I am submitting the opening of Outlaw Security to the Jericho Writers “Friday Night Live” contest. You send in the first 500 words without your name on the page and the judges decide on the top three entries. Wish me luck!

My alter ego is working on some science fiction tales for a couple of new anthologies so wish us both luck!

I also need to decide whether or not I should revamp Outlaw Security and cut the word count in half. That would probably require making two separate books out of it, which I’m not sure would work. Maybe I should just write some 45K stories about the lads and try to sell the original novel as is.

My alter-ego is working on a new story for a competition – the Insecure Writers’ Support Group‘s Annual Anthology. It’s science fiction with a theme of “Dark Matter.”

When writing a short story, you need to keep things far tighter than with a novel, but you still use the same three-point plot line (beginning, climax, end). I like to start either with a great beginning line — or a great ending one. I then work my way around either forward or backward until I meet up with that line.

Every word counts in a short story, so no tangents or long descriptions. Keep everything tightly focused on the character and action. Try to paint your word pictures with as few words as possible. Dialogue helps — you can get a lot in with just a few words there.

Be sure you follow Freytag’s Pyramid too — ramp up the tension until the climax, then close quickly. I’ll let you know if the story makes it into the anthology.

I do have another Devon Day & the Sweetwater Kid story coming out in November. The anthology is called Under Western Stars — I’ll get you a link as soon as it’s on sale.

It’s official – Devon Day and the Sweetwater Kid will be joining the Wolf Creek gang for the great poker tournament!

The anthology, LUCK OF THE DRAW, will be published later this summer – details to follow as I get them – and will feature 4 or 5 more stories, as well as a background murder mystery.

If you haven’t read the Wolf Creek books, here’s the first one – I guarantee you’ll get them all! It’s a shared universe story, with several authors combining talents to write as “Ford Fargo.”

I’m just a little hopeful that I’ll be invited back to Wolf Creek someday…

Got word of a new anthology coming out in the Wolf Creek series – they’ve thrown open the submissions to anyone within the Western Fictioneers, so I’m going to see if I can get my foot in the door with a short story. I like the books, and it would be nice to create a character and do some collaborative writing with these folks.

Here are some tips for submitting a story for an anthology:

• Do your homework – see what’s already on the market from that publisher, see what other stories have made their anthologies, see what sort of thing they’re looking for before you start your own story.
• Know the world – if you’re submitting for a shared-world anthology, do your homework there as well, and find out about their world. Read some of the other stories set there and some of the books already published. Show them that you understand the world they’ve created.
• Do your best – a short story is harder for some people than writing a novel, so be sure you craft your best. Have a tight, logical plot with believable, sympathetic characters. Keep the action moving and don’t skimp on the emotion. Make sure the story flows, and that the ending is satisfying.
• Do your editing – fine-tune your story until it purrs, then edit one more time for spelling and grammar. If your work has easily-spotted errors, it’s going straight into the circular file.
• Follow submission guidelines – this should go without saying, but so often new writers will submit something totally unacceptable, or something the editors or publishers are just not interested in. Read the guidelines and follow them to the letter.

Have you had stories published in anthologies? What tips would you add to the list?