Hello, to one and all.

I've been quite busy lately. Yesterday, I finished a short little horror story which has been titled - 13 Seconds.

The idea behind 13 Seconds was originally conceived at the inception of Project 13. For reasons I can't recall I decided not to progress the idea at the time. Yesterday I was in one of those writing moods / zones where the muse was in total control of everything I did. The story just poured itself out.

Usually when I finish a story I'll lock it away in a drawer for a week or so and then go back to it. As soon as I finished this particular story I had a really positive vibe about it. I sent it off to one of my writing buddies, the incredibly talented J T Harrell.

J T pointed out a few areas for tightening up the feel, and his points were relevant and honest. He also described the story as "Fun, and unnerving" which really made me happy as that's exactly what I was aiming for.

On another front the editors of the 13 Anthology have told me that the final story in the anthology will be The Thirteenth Camera. I'm quite proud of this. Ordering the story content of an anthology is a really difficult task. The two hardest positions to fill are the first and last stories.

The first story has to be the anchor, the story that will intrigue the reader enough to draw them in to the rest of the anthology. The final story is - presuming the reader tackles the anthology in order - the last story the reader will read. It will be the one most recent in their memory. It will be the one that completes the experience of the anthology. Nobody wants to end on a bum note so I'm more than happy with where they've placed me.

Night Owls has been sent to a literary magazine for their consideration. I'm expecting a rejection as I targeted one of the toughest markets to crack, but you've got to roll the dice. I'll do a post on the submission experience once I've had a response.

I've re-written The Flower Woman again. This will probably be its final straight forward re-write. Any further revisions will be radical. In some respects I haven't given this one too much of a chance. It was only ever entered into one competition. I'm currently getting feedback from a trusted source after which I'm going to make a point of submitting it to every qualifying market I can find. It's always been a popular story on TSL & Zoetrope so there must be an editor somewhere who will take a shine to it.

We're in July and 2013 has already been my most productive year. Three short stories finished, and one existing story re-written. Hopefully, I can maintain the productivity.

Keep writing, and keep reading, but most importantly take care,

Mike 

I’m going to be honest right up front and say that I’d recommend both of these sites. Which one is best for you is all down to personal preference. Below I’ll run through the main differences between the two sites. But before I do that it’s probably worth imparting some advice and pointing out some general issues that could arise.

I’d recommend that any aspiring writer joining either of these sites sets themselves a personal goal. ‘To be a better writer’ is fine for a bio but far too vague for a personal goal or aim.

When I joined TriggerstreetLabs (TSL) back in 2008 my aim was to:-

Write a tightly focused self-contained two character single location short story. The measure of success that I stipulated was that the story had to be in the top 30. I also had to achieve this within 4 submissions.

Back in 2008 TSL individually ranked stories. Any stories with review credits attached would take the top positions. Once the review credits were gone the story would drop to its true rank. E.g. Aspiring writer posts “A Killer Short Story” and he adds his review credits to the story. The story is in the TSL top ten. All the review credits are used up and “A Killer Short  Story” drops to its true rank which could be: ranked 275 of 300 short stories.

I achieved my goal with my second submission: The Proposal. The Proposal had a true rank of 12 of 350+ stories.

Once I’d achieved that goal I set myself a second goal. This time to write a highly ranked multi-character, multi-location short story. This was A Mother’s Child.

I still do the goal setting today. The goals these days have become more and more specific as I’ve managed to tick more off my goals list.

I would advise any aspiring writer to take a similar approach. You will learn quicker. You will get a sense of satisfaction as you start to cross more off your list.

Now we get to the issues! And this applies to both sites just as the advice did.

At some point you will come across the skim reader. The reviewer who only wants a credit for their short story and hasn’t bothered to read or digest your story. Reviews from skim readers can be soul destroying especially if you put effort into your own reviews.      

At some point you will be verbally abused. I once had the following written on my TSL comments page: “Thanks Mike, it’s clear you didn’t like my story you @~#$.” At the time it gets to you, but not these days. People who write such comments will never make it. One of the first things you need to develop as a writer is a thick skin. Also, you need to think why people respond in that way. In some cases it is just that they can’t take criticism. In other cases it’s pure bullying so you won’t review their other works, or to intimidate you to say ‘nice’ things. If anyone responds to me in that way I make sure I constructively review their work at every opportunity that comes my way!

The above sounds intimidating I know it does. However, it prepares you. As an aspiring / upcoming writer you will face rejection. Having dealt with the issues that the skim readers and the serial abusers throw your way, a rejection from a publisher suddenly isn’t so hard to take.

Now before I put anyone off let’s get something straight; the skim readers and the serial abusers are in the minority.

I’d recommend both TSL & Zoetrope Studios (ZS) for the following reasons:

I have become a much better writer because of both of these sites.
I would never have been published without these two sites.
I have learnt more by reviewing other writer’s work than I have from reviews of my own work.

I can’t tell you which one to sign up to. I’m a member of both but I prefer TSL. Here are some things to consider.

Coverage

Zoetrope wins hand down. TriggerstreetLabs covers feature length screenplays, short films, and short stories. Zoetrope covers just about everything: Feature length screenplays, short scripts, flash fiction, short stories, novellas, song writing, short films, poetry & I could go on.

The reviews

Zoetrope wins. On the whole – not entirely – the reviews on Zoetrope are much more detailed. The reviews are also much more personal. A review on Zoetrope is visible between the reviewer and the author of the work they’re reviewing.

Reviews on TSL are visible to everyone. If work is assigned to you for review you are blocked from seeing the other reviews of that work. However, it’s dead easy to get around this and read the other reviews. This isn’t great because once you’ve read a review it will inevitably influence your own reaction to the work. You may also read a review of someone’s work before it’s assigned to you, and again it does influence your view.

Membership / Activity

Zoetrope wins. Neither site is as active as they used to be but there is more activity on Zoetrope than on TSL. I am speaking predominantly about short stories here. Both seem healthy on the script side.

Back in 2008 when I joined TSL a short story (a 10 to 20 pager) would get about 7 reviews within a week. Back then it was easy to get about 20 to 30 reviews within a month to two months. On TSL now you’d be lucky to get 7-10 reviews in a month. Zoetrope works differently but you’ll get 7 to 10 reviews within a month if you put the effort into reviewing other writers work.

The short story forum on TSL is almost dead. Back in 2008 there were new posts every day. The short story forum on Zoetrope does have new posts every day.

There are far more members on Zoetrope who have had their work published. I guess this is why the reviews are generally better.

Site Design / Interactivity

TSL wins hands down. I hate the site design on Zoetrope to the extent that it limits my use of the site.

Short stories on TSL are submitted via PDFs. This is great because you can format the work exactly as you would if sending it to a publisher e.g. double spaced, indented paragraphs etc. On Zoetrope you paste your story directly onto the site. You can format your story only if you’re familiar with HTML. I for one am not going to learn HTML.

Both sites offer their own email system but again TSL is much better. By using the email system on TSL it will send the email to your own personal email that you’ve registered with. This still gives you privacy because the sender won’t be able to see your email, and of course you then have an opportunity as to whether you respond or not. You can also communicate via a comments section that every member of TSL has on their member page.

Zoetrope has no comments section. It does have an email system (Zmail) but it doesn’t interact with any other email system. Therefore, the only way to see if someone has sent you an email is to logon and check. Very irritating.

TSL has also integrated itself with social media. Every work posted is advertised by TriggerstreetLabs via its twitter feed and its facebook page. Reviewers can recommend works on their own twitter and facebook pages if they like something they read.

There is no such facility on Zoetrope.

Posted work on TSL stays visible for as long as the writer wishes to have it on the site. Work on Zoetrope is only visible for 40 days. It is visible for longer to users who have registered as a publisher. They can search all of the works posted looking for publishable material. How successful this is I don’t know. I prefer a system where work stays permanently visible to all.

There you have it.

In summary I’d recommend any aspiring writer to try both of these sites. Don’t get wrapped up in the internal ranking systems. (I speak as a writer who has had their work spotlighted on TSL. The highest accolade possible.) Set your own personal goals. Rise above any of the issues that arise, turn those situations into positives. Put effort into your reviews because you can often learn more by reviewing other peoples work than by having your own work reviewed.

This article has gone on long enough.

Here are the links:

http://labs.triggerstreet.com/
http://www.zoetrope.com/

Mike.