Rami Ungar The Writer

Submitting Your Work: An Answer to a Request

Posted: August 29, 2012 in Reflections, short story, Writing
Tags: editing, online magazine, short story, writing

“We must make certain this Declaration of Independence is well-written and professional, since we’re submitting it to the King of England. Oh, and Mr. Hancock, please make your signature a little smaller this time.”

Today, I was asked what it would take to make an excellent submission to a magazine like The Writing Disorder. My first thought was, “They’re asking me for advice? I’m so flattered; usually I’m the one asking for the advice!” So I gave a reply back, giving a few tidbits of advice, but I also told this person I’d write up a post that gave some more tips and advice for submitting to magazines. So Anthony, here’s the post that I promised.

I write down these tips because they’ve been helpful to me in the past. I don’t know if others who read this, especially more experienced writers, will also find this helpful, but if anyone does, that makes me very happy. Also, I will try to stay away from sounding preachy or making it seem like I have all the answers and the reader does not. If I fail in this task, please let me know so I can feel embarassed about it.

Here are my tips for making a successful submission to a magazine:

1. Write, then edit. The basic thing to do is write a good piece of literature, whether it be fiction, creative non-fiction, or poetry. This is the most basic step and without it you can’t do anything else. How to write I won’t get into; all I’ll say is that it takes years of practicing writing and a whole ton of reading to get good at. Editing is also important; you can compare it to finding a geode, and refining the crystals inside so that they’d look nice as pieces of jewelry. It also helps to space some time between writing and editing a draft; I usually wait a couple of weeks or a month to edit a story, because then I can look at it with fresh eyes.

2. Find an appropriate magazine. As you can imagine, there are a plethora of magazines out there for budding and aspiring writers to submit to, especially on the internet. Before submitting though, make sure that the magazine is the right fit for you and your story. For example, a magazine may be a fantasy magazine, but they may be looking for a specific type of fantasy, such as children’s fairy tales involving creatures living alongside people in urban and suburban settings. If you send them a Lord of the Rings-esque adventure story, they won’t publish it and you’ll wonder what they didn’t like about it.

Most magazine websites have guidelines posted on their sites about what they’re looking for in submissions, so read those carefully before submitting. You can also read the guidelines first and then write a story that is meant to comform to those guidelines; I’ve done that before, and have had very surprising results with those sorts of stories.

3. Format professionally. This goes beyond having a nice-looking font and the correct sort of margin-space, though that is important. You want to make a magazine look at your story and say, “This looks so professional; the author must be an experienced writing.” I do this by creating a header before I even start the story: I begin by indicating my first page’s header is different from the other pages’ headers. I then put the words “Word Count” followed by a colon in the top left corner, before skipping to the next line and putting my contact information on the right side of the header. I then exit out of the header and skip down until I’m about a third of the way down from the page before putting the title of my story. On the next page, I re-open the header, write my last name, then a comma and put the page number.

After I finish the story, I put the word count for the entire story on the first page in the header after “Word Count:”. This tends to look good to editors, and has served me well in the past.

If you’re asked to send along a brief bio or even a photo, those can be a little more relaxed. Just tell people what you think they ought to know about you, and then put it down. As for the photo, try and take a photo that gives people an impression of who you really are, but remember, this will be in a magazine, possibly forver, so don’t take any photos you’ll regret.

A photo of me at my dorm, and one of severl I had taken of me. I think it gives a cool, writer look, but that’s up for interpretation.

4. Write a good query letter. I cannot stress enough the importance of a good query letter, which is essentially the letter you send the editor saying you are submitting a story for their consideration. It’s basically your first impression, and if your query letter sucks, the editor won’t even look at your story. There are plenty of books and websites that can give you pointers on writing excellent query letters, but I won’t mention them here; I’ll just say, you should write a query letter as if you’re writing what you believe will be the most important work of your life.

5. Expect long waits. Magazine websites and their editors will say they can get back to you on a story within a certain amount of time, but often they’ll be behind schedule on their work, so if the time they say they’ll get back to you passes by and you don’t hear from them, write a letter or email to them. If they don’t respond, write them again until they do. I’ve gotten a few acceptances and plenty of rejections from writing editors, but I’ve gotten them faster than if I’d kept my mouth shut.

6. Don’t give up. If one magazine rejects you, don’t take it that your story is worthless. Take another look at it, edit where you see there could be improvement, and then send it somewhere else. You never know what might happen. After all, that’s how my short story “Ripple” got published, and I despaired for a while that it would ever find a home.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. If you have any questions or need clarification, let me know. I also would like to take this oppurtunity to reccommend “The Short Story & Novel Writer’s Market”, an annual publication from Writer’s Digest that has all these tips and more, shows you how to write a query letter, and most importantly, has a catalog of agencies, magazines, and publishers you can submit your work to. I’ve found it a wonderful resource, and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to find places to submit their work.

All for now. Write to you later.

We’re Having the Wrong Debates

Posted: August 29, 2012 in Politics and Leadership, Social Activism
Tags: activism, government, gun control, politics and leadership, proper decisions

I’m reading the news online, and I see that at the Republican National Convention, the GOP has decided to make banning abortion and gay marriage part of its platforms. Now, anyone who knows me knows I have problems with the GOP, but I think we’re talking about the wrong sort of problems. Abortion is not causing a rise in crime, and gay marriage is not contributing to the number of pedophiles or murderers out there, despite conservative beliefs to the contrary.

No, we should not be having a debate about abortion, gay marriage, women’s rights, debates we’ve been having for years and have heard the same old arguments about, only to see more people accept most of those topics as something positive and that should be allowed by law. No, if you ask me, there’s a far more serious problem, and somehow it’s not getting any voice in this election season.

Aurora. The Madison Sikh Temple. The Empire State Building. Within two months, we had three major shootings that were talked about all over the news in America. Plus Texas A&M had it’s own little scare, though that only got about a day’s worth of news before people moved on. And earlier this week a kid got shot on the first day of school by another student. And over the years, we’ve seen tragic shootings: Columbine, Virginia Tech, stop me any time.

The point is, there’s a violence by gun epidemic in this nation, and it’s not being talked about. Now, I know people want guns to hunt with or use for sport. They want guns for self-defense in their homes. But I don’t think it’s necessary for ordinary citizens to carry guns outside the house, and on university campuses too–that’s what the police are for! I don’t think you should be able to buy a military-grade assault or sniper rifle in any gun shop or even some supermarkets unless there’s a zombie apocalypse happening in your neighborhood. And I don’t think people should go into gun shops and buy said weapons and nothing should be done to check if these consumers have criminal records or mental illness of any sort.

And yet nothing’s getting done. No talk. Maybe banning moviegoers from wearing masks in the theater, but I’d only worry that a mask might signal a murder if I’m watching a slasher film. Nope, nothing’s getting talked about and nothing’s getting done.

I’m urging the politicians in this election, please talk about reasonable gun control laws. Don’t let yourselves be silenced because overly-vocal opponents will shout that you’re trying to take away Second-Amendment rights. You should be doing something, because we’ve had three major shootings these past two months, the latest in a long line of horrible shootings. How many more before people realize that not talking about this problem won’t make it go away?

Please talk about it. For the sake of the victims, and for those who might be saved by reasonable gun control laws.

“The Street Urchin’s Gift” Is Getting Published!!!

Posted: August 27, 2012 in Progress Report, short story, Writing
Tags: online magazine, proper decisions, scary stuff, short story, writing

Okay, so I’m logging onto my computer with the aim of getting alittle homework done before lunch. But what do I find out? That a short story I wrote last year, “The Street Urchin’s Gift” is going to be published by The Writing Disorder next June, sometime around my birthday. Can I just say one thing? Awesome!

The Writing Disorder is an online magazine that caters to a wide variety of interests, including poetry, fiction, art and reviews, and does everything from literary to genre. I found them while looking for a magazine to send “The Street Urchin’s Gift”, and thought they’d make a great match, and I sent it in. It took a while for them to get back to me, but it was well worth it: today I got the email, and you cannot imagine how excited I am!

“The Street Urchin’s Gift” started out as a story I wanted to write for another magazine, one that dealt with Victorian and Edwardian England and liked scary stories. The story itself centers around making an impossible choice when neither one benefits you, and the moral problems of that. When I found out the magazine I had in mind went defunct, I decided that “The Street Urchin’s Gift” deserved another chance. Seeing that I decided right off the bat to go with the Writing Disorder, I’m very happy with the choice I made.

I would like to thank The Writing Disorder for accepting my submission and will try to send a little business your way. In fact, here’s a start: if any of you have a short story or poem that you’d like to see published, here’s the link to the website of The Writing Disorder. Hopefully it’ll be a match for your work.

http://thewritingdisorder.com/

A Trip to the Clubs

Posted: August 26, 2012 in ideas, Living and Life, Writing
Tags: college life, Ohio State University, writing

This is very similar to what I saw this evening. Rock on, dude!

Okay, this evening I went clubbing (and by the time you read this it’ll probably not be evening anymore, but whatever). It’s not something I do often; outside of weddings or bar/bat mitzvahs, I rarely go out and party, and as I’m only 19 I never drink while doing it. Last year I even got invited to a frat party, but instead decided to go to a late-night pancake buffet at my dorm (which paid off; I met OSU’s President E. Gordon Gee, who decided to make a surprise visit, and I have the photographic evidence to prove it too). But I felt like doing something different tonight; heck, SNL”s not going to be back for another couple weeks, and I didn’t have anything better to do, so I went clubbing.

See, I told you I had the proof; way cooler than a frat party. O-H!

The club I went to, Rio, is close to my dorm and allows anyone 18 and older in. Lucky for me too, because what a night it was: the music was crazy loud, the laser light show was crazy, the DJs knew how to remix popular music (I swear, Gotye sounds so awesome with an electronic beat), and I even saw a few friends there who went to the same high school as me.

But what was most awesome about Rio? I’ll tell you: the fact that I got inspired and had an idea for both a short story and a poem, which just goes to show that if you distract your mind with something, you’ll come up with something great (and there’s a clip from The Big Bang Theory of Sheldon waiting tables on YouTube that proves it; I would’ve embedded it here, but the embedding was disabled). The short story I’ll use for my Creative Writing with a Literary Bent course (not the title of the class, but you get the idea), as all the other ideas I had for that class suck. The poem, which came to me while watching the lasers interact with the smoke coming from the stage, I think I’ll see if I can get it into a magazine.

And of course, if anything gets published, I’ll make sure to let you know. Now, I’d like to write some more about clubbing, and another post about something someone said to me recently and what I thought of it, but it’s past two in the morning and I’ve got to get up later for a meditation course, so go find that Big Bang Theory clip and have a lovely morning coffee (if you’re like me, you drink something to wake up in the morning while surfing the net, in my case tea).

My Classes: Fall 2012

Posted: August 23, 2012 in Living and Life
Tags: college life, Ohio State University

I got such great reception from my uncle the last time I used this image, I’m using it again. Go Buckeyes!

Well, I’m sure you all want to know what sort of classes I’m taking at Ohio State, seeing as we’ve moved from the quarter system to semesters and whatnot. Okay, maybe you’re not that interested, but maybe I’ll tell you anyway because you’re already here reading this, right?

Okay, so I’m taking four classes, the minimum allowed for a full-time student on semesters (I want to ease into the whole semester thing after just getting used to quarters). Yesterday morning I had my first class, a Philosophy course that studies how statistics can be faulty or misleading and how you can spot said statistics. It was interesting, especially since it’s an election year here in the United States, and everybody is using statistics in promoting one candidate or another. Plus, the course was in Hitchcock Hall, which meant that half the class was composed of birds, the teacher was a cross-dresser named Norman Bates, there was a rear window in the classroom, and one of the non-avian students suffered from vertigo (not really, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if all that did happen?).

The second class was a fiction-writing course, and apparently each one of us is going to be working on a single short story throughout the year and workshopping it and editing it as the semester rolls on. The class has a more literary bent than I expected, but thankfully the teacher is allowing supernatural elements in our stories, so you know I’m thankful, because some other teachers who teach this sort of class prefer not to have genre elements at all! Don’t know why, maybe they’re just insane.

After that I have a documentary class, where we’re actually going to be creating autobiographical works in a variety of written, audio, and video formats. It sounds like a lot of work, but it also sounds like a ton of fun! If I can, I’ll post some of the work from that class here on Rami Ungar the Writer.

And this morning I had my fourth and final class, Introduction to the Discipline of History. Basically we’re looking at the study of history itself, and how history has evolved over the years. It’s required for all History majors, and you have to at least get a C in it to pass and take more history courses. Of course, I’m aiming for all A’s this semester, so I’m definitely going to work hard!

Well, that’s all I got to talk about for now. I’ve got some homework to take care of, so I’ll see you all later when the urge to type up a good post comes to me. Have a great day and enjoy the weather.

Believable Stories

Posted: August 22, 2012 in Reflections, Writing
Tags: college life, editing, writing

Today for my homework from my creative writing class, I had to read some analyses on story-writing, and one of the topics brought up was that one cannot tell a story that is not believable, and if the story isn’t believable, it’s your own fault. This made me think of three things: one, it made me think of several examples of stories I’ve read where the stories have not made any sense to me because some aspect of the story was utter nonsense. Another was my favorite line of advice about creating fantastic worlds: “You can’t go and say, ‘I’m going to write a story where everybody has guns but nobody uses them.’ Under what circumstances could such a world exist?”

And most importantly, it made me think of a story that I’ve struggled with over the past couple of years, a story about a school shooting. I’ve had plenty of problems with creating a story under five-thousand words involving a bunch of bullied teens lashing out against their oppressors but later regretting it. The latest incarnation of the story, titled “Frye Day”, I thought I might have actually fixed that problem. But did I? Nope; a friend of mine looked it over and said the ending just didn’t mesh with him. Funny, the ending is always the part where the meshing has the most trouble meshing right.

I’ll probably return again to this story, and end up rewriting the entire thing to work, though I won’t do it for a while. However, as much as I like the idea behind the story–that violence doesn’t solve problems, especially violent problems such as intense bullying–I keep thinking to myself that while although I know it’s making me a better writer if I create a story every now and then that just doesn’t seem believable, I always think to myself that I’ve failed somehow, like my textbook says I did, in writing this story that couldn’t possibly happen. I’m sorry, I seem to be rambling in that last sentence, did I lose anyone there?

Anyway, I strive to make a story people think is believable, and it would make me feel better if you’ve struggled with this problem too. Let me know.

Developing Backstory

Posted: August 22, 2012 in Progress Report, Reflections, Writing
Tags: editing, novel, scary stuff, Snake, writing

Every character we meet in a story has a backstory, even if it’s not always elaborated on at first. Voldemort has a history, though we don’t get the full grasp of it until around the sixth book or so of Harry Potter. Han Solo had an entire career and a few debts to Jabba the Hutt before he and Chewbacca met Luke and Obi-Wan, though we only find out about it in the Expanded Universe. And before Alex Cross battled his first psychopath, he had lived in Virginia, grown up in DC, and gone to college to study psychology and psychiatry. Heck, James Bond probably has a full history, though I’m not sure if Ian Fleming ever went into great detail about it.

This evening I wrapped up a major part of the Snake’s history, and how he went from a regular–okay, not-so-much regular, but still relatively regular compared to what he became–teen into a serial killer who hunts members of a certain powerful mafia family. It was probably the longest chapter yet in Snake (which is saying something, seeing as thrillers have very short chapters), and I had a lot of fun writing it and exploring the Snake’s disturbed psyche. I’ll probably go over it again before I move onto the next chapter, but it’s still a chapter that’s very important to the story and a chapter that, if all my dreams ever come true, will be reviewed by future generations as a memorable scene in the development of the Snake.

Now that I think about it, the Snake’s modus operandi was the first thing that I created for the Snake and his backstory, including why he’s kiling (which is the major driving force of the plot, if truth be told), came afterwards. At first he was nothing more than the archetypal bloodthirsty killer, but when I gave him backstory he seemed almost like a character that, while most people would condemn his actions if he were a real person, would identify with him on an emotional level. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed writing his character so much, and why I think as people read more and more about the Snake and the mystery of his is peeled away, they may come to enjoy the character more.

That’s the hope anyway.

For my fellow writers out there, how do you develop character backstory? Do you create the character first and then create a history to match? Do you think the backstory influences the character, or the character decides the backstory? And what sort of backstories do you like to create? Let me know if you don’t mind sharing.

The Horrors of Rape: What Todd Akin Doesn’t Get

Posted: August 20, 2012 in Politics and Leadership, Reflections, Scary Stuff, Writing
Tags: birth control, government, human rights, politics and leadership, proper decisions, scary stuff, writing

Rape.

This one word can send terror through a person’s system. In some ways it is worse than murder, for after the deed is done, the victim still suffers horribly from the experience, sometimes for life. 1 in 5 women on college campuses will be the victim of a sexual assault, and every year 32,o00 rape victims are impregnated by friends, boyfriends, husbands, acquaintances, stalkers, fathers, brothers, total strangers, coworkers, you name it. Rape is the perversion of sexual intercourse, turning something beautiful and great into a nightmare, a travesty of psychological anguish. Our culture is fascinated by it as we are repulsed by it, as can be seen by the enduring popularity of Law & Order: Special Vitctims Unit, and by the constant stories in the media of rapists and their victims.

Earlier this week, Representative Todd Akin, a Republican running for a Senate seat in Missouri, said that “legitimate rape” victims “rarely get pregnant”. Immediately, this caused a firestorm: Mitt Romney immediately distanced himself from Akin, saying that victims of rape should be able to get abortions; President Obama was quoted as saying “rape is rape” and that “men should not be making decisions about women’s health”; and across the nation, thousands of rape victims railed against Akin, questioning him and his definiton of rape.

Personally, I find Mr. Akin’s comments to be very upsetting. Although the number of adult male rape victims are still relatively low (yes, they do exist, and there may be more victims than reported due to fears that men will lose their “masculinity” if it becomes known they were raped), men should know that rape is a horrible thing, it cannot be classified as “legitimate” or “illegitimate”, and any type or rape can get a girl pregnant. As a politician, Mr. Akin should be doubly aware of this fact.

I’ve taken a Women and Gender Studies course, I’ve watched shows and read novels where women have been brutally raped, and in my novel Reborn City, my main character Zahara comes very close to being raped herself. Every time I think of rape, every time I read or watch a scene involving a rape, and the one time I wrote about Zahara’s near rape, I could almost feel the terror, the shock of being violated, the urge to end the pain and the constant fear that it could happen again. It is a powerful, mind-numbing force, and it cannot be taken lightly under any circumstances.

I hope Mr. Akin and others learn that rape is not something to be talked about like it can be classified or screened for authenticity, but an act that destroys lives as surely as murder destroys lives, and for women who become pregnant from rape, carrying that child to term can be an ordeal only imaginable, like a cancer that eventually morphs into a constant reminder of one person’s cruelty to another. To Mr. Akin, I feel sorry that you do not understand the tragedy of rape and hope you learn about it, because rape and the pregnancices that can result are very serious matters. And to women everywhere: if, God forbid, you should be raped, I hope Mr. Akin’s comments do not stop you from getting the help you need, and especially if you become pregnant because of your rape.

And if you are worried you are alone in the world because of what you went through, know this: you have at least one friend here with you. I may be hidden by the anonymous Internet, but I’m here for you across the blogosphere.

Review: ParaNorman

Posted: August 19, 2012 in Review
Tags: college life, films, review

The theatrical poster for ParaNorman. Read my review below.

I hope I got that title right; when the trailers have all the words in capital letters, it’s hard to tell. Also, be aware there are spoiler alerts in this article.

Anyway, today a friend of mine and I went to see ParaNorman at the theater near campus, and we got to wear those 3D goggles that sometimes seem useless when there aren’t enough shots that emphasize the 3D part of it all. But I’m getting sidetracked; here’s the review part you all came for.

ParaNorman is interesting to talk about. I say that because it’s one of those children films where the filmmakers have added parts that adults will also find funny. Now sometimes that works: there’s a scene where one of the characters, a teacher who thinks she should be in the opera, emphasizes that the town legend of the witch is not meant to be accurate but to sell postcards and that sort of stuff. Other times, it doesn’t: Norman’s mom asks him early in the film what he’s watching on TV, to which he says, “sex and violence”. I think some parents may not like that aspect of the movie.

There is also a few cliche and stereotypical characters in this movie: there’s the dad in the film a typical Daddy-knows-best type who doesn’t really know best, which makes you wonder if he’s really qualified to work with a kid who under other circumstances might’ve been taken to see a therapist; and there’s a black female cop who seems to be the stereotype of black females cops by being loud and yelling “Sweet Jesus!” Yes, she does say that.

However there are attempts to break stereotypes that are pretty positive. Remember that dumb jock type from the trailers? He ends up helping to save the day at the end of the movie, and when we think Norman’s sister finally has a great boyfriend, we find out he’s gay. Got to say, my friend and I enjoyed that.

But the other thing that’s just as interesting about ParaNorman is that while although this is a zombie film, it’s one that breaks a few of the rules. For one, there are only seven zombies–yes seven, you read that right–and they don’t turn anyone else into zombies or kill anyone. Also, these zombies are less stupid antagonists but more intelligent, speaking to Norman and actually playing a different purpose than being evil.

In the end the message of this movie is one that gets us in the heart: sometimes we act mean to things (or people) that scare us, and that causes us to do horrible things. It’s only that by thinking of the good people in our lives that we don’t become like them and that the cycle of hate and fear can end.

One qualm I had with the film that reminded me that this wasn’t magic before my eys but actual filmmakers manipulating little puppets was that one of the characters, a big guy with a beard, had a beard that changed a bit too much when he talked. It just took away from the movie magic.

To ParaNorman, I give the film a 3.8 out of 5 for wonderful memories, but I take away points for trying to please the adult audience too much at the expense of the kids who will go to see this film. Hope you enjoy it anyway.