Fiction in Dragon?

[TerraDave]

Four reactions:

1) More people need to vote in this poll, tell your friends...

2) Wing-n'ed-Mouse: congrats. I look forward to it.

3) If the stuff is decent, I don't see the problem. Its better for me then trying to find short fantasy fiction somewhere else (which I don't).

4) BUT, it will take some resources: editorially, and presumably they pay something, at least a little, to people who get their stuff published. These may not be that significant overall, but its not like their is no cost whatsoever in adding fiction.

 

[Scribble]

I say put it back.

There's space to put it (unless the WOTC servers are REALLY small...) So put it in.

Fiction and Gaming go together hand in hand in my opinion.

Plus magazine fiction is a great way for new writers to break in.

 

[Mokona]

fiction back in Dragon

Only two kinds of fiction are interesting for a fee:

1. Written by famous people - aka R.A. Salvatore

2. Player driven storylines as is done with Legend of the Five Rings.

 

[ivocaliban]

I never cared for fiction in Dragon magazine. Most of it gave me little incentive to even bother reading it. Of what I did read much of it seemed pointless and unrewarding. I can only think back and remember two or three stories that really grabbed me. The vast majority just seemed like a waste of time and space.

While I'm not going to be part of the whole Digital Initiative once there's a fee attached, I do agree with those that say it is a better format for fiction. And if you don't want to read it...you don't even have to look at it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

(My rejection was pretty neat: MZB had written snarky comments all over my piece, and her editor had written responses, most of which were championing my piece. It was urban fantasy, though -- a dragon atop a skyscraper -- and that doomed it with MZB, it seemed.)

Yeesh.

But yeah, I've heard some rejection notice horror stories. I remember once, in a book about how to acquire a literary agent, the following example, which was received by a prospective author from an agent to whom he'd submitted a manuscript.

"Dear. [Author],

"I'm afraid we cannot use the gift of paper you sent us. You wrote on it."

 

[RFisher]

Despite a few counterexamples (fiction pieces in Dragon that I both enjoyed & that I felt belonged there), I've generally seen fiction in Dragon as a waste of paper. Well, maybe not a waste, but space (& editorial time) that would have better served the readership in other ways.

Now that it's electronic, however, I'd have less issue with it. Still, even electronic magazines have limited resources (like the aforementioned editors' time) even if they have a virtually inexhaustible supply of pixels.

 

[JoeGKushner]

It wasn't too bad in print but unless we're talking Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, and other non-WoTC authors, especially online, NO.

 

[TerraDave]

And with less then 100 votes :\ people are leaning towards some fiction in dragon.

But it is not a huge sampling.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

Since page count and printing costs are no longer an issue for Dragon (at least on the publisher's end), it makes perfect sense to include fiction again.

I'd love to see it.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

I don't want fiction.