Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Future of Evil?

We seem to have a recurring problem. Once again we have no openings in the queue. There's one query, but not enough fake plots. Do I have to offer an incentive to get writers to submit? A weekly drawing among all submitters, winner gets an Evil Editor coffee mug?



The graph above shows the number of visitors to Evil Editor's blog over its entire lifespan. You'll note that I've labeled a number of spots where the number spiked and I've also labeled a few troughs.

Spike........Explanation
....A...........EE agrees to critique query letters for free.
....B...........EE agrees to critique openings.
....C...........EE posts photo of naked woman.
....D...........EE posts cartoon depicting an agent being tortured.
....E...........EE takes day off; Evil Jr. does blog.
....G...........EE wins 1st Nobel Prize for Blogging.
....H...........Dominos provides free beer and pizza on EE's blog.
....K............
TV Guide announces EE to compete on Dancing with the Stars.

Trough....Explanation
....F............Miss Snark retires; Blogosphere in mourning.
....I.............Twitter gets hot; readers can now be entertained in 140 characters.
....J............Twitter credited with world peace. Blogs suddenly irrelevant.
....L............EE posts confusing graph instead of useful post.



The writing appears to be on the wall. For Evil Editor to remain relevant, he must transform himself into Evil Twit. Critique the first 140 characters of people's novels. This may seem ridiculous, but some agents already are accepting only tweeted submissions. Hell, Hannah Rogers accepts only the first sentence. It's what the world is coming to, and if we don't adapt we'll be left behind.

However, before shifting to Twitter, I'd better confirm that there's a demand for critiques of the first 140 characters. So, submit as a comment to this post the first 140 characters (or fewer) of your current WIP. We'll see how it goes. If you don't have a program that counts characters, and you don't feel like counting them yourself, limit yourself to 25 words.

12 comments:

Khazar-khum said...

What? NO! I like having real explanations & discussions of queries and such, not short attention span twits.

I'll submit a query. I promise.

Whirlochre said...

I think you should set up your own social networking site called EE's Prime Cuts.

Max characters?

Zero.

It would function in exactly the same way as other social networking sites — complete with aliases, avatars, friends, enhanced privacy settings etc — but all comment entry boxes would be set up to out any and all numbers and digits by default.

As for file-sharing and illegal pirating of material, EE could claim World Moral Superiority by hosting a network permitting the sharing of any file type — so long as users understood said files were shared only with The Shredder.

I'll test out how this might work in a subsequent comment.

Whirlochre said...

Whirlochre said...

I can confirm that this is almost as good as remaining anonymous.

Evil Editor said...

Those who submit openings, they won't be posted as comments; they'll be posted as front-page posts at a later date so that the minions may provide 140-character feedback.

Dave Fragments said...

I don't know if I can live without EE. I'm heartbroken and crushed.

Sylvia said...

I'll be ready to submit a query and a synop next month, don't leave me now!

none said...

Maybe you should post on AbsoluteWrite and other places.

Adam Heine said...

EE posts photo of naked woman.
EE wins 1st Nobel Prize for Blogging.
Dominos provides free beer and pizza on EE's blog.


I feel like I've been reading the wrong blog. Maybe you should do more of these things?

ril said...

Been kind of preoccupied recently, but I'll be back...

Robin B. said...

I think you had a BIG spike the day we saw EE Jr's graduation picture!

I also think you should now be on Facebook, with a link to the blog.

Robin B. said...

And I also think you're the best, and I thank you for that.