Planetfurry BBS

[Tygon]

[kodayu]

[Shoobie]

I disagree.

I think there’s both a lack of confidence, and a lack of knowledge, here (not on just this forum, in the whole fandom).

A LOT of people here produce really great works of art, writing, poetry, and more; and that’s not coming from a strictly inside mind. The talent and the interest are there. It just needs to be shown the light of day. There are many good stories being written in the fandom, by talented and interesting authors. There is nothing preventing you all from trying to get your works noticed, even in a minor way. Submit stories to your college campus’s short-story group. Send them into local literary papers and clubs. Attend fiction reader/writer clubs. Never give up. It is very hard to get published to a national publisher like Baen or NYT. You just have to keep trying, keep pushing your stuff out. If you ever get feedback, let us know and we’ll lend a hand or tell you to ignore it. Eventually someone will pick up your novel/short-story and publish it. You don’t need some big fancy publisher behind your title to get put on a shelf. Take a look at all the books at your local book store. They ain’t all from publishers you can name off the top of your head, they ain’t all from well-known authors, and they don’t all have mind-blowing stories that you simply can’t compete with. Don’t underhand yourself simply because you got one or two rejections, or because no one’s heard your name before.

Here are my suggestions:

1. Get a good, supportive friend. (I would never have gotten past chapter 2 of my online story if it weren’t for my own supportive friend. Thanks buddy!) ^..^
2. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. Edit, edit, edit. I can’t express enough how simple grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes can turn away possibilities.
3. Seek help in your endeavors. If you’re struggling with a concept or word, talk to us. That’s what we’re here for. (And I’m not just talking about this forum, either. Any author should be willing to help, or at least point you in the right direction.)
4. Art and writing are no different. To get your foot in the door, it’s always helpful to have a portfolio. If you’re trying to get a novel published, it’s always good to have other works that you can mention, even if they’re not related. It shows that you have a passion for writing and that you know your genre well.
5. Join at least one specialized club. This can be writing club at school, an online writing forum (such as this one), or best of all a fiction writers/readers club for your local area. Local community fiction clubs are the BEST way to get going. You not only receive real accounts of how your works are received, and how they read, but you also meet a lot of great people. Also, you’d be surprised who shows up from time to time. At the club in Pittsburgh, David Drake stopped by once in a while. It’s a great way to meet other published authors, AND to possibly meet some stars in writing. If your local club is real small (or, gasp, doesn’t exist), try getting up to the local club of the nearest major city once in a while.
6. Remember who you’re writing for, and where they’re coming from. Never assume your audience has knowledge of the characteristics of your universe (unless this is a sequel or series). Don’t assume they know what an Anthro is or what a furry is or what the difference is between a lick and a sexual contact. Avoid topics and scenarios that you wouldn’t find in other novels/shorts that you’re trying to get published along-side. I guarantee you won’t find any massive group orgies in most mainstream fiction.
7. Before sending a novel/short off to a publisher, look at the types of stories they’ve already published. This should give you a good idea what to expect.
8. You will send out literally dozens, even hundreds of copies of your story to publishers. You will get hundreds of rejections. A rejection does not always mean they didn’t like your story. It doesn’t always mean they even read it. Half the time (especially with shorts) the story simply was rejected because they couldn’t fit it into the next publication. NEVER EVER EVER EVER give up! (And don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it sounds.)

Lastly, I just want to say that you can very easily have your book professionally bound and printed. There are a number of small (and large) companies that will do just that, and they usually don’t require any editing beforehand. Most will allow you to print between 1 and 1000 copies at a time, on an order-to-order basis. Once you get just one book professionally published, give it to someone. You are now a bonafide “published author.” Don’t belittle that fact.

The same goes for art. Have someone who’s doing the above, put your art in their book. Once it’s printed, you are now a “published artist,” and you can factually state that to anyone.

Remember, it’s just like Scott Adams said: “If you’re a rocket scientist, it doesn’t matter that you only built one rocket and it leveled a nearby logging town...You are a rocket scientist, and that’s all that matters.”

[ironbadger]

Actually, furry fandom has been around for a rather long time.
(It got its start in the early 1970s...)

The main reason the stigma began seems to have had more to do with "Campbell's law" (If I have the name right.)
Its an old SF writing convention that the editor of one of the famous SF anthology magazines imposed and which stuck ever since.
Basically, its two parts-

1. "Humans are the dominant species in the universe."

And

2."The humans always win."


Furry fandom routinely violates both, and as such, is not real welcome by editors of mainstream SF, because its become a tradition...


Trust me on this; regular SF lit writers can be just as sexually exploratory as any furry writer- and have proven it in print many times.
(Larry Niven, Phillip Jose Farmer, John Norman- just to name names off the top of my head, and without even trying to make a definitive list.)


The types and forms of sexual expression these authors have used more than once run through all the subjects you called "risky"; and often quite graphically.

The difference is, they all used HUMAN characters-
So it was acceptable, even if the characters sometimes had weird physical properties like body hair in unexpected places....

So giving out the old and very tired spiel of "furry fandom has to clean up its act and change to suit fill-in-the-blank to be accepted" will never work and somehow magically cause the regular lit fan or non-fannish community to "accept" us or embrace us if they don't already.

Frankly, I'm tired of hearing this kind of wishful thinking, because in my considerable experience its a complete waste of time.


The mainstream SF publishing houses were started in the 50s through the 70s as hobbies to publish SF and fantasy and grew into larger businesses.
(The biggest SF&F publishers are still very small potatos compared to the large mass media publishers; whose print runs are an order of magnitude larger.)

And guess what?
SF&F is looked down upon by the mainstream publishers in much the same way as those SF publishers look down upon furries.

Think they'll ever treat science fiction with respect?
Nope.
Not a chance.

The mass media moguls ignore or snear at SF as beneath them- unless they can make money off of them in some way....
But even if they make a profit off of SF, they never do treat it with any kind of respect at all.

So why would these people treat furry fandom any better, or give us any kind of respect at all if we "clean up our act" and sanitize furry to the point where no one can enjoy it anymore?

They aren't going to, so why stress out over it and try to browbeat or convince the fandom into becoming some sort of idealised "sober" community when all you'd be doing is wasting everyone's time?



Yeah, maybe I'm geting too wordy on this.
But I am flat-out fed up with this bizarre fantasy I keep running into where someone thinks we can make the fandom acceptable to those who dislike us, ar not interested in us, or are not fannish at all.

I'm venting a bit because I'm sick of it; and because I am ill and in a bad mood.
I'm not picking a fight, and I really don't want to continue any kind of discussion on the subject.


-Badger-

[Cirrel]

Well said IB. <Gives the poor critter a cookie and send's him off to bed to rest.> Furry does not equal Mainstream and never will. One of the main attractions of Furry is the fact that it *isn't* mainstrem.

However....

That doesn't mean there is no market for Furry stories or art - it's just that the market will be small compared to more 'traditional' markets. As such, furry artists and writers will never become zillionaires.

As to IB'c comment about regular SF being looked down upon, that is very true. At a wedding reception for a relative, some distant relation came up to me and the conversation turned to hobbies. I said I write 'Science Fiction" (not wanting to devulge too specifically the genre I do write). She proceeded to look down at me and say, "Oh, I'm sure you can do better than that."

End of conversation.

As to self puiblishing, my only warning is too be VERY careful who you use. Read the contracts and what (if anything) you're giving away in the area of copyrights. And remember, Vanity Publishing is just that. Getting yourself published just to boost your own ego. Unfortunately, Vanity publishers know this and will take you for a financal ride if you're not careful.


Cirrel

[Shoobie]

Not to add fuel to the fire we want to die, but I have to continue to disagree on this. I feel strongly about this subject and I must yap. ^..^

Because the general literary community is made up of people who do not have a furry-lifestyle mentality, and because we're a prideful people, it's difficult for some to accept a non-human hero. However, this is not unheard-of in the fiction community. There are plenty of books written where humans get the short stick.

As for SF being looked down on, that's still true, but by far not as much as it used to be. The SF community is growing, and more people are looking to this genre for exciting new stuff. If anything, in the last 6-7 years we've seen a huge boom in the interests in fantasy (for certain...reasons we shall not name).

There are many respected authors in the SF community as well. Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Keith Laumer, David Drake, Isaac Asimov, K. W. Jeter, Douglas Adams, John Steakly, just to name a few.

Who cares if some old-school stoggy Hemmingway-pushers don't like it. Give me a break. What kind of "respect" are you looking for? If you're looking for total and unending respect from all the literary world...time to smell some coffee, it ain't never gonna happen...The literary community can't even agree on whether or not Shakespeare is great, and look how widely admired and read Shakespeare is!

You say yer sick of talk about how the fandom needs to adjust itself to be accepted. Well, that's true. No one's saying that we all need to become Nazi conformists and forget this furry stuff we've created. No. The problem isn't that the fandom is different, with a different subject line, or that our main characters are not human. The problem is the same as I've outlined way up above. So much of the fandom is simply so far off whack with the rest of the SF/F community that it turns people away.

In some cases of the "the fandom meets the outside world," it's the difference between "Okay, this is different..." and "Whoa...this is WAY too different."

There's no reason (at all) why an author interested in writing furry fiction, should not try to present his/her works to the rest of the world.

If you present a SF work to a publisher who mainly deals in non-fiction or strictly non-SF fiction, and they've got all these pictures of Hemmingway and Dickens up, well it's no wonder if you get a negative response. You're showing your works to the wrong people. Point your stuff towards publishers and editors who understand the SF/F community. Go to your local bookshop and look in the SF section and have a look at all the hundreds of SF books that somehow got published despite being SF, and have a look at which publishers are publishing them. Go after those, first.

I've taken my works, and works of others (ie Blue Horizon), to dozens of literary gatherings and clubs, and I have yet to have anything outright snubbed by anyone. They usually have a couple of questions, but otherwise love the story and I can seat anyone for at least half an hour.

Not to be rude or ignorant, but instead of moaning in the hole going "woh as me, I'm furry so everyone must hate me" it's time to crawl out and see what's happening.

No, we (may) never become billionares...but who does? How many of those authors on those shelves are making even more than a million dollars? Hardly any of them.

We write and create because we love to do so, and just because we are small and new, doesn't mean we don't have our bit to offer as well.

If you're only writing to gain tons of money, respect and love from all, you should have a re-think and give up.

[Cirrel]

I meant no offence to you Shoobie, and I LOVE your enthusiasm for this topic. BTW, I think you would make a great literary agent for furries. (More on this later.)

Ahhh. The hazards of publishing anything. It's a harsh world out there, but not all is lost. DAW Publishing is quite ameanable to non-human main characters. Baen is a tougher sell. Some other SF publishes will run screaming the other way. However, regardless of their approachability, you must remember that publishers are not in the business of publisheing good fiction. They are in the business of publishing marketable fiction. Their own customers tell them what to publish. No publishing firm in it's right mind is going to put up $100,000 minimum for a 25,000 copy run of something that none of their customers asked for. Publishing firms are not risk takers.

That said, who does convince publishers to publish 'furry'. As an author, its not our job to convince the publishing industry to embrace 'Furry' - That would best be done by an AGENT. That's what this fandom really needs. A literary agent willing to pitch furry stories to publishers. Most publishers don't accept manuscripts directly from writers anyway. They only accept from agents. The reason for this is a sound one. With the sheer volume of manuscripts out there, publishers don't have the time to read all of them.

Now, there are smaller publishers out there who may be even easier to approach. The best way to find out who they are is to get a book called "2005 Writer's Market". It's an inch thick tome that containes current listings (catagorized by genre) and information for more than 4,000 book publishers, consumer magazines, trade journals, contests and writing awards. Each listing has a small paragraph on what the publisher is looking for and how best to approach them (agent or unsolicited manuscript).

Also there are tips on how to submit a manuscript. Many manuscripts are rejected simply because they forgot to include a suitable cover letter, or they forgot that most publishers will only accept hardcopy type-written (word processor-printed) manuscrips that are single-sided with double spaced lines - preferably in 12 point Times New Roman font.

Lastly, I have a nephew who has been published. His genre is young adult historical fiction - Samuri Warrior stuff to be exact. (He had a Doctorate in Philosophy with emphasis on Japanese Philosophy and his motto is 'Will think for food.' I like him.) Now, there is a proven market for this genre, but even then, the reason my nephew got published was not because a publisher read his work, but because he came in second place in a national writing contest.

All in all, it's rather amazing how new things get published at all. Yes, there are a lot of books in book stores and most of them consist of formula writing in a proven marketable genre.

'New' will always be hard. That being said, it's imperative that what writing is submitted is good writing. That's where the suggestion of writer's groups and forums is good advice.

[kodayu]

I do absolutely agree with all your statements about recognition of one's artistic endeveaors and publishing. The few people who became millionaires due to their creative work are 100% mainstream (Grisham, Crichton and the like). It's futile for a furry writer to aim for some such thing, after all furry is about not being comformist. After all: Why are our objects of interest so "inhuman"? (I remember some article about furries being referred to as "alienation incarnate".)
Of course, that doesn't mean automatically that one is destined to be unable to market his/her work, but it's rather unlikely unless the artist compromises (and most possibly sells out in the end...). Of course, the right marketing or a well-known agent isn't disadvantageous either...

But I have a problem with the whole direction this discussion is taking... Everyone seems to agree with furry being a part of sci-fi or at least being apart of the whole fantasy movement...
Obviously the large majority of writers is doing sci-fi related work. The ranking lists 9 series as being sci-fi, 6 as fantasy and 6 as slice-of-life...
Where do these stories fit in? What about toon inspired work? What about those writers which are rather relating to fables, fairy tales or myths...?
I'd say the furry movement is much more complex than just "sci-fi with antropomorphic characters". So I am not sure if "Campbell's law" is truly applicable for furry art/writing.
(I harp on about the definition of "furry" because it's preoccupying me since a long time. Any comments on this are highly appreciated on my part.)

[Tygon]

[Ash Lawler]

This has been tugging at my brain enough to make me register and post.

Elf M. Sternberg's 'The Journal Entries of Kennet R'yal Shardik'

Surely this deserves to be on the list? It may be updating in a godawfully-slow fashion these last few years but it is still active.

[kodayu]

[Ash Lawler]

As regards the Multiple Author Theory, the first story in the series is dated october 1990, so the Journals have been in progress for nigh on 15 years, and nobody else is credited as contributing to them apart from Mr. Sternberg. The writing style is internally consistent, and for fifteen years of occasional writing by one man the volume of text seems reasonable.

Still, I'm divided as to whether it's an anthology; all 277 stories in the Journals are part of a single continuity and have been written by a single author, but many of the chapters deviate from the main story and explore subjects that couldn't be written for the first-tier cast, and two or three episodes don't even feature furry characters so a casual browser might completely miss the overarching plot.

[Foxeris]

[kodayu]

[Shoobie]

Tygon, kodayu, Cirrel, I don't want to hijack this thread with our seperate discussion on furry publishing. I'm gonna open a new thread for this called "Furry Publishing" and I hope you'll sneak over and pounce on it a bit.