DEVILFISH: Is the Right Character Telling Your Story?
I recently made a sale to Farsector, the science fiction, fantasy, and horror Internet magazine. "Devilfish," like my previous fiction sales has had a long and arduous journey before finding a home. When a story takes a few weeks to write, but five years to sell, the author has to ask herself: Why?
"Devilfish" began as a simple adventure tale which over the years evolved from a mystery, to a crime thriller, to a science fiction piece. Originally entitled "Black Water," I wrote it because I had an idea involving an archaeologist who wants to win a scientific award through fraud. The story is told through the eyes of a male biologist who is infatuated with the devious woman archaeologist.
When the story was conceived I had no thoughts of publication. I meant it for a fourteen year-old boy and gave it to my nephew Alex for his birthday. But I liked this story so much that I decided to rework it for the market.
I took it to the writer-in-residence at the Canadian Archaeological Association who at the time was Sharon Crawford. She gave me some constructive feedback. Alvin Abram, editor of the CAA members' anthology told me if I worked on it some more, he would include it in the upcoming publication. That didn't happen because when my story was ready to be reviewed his editorship had ended. I sent it out to a magazine called Murderous Intent instead. I got no response for several months, so I submitted it to Storyteller magazine. Two editors read it. One thought it was a page turner, the other nit-picked at every detail and rejected it. I asked publisher Terry Tyo if I could revise it and resubmit. He said, "Sure, why not?"
"Black Water" was reviewed once more, but was again turned down. Storyteller wasn't the only venue in town. The CAA was sponsoring a contest and part of the prize was publication in the Winner's Circle Anthology. I entered the contest and waited six months to be rejected.
Mixing Genre has always been a problem with me. I can't resist blending adventure and mystery with the supernatural and murder. But what if I changed the genre, and turned the shark (there is a shark episode in this story) into a mutation, the result of global warming, and left the rest of the story relatively untouched? The idea sizzled. I changed the title to "Devilfish." When I received comments back from On Spec, a science fiction and fantasy magazine, Diane Walton, the editor said, "This is more of a crime thriller than SF. Not really our style. Sorry."
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