Reflections on "Pre-existing conditions"

 So this story has been in the works for a long, long time. The longest of any story of mine that hasn't been trunked.

I wrote "Pre-existing conditions" in early 2018. This was around the time my family moved to New Zealand.

I submitted it to only two markets, Clarkesworld (for its baptism in rejection) and Abyss&Apex. Now, I wasn't so familiar with A&A at the time, and I must admit, I submitted there after CW because of a small misunderstanding on my part. They were closing for subs (as I read somewhere) and I'd misread their payment rates which were pro (8c per word), but I didn't note that it was up to 1000 words. So pro-rates for flash, but semi-pro rates for anything bigger.

 

See, only two submissions.

 

My bad for reading so hastily. Perhaps I could've sold this story at a "bigger market", there's no ways of knowing (I suppose there are reprints), but this turned out to almost certainly be the best sale in terms of my development as a writer.

Revise and Resubmit

After a little time, the (then) editor Wendy* Delmater got back to me with some feedback. She said that she really loved the story, but that it needed to signal early that it was a science fiction story.

 

If we look at that version that I'd submitted, the entire thing was just about David taking his daughter Marcie through their evening routine.

Bath, pajamas, then bed.

My daughter herself was four years old at the time, and so much of that was patterned on my experiences of the close domestic routine of the care and feeding of a small human girl, I wanted to capture it as best I could. The science fictional element was very, very slight.

 

I was, frankly, terrified though. I've mentioned the multiple drafts I'd written of "Acorn, Honey, Fat, and Foxglove". Redrafting from scratch, every time, was my standard way of working. Almost rewriting the story from memory to see if I was able to somehow render it more effectively. It was brutal, but it worked because I almost never veered off the course set by the first draft.

What Wendy was asking, essentially, was to restructure the thing entirely, and build a more traditionally science fictional structure around the domestic bones. 

The only other revise and resubmit I ever got, I just thanked the editor and moved on, not because I couldn't appreciate what he was giving me in terms of feedback, but just because at the time I don't think I had the ability or skill to do anything with that feedback.

 

And, what about that rewrite? 

Well, if you took a close look at the year I submitted to A&A, you'll see it was 2018. Why is it only coming out 8 years later?

 

There were a few reasons. First, the move overseas was hugely disrupting. Second, and more seriously, there were some health problems that were a massive distraction. And, finally, as I've mentioned elsewhere, I wasn't really even sure that I wanted to write, or whether I had anything to give.

 

Wendy Delmater, bless her heart, followed up with me every year or so seeing if I was keen in pursuing the rewrite. And I felt so guilty, but I couldn't do anything, couldn't write. It seemed as though it was never going to happen.

 

Don't look up! (but do pay attention to what's in front of you)

Somewhere in mid-2021 I did start poking around with the story, playing with things I might do to make it more obviously science fictional. I wrote a couple of notes and paragraphs, expanded it, felt like "okay, maybe this will work". 

 

And then,  "Don't look up!" was released. And I was crushed, because so many of the beats I'd noted were in that film. I reasoned "if anyone reads this, they'll think I simply ripped off that film". And that was it, I'd basically given up on it.

 

But I'd learned something doing this little exercise - I'd learned that if I paid attention, and was willing to take a story apart completely, I could add things, copy/paste, revise sections, strengthen connections between the part of the text.

I'd learned to revise.

 

Now, this probably sounds stupid - and it's especially dumb because I've written essays and a thesis, and this is exactly what you do there, but the narrative mechanics of philosophy and science are different, as far as I can tell, from fiction.  We're dealing with logical mechanics, with thematic resonance, and emotional causality all at once.

I think that before reworking this story, I felt I had to have the entire story in my head all at once - and then just write it. Revising was just checking grammar (which I suck at), and for any obvious high level issues.

 

But working on "Pre-existing conditions", since I was only half convinced I was ever going to actually try "do the writing thing" again, was different because I had a goal (make it clear this is SF, and use that to make the story better), and as much time as I wanted because, hey, nobody would ever see this anyways.

 

And here's something I've learned about writing - there's no better way to understand what writing "rules" or "techniques" mean than by rediscovering them yourself. Take the active vs passive voice rule (prefer active) - that's cool to know intellectually, but only after you've written a lot of narrative prose, and have read how what you produce actually sounds does that rule really make sense. You've "discovered" it by writing, and the rule then acquires meaning because it explains the phenomenon you've come across.

At least this is how it works for me.

 

With "Pre-existing conditions"  I discovered revision for myself, and subsequently all I'd read about revision made so much sense.

 

Writing to Wendy's specification also proved to me that I could actually write fiction with external direction, something that seemed baffling to me before actually learning how to do it.

 

 Over the hump

 I've mentioned elsewhere that a I'd met a new writing friend here in my new country, he was very encouraging. Inspired by our chats I wrote up a complete new version of the story and asked him to take a look, and I mentioned that it was supposed to be a revise and resubmit for Abyss&Apex. 

 

He asked

"Is that Apex and Abyss provisional acceptance still active? It would be awesome (and maybe even cathartic) to land a publication with them after all this time." 

To which I replied 

"I have no idea of A&A would still accept the story. If I decide to untrunk it, I think it's only fair to give them first rights on it if they want it. We never signed a contract, because of the revisions requested, but if I can get it to a point I'm happy with it, maybe I'll send it to them and say "wanna take a look again?"" 

I did a few more revisions and eventually shot through a mail to the good people at A&A saying

 

"It's taken a while, but I've managed to start finding some space to eke out some fiction, and one of the things I've tried to do is finish the revisions on this story.
I've done what I can -- it's significantly different from the original I sent you which is, I think, reason enough to reject the rewrite.
And that's not factoring in the fact that this is like 6 years later, which is another reason to give it the boot without a second thought.
Still, I didn't want to leave this hanging - you were so kind to me and our interactions came at just the wrong time.
So I'd like to offer the story to you before I send it anywhere else"

And 6 days later, they sent me a contract.

 

Notes:

1. * I must point out, the name of David's wife being the same as the editor's (i.e. Wendy) was a genuine coincidence. Although given how much Wendy Delmater's feedback did for me, I'm happy to make it a retroactive homage :)