For all you new-ish writers out there with a finished novel, 2012 is a new year, and that means:
It's time again for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award! That annual chance to get your Young Adult or general fiction novel noticed by the industry. So pull out that manuscript and start giving it a going over, because submissions open in just 11 days and only the first 5000 entrants in your category are accepted.
I believe this year is the fifth annual award and they've gotten the procedure down to a science. For those who don't know, it works like this:
submissions open (Jan 23 - Feb 5): first 5000 entries in each category accepted: YA and general adult fiction Round 1: industry experts narrow field to 1000 in each category based solely on a 300 word pitch Round 2: Amazon readers select 250 in each category based
on 5000 word excerpts Round 3: Publishers Weekly reviewers narrow field to 50 in each category based on full manuscript read Round 4: Penguin USA publishers review all information sent (manuscript, pitch, excerpt, etc) and narrow to 3 in each category Round 5: Amazon customers vote to get winner in each category
Yep, 10,000 entrants and 2 winners. Approximately the same odds as getting published. Except, of course, you've already had some publicity for your book this way.
Every author especially, I'm sure, in science fiction, experiences what I'm about to share. Still, it's weird when it happens, and weirder when it happens more than once.
I refer to that interesting story idea you've had stirring around, then eventually put down on paper. Perhaps, like me, you've even shared it online... only to have a book / movie come out that you swear was made based on your idea.
The first time this happened for me was with my short story, originally titled: Where Angels Fear to Tread. I wrote this story, with permission, based around a friend's creation so, strictly speaking, it's not my creation. The idea is a battle between angels where one renegade challenges the status quo, taking on and defeating the others in search of the truth. This story features sword play between Gabriel and Uriel, and the angels are actually avatars of corporate-owned kids who have grown up connected to a neural-immersive network. Uriel ultimate takes down the network 'Heaven'. The story also features Michael and Rafael, although originally it was Sammael.
It was published online at Writing.Com in 2006 and recently on my LightSpeedDreams.net site.
The movie that made me sit up and say 'hey' was Gabriel, release in late 2007 and then on DVD in 2008. In this movie, Gabriel takes on opposing armies with mostly gunplay, and there are obviously significant difference between the two stories, although there are also some striking similarities. The most notable for me was the last line of the trailer: This is a place where even angels fear to tread. Strange coincidence?
The next is the soon to be released Battleship. Now, perhaps this was just an idea who's coming was innevitable but it does seem a bit strange to be that another movie has been made of an idea I turned into a story. My own battleship story was done in a campfire style, alternating sections with another author that I invited to join. Again, our story was, and still is, on Writing.Com (www.writing.com/main/campfires/item_id/1160282-WDC-Battleship). Our story was military in nature, obviously. We had grand plans for the story, taking it in a sci-fi direction with the Japanese researching an alien 'angel' while the Americans and Canadians fought for control and tried to uncover what was going on. But, alas, the other author became busy and we stopped after some ten-ish turns each (it was structured like the game).
It's interesting then, that a movie now comes out called Battleship, with Americans meeting aliens in the middle of the ocean. Once can easily see how our Writing.Com version could be simplified to such a movie (disclaimer: I not saying that it was...).
Now, lots of authors have these moments and I'm by no means going to run around saying someone stole my ideas (after all, ideas can't be copyright) but it does seem intersting that both my stories were posted in the same place and later had movies that were... similar in notable ways.
Anyway, have a look, make up your own mind. Like all such authors, I'm undoubtedly too close to the subject.
