I've Had My Fill of Filled

When perusing the anthology markets, no matter how exciting the theme is or how prestigious the publishers are, there are two words that, once sighted next to the all important deadline, cause me to back off and have a good think about it before I get sucked in : Until Filled.

Way back when I was a complete newbie, I came across an anthology that put the deadline as a specific date three months hence or until filled. At the time, I had the  rough draft of a story that I thought might be perfect. Surely, I thought, if I got my story to them in 3-4 weeks, a full two + months before the deadline, I'd be in early enough for consideration. You can, of course, see where this is heading. Before I even had the chance to sub my story, the editors suddenly announced they were going with until filled, that the antho was effectively full and was therefore closed to all further submissions. And so the poor dears missed out on my fantastic tale :-)

I'm not good at rushing my work, and so I'm not a great fan of until filled anthos. I don't really understand them either. I'm sure the editors have their reasons for staging the process that way, probably something to do with managing the slushpile and getting the show on the road the the printers as early as possible, but no matter how I hold until filled up to the light and turn the phrase this way and that, I cannot see how the principle of 'first in, first served' can make for the best possible anthology with the best possible stories. Sure the editors will choose very good stories that they believe in, they're professionals after all, but how can they know they've chosen the very best stories if they've already eliminated potential contenders by shutting up shop early? With the antho mentioned above, they effectively denied themselves eight weeks worth of fabulous stories that writers all over the world were still lovingly crafting. And even the stories they did choose, who's to say they might not have turned out even better if the panicky writers hadn't felt compelled to rush them off so they could beat the crowds?

With a set deadline and a guarantee that one's work will be fairly considered, a writer can pace the unfolding of a story, work hard on it and let it sit, then work hard on it again, all the while keeping a calm eye on the time it must be completed by. When it goes off, it's polished and ready, the best it can be, not just competent or good enough. ***

 So what's brought all this on? There's an antho I'd really love to take a shot at, and I have a story I could rewrite to fit. The antho involves reinterpreting fairy tales for various apocalypses, but not only do they have an overall until filled policy, but they're also only accepting one version of each fairy tale for each anthology. As soon as they pick a story to represent a certain fairytale, they close off all further submissions of versions of that particular tale. If you read the comments section, you sense that there are a lot of frustrated folk who worked hard on their stories and subbed them only to be pipped at the post by mere hours, or who were still working on their stories when the update came in that their particular fairytale had now been filled and was closed off. I'm loath to join those upset people. I don't mind my story playing off in a fair fight against countless other stories, that's how the game works, but I don't have a lot of free time for writing, and don't feel inclined to spend my precious weekend on producing a story that the editors might not even look at.

Editors are, as always, free to select works any which way they choose, and I, of course, am as free as a bird to not submit to their antho, but I still don't get this system. In this particular case, why not wait until all the stories are in, make a stack for each fairy tale, then read them all and choose an overall winner? How do the editors know when they pick a story that there isn't another far more amazing version of that particular fairy tale that might have been subbed two days hence but which they'll never have the pleasure of reading now because the writer has been denied a chance in the ring, an amazing story which, more importantly, this system has deprived future readers of reading?

Until Filled anthologies are, and remain, a great big mystery to me.


***Of course, some people are both fast AND good writers, so not everyone will feel the same way about the time thing as I do.