAN last night, a pair of short stories. The second, "Calliope," concerns a writer who abuses his Muse, and the revenge taken by Dream. Good story.
Gaiman says nobody had ever written about this before, which I find hard to believe,
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheMuse
but I don't know of any specific examples, either.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muses_in_popular_culture
Hi, everyone. I'm new to this group. I'm a published novelist (self-published and conventionally)...former Doubleday editor and literary agent, although those latter jobs are in the distant past. (Happy to answer questions on the mechanics of publishing, but I can't help much with contacts at this juncture.) In any case, I already have a niche gardening Substack called Backyard Stewardship, but I'll soon be launching a Substack serialization of my new novel, which is currently available on Amazon. I am likely delusional, but I view this both as a way to find new readers and maybe make a few bucks from paid subscribers who would like to interact with me on the novel. I welcome advice on how to get this thing going!
Hello, everyone! I’m new to Fictionistas though I’ve been writing on Substack (nonfiction) since spring. I’m getting ready to serialize my first novel in September and am excited to do so. I’m celebrating six months of consistent writing.
Hey everyone.
7am Eastern, eh? Well, now I'm the guy wandering around the empty ballroom downing what's left of everyone's drinks and eating the leftover hors d'oeuvres, I guess...
What a fantastic milestone. I’m relatively Nee to this space on Substack; I switched from nonfiction beat reporting on the outdoors, to sharing speculative fiction.
I think my biggest win has been the success I’ve seen sharing my stories on Reddit. The community there seems to have a strong appetite for them.
A few respectably sized YouTube channels have reached out to me asking for permission to narrate their work in exchange for direct credit links back to my Substack, which I’m hoping will expand my reach! If nothing else I’ll meet more cool people
I hit 20,000 words in my current novel, which is only 5K short of my intended halfway point, so that's sort of a milestone. :) I'm definitely a pantser, not a plotter, and I wrote myself into a situation where the main character went and took someone's head off with a talking sword; you can get a surprising amount of words out of that.
Hello. Let me help add to the milestone. 2001, at least (probably more, honestly.) I'm celebrating my own milestone of 100, but it came up so fast, I haven't had time to think of something special to do.
I'm new here - just found out about this space and subscribed! I'm writing a mixture of fiction and background stuff about fiction here on Substack, all tied in to my new book series. It's gay romance and as such, with not as much of an existing audience, growth is gradual. But I'm seeing people coming over after seeing the link in the books, which is fun!
Hi Everybody! I write history + future essays and Sci./Spec. Fiction novels (and I lurk a lot, reading everyone's great writing, and learning from you about how to do things).
I'm coming in on the tail end but I'm here thanks to Brian Reindel, after I launched a 'Stack last September. I started it to finish a second novel, from last Halloween to Thanksgiving, with daily Substack chapters, and to start a third one. (I later find out that this is called "serial fiction", this is how new I am to it all.)
I wrote my first novel, over six "30 day" streaks, published on what is now called "X" in 2021, and I wish I knew earlier on about Substack's growing community of fiction writers.
It took a year, but I finally got comfortable with saying "Hi" in addition to hitting "send" thanks to everyone here.
A fantastic milestone, congrats! Lovely to see so many commenting in here, too.
Well, I still feel somewhat stunned by this, but my proudest writing moment/milestone is certainly having been featured at the weekend in the latest Substack Reads. I feel equal parts honoured and equal parts not worthy haha.
I'm not sure how much fiction we've had in there before (if any?), but I hope it's the start of the Substack team giving all the fiction a little more spotlight. Hopefully many of those here will be gracing people's inboxes via Substack Reads.