They say writers should write what they know. What if they don't know anything? Well, that doesn't seem to stop them. Yesterday I lamented the lack of adherence to our writers guidelines for Hotel Haunted, the ghost anthology. The situation at Science Fiction Trails is quite different. Most of the stories I get do, technically, comply with the guidelines. But they're just crap. They're often just some walking badge of a sheriff or generic Indians. Most of the characters are just titles and they don't even bother to give that character a name. If a writer doesn't even care enough about a character to give him a name, why should I care? Answer: I don't.
Sure, it's not as easy to write about the 1800s as it is modern times. But it's not that hard. I said I was particularly looking for robot stories. Thus far I've gotten one. Used to get a lot of professor/inventor type stories. Now, I hardly ever see them. Aliens in a cave for some inexplicable reason--those I still get.
I knew we lost some momentum after coming back from the grave after I cancelled SFT. But the drop in quality of stories is simply astonishing. And I really do not know why.
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