Sample Work: "It Was [Not] Like This"
Sample Work: "It Was [Not] Like This"
Embedded Files
A sample hypertext-dependent work available to test in your submission process.
If there's an error you'd like to report, or an improvement you can suggest, drop a note to Kat Crighton.
Overview
Overview
The following are different elements of an alternate-medium work that can be submitted through the standard submission processes of most fiction magazines.
Description: A short description of how the work should appear and be experienced. This can be similar in length to a summary or proposal. This provides an overview if the envisioned work is too complicated for the author to create on their own.
Screenshots: Static images of the finished work to give the editorial team an idea of what the audience would see.
Site view: An actual sample website, on a 3rd-party service like Wordpress or Google, that contains the actual work. The sample website should not be accessible to the public (unless the author is looking to sell their work as a reprint!); the author should provide the means to access the site when they submit.
Artifacts: The actual code, art, music, etc. that make up the work. This allows the editorial team the chance to review the scope and depth of the project, as well as evaluate for copyright issues.
Design Sample: A document with font preferences, colors, etc., created by authors who may need additional coding assistance to ensure that their work comes across as intended when published.
Description of "It Was [Not] Like This"
Description of "It Was [Not] Like This"
Approximately 50-word description:
A text-only story that appears static, but is composed of five sections that randomly switch between two options with every browser refresh, leading to 32 possible versions. There is no indication for the reader that a change has taken place, but the story's plot, mood, and sometimes theme change depending on the variation.
Screenshots
Screenshots
Screenshot 1: This version starts on Grant's bed, while both are happy; Autumn initiates a touch; Grant is described, along with the only hint of his being trans and a possible reason for their having run away together; Grant is uncertain; the ending in the joyful one, where Autumn kisses Grant.
Screenshot 2: TThis version starts on Autumn's bed, while both are avoiding talking about the circumstances surrounding their situation; Autumn initiates a touch; Autumn reflects on her previous anxieties and fantasies related to this change in their relationship, and finds her worries to have been baseless; Grant is uncertain; the ending in the joyful one, where Autumn kisses Grant.
Screenshot 3: This version starts on Autumn's bed, while both are avoiding talking about the circumstances surrounding their situation; Grant kisses Autumn; Autumn reflects on her previous anxieties and fantasies related to this change in their relationship, and finds her worries to have been baseless; Grant checks in with Autumn; the ending in the interrupted one, where their past and/or authorities have found them and they must run away again, this immediate moment staying unresolved but their overall devotion to one another reinforced.
Site View
Site View
It Was [Not] Like This
It Was [Not] Like This
by Katherine Crighton
NOTE: While p5 is used here to most easily embed the example work, there is no way to lock a p5 sketch; they're searchable/viewable by design. As such, authors who put their work in a p5 sketch for submission would essentially be self-publishing their work, preventing them from selling first rights to any future markets.
Publishers: Requiring a live demo of the submitted work may seem like a safe way to ensure you don't get risky or AI-generated spaghetti code, but it may present a barrier to authors who can't afford a password-protected site to ensure the preservation of first rights. Consider instead requesting the raw code, as shown below, and using a sandbox environment (such as HTML Sandbox) to safely test what you receive.
Authors: If the market you want to submit to absolutely requires that you submit a live version of your work, there are platforms that allow for password protecting pages (e.g., Wordpress, SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly, Bravenet)… but all of them require a paid account. There are tools and services available to lock free sites, as well as more in-depth solutions that can be homebrewed, but the safest free way to ensure you preserve first rights is to submit to a market that doesn't require a live demo.
Artifact: Text of Raw Code
Artifact: Text of Raw Code
<html>
<head>
<title>
it was [not] like this
</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<center>
<table width="75%" align="center">
<tr>
<td>
<script>
<!--
var r_text = new Array ();
r_text[0] = "It felt like a moment that could only happen here. They were sitting side by side at the foot of Autumn's hotel-bed, the one farthest from the windows. They'd been talking; they talked so much now, building versions of themselves who found it natural to live like this, with no solid ground, no waiting family. Wind on sand, they'd said at the beginning, and it was almost second nature now.<p>They didn't like to stay quiet long; she could feel the past pressing behind her teeth. Maybe Grant felt the same; he tipped his chin up, long gaze flicking from her to the early moon outside and back again, and—maybe this was another reason they kept the air between them full of words. Because with his head like that she could see a dented shadow that seemed the same size and shape as Autumn's fingertip at the bottom of his throat, daring her in the silence.<p>";
r_text[1] = "It felt like a moment that could only happen now. They were sitting together at the foot of Grant's hotel-bed, the one closest to the windows, splitting the pocketed feast they'd ordered before running back into the night. They leaned into one another now, in a hotel room they hadn't paid for, half a city away and giddy with their freedom.<p>Grant tipped the last of their stolen bottle into his stolen cup, grinning at her gasping laugh and she—she felt punch-drunk and made of light, fighting back the sudden urge to take it from him and swallow it down, capturing the evening's laughter somewhere she could keep it close and safe.<p>";
var i = Math.floor(2*Math.random())
document.write(r_text[i]);
//-->
<!--
var r_text = new Array ();
r_text[0] = "And for once—this once—she gave in. Not to the original temptation. The real one.<p>A single fingertip, along the line of Grant's jaw, trailing up behind his ear. He closed his eyes. She pressed her palm to the path she'd made, and—yes. This was a kind of safety that might work for them.<p>";
r_text[1] = "Grant said something. She'd couldn't catch it, and maybe it wasn't words, because then the world contracted tight around them and Grant—<p>Was kissing her.<p>Autumn—too soon, too wanting—felt herself kiss back.<p>";
var i = Math.floor(2*Math.random())
document.write(r_text[i]);
//-->
<!--
var r_text = new Array ();
r_text[0] = "(She'd thought about this, this recklessness. Making the subtext of their old lives back home into the text of this holiday world, where they were bright versions of themselves, the same but braver. Was the change more subtle yet, though? Instead of uncertainty or fear, this was only—astonishing. Like something she hadn't realized she'd forgotten, suddenly remembered and clasped close again.)<p>";
r_text[1] = "Grant's skin beneath her own was hot, running hotter than the grave-cold girl he'd been back home before they'd started living, transient and mutable, in rooms that looked nothing like the ones they'd left behind.<p>(He was Ozymandius' clay, a weathered desert-dweller, a newly swallowed sun inside him radiating outward. He felt…astonishing. Different. She wanted to put her hands everywhere, find what other places on him might have changed from known to new.<p>And her mouth felt hot now too. A second sun, passed to her and burning as she swallowed.)<p>";
var i = Math.floor(2*Math.random())
document.write(r_text[i]);
//-->
<!--
var r_text = new Array ();
r_text[0] = "Grant tilted his head away, dark eyes watchful. "All right," he said, a not-question waiting in the space between them.<p>";
r_text[1] = "Grant tilted his head back, dark eyes flicking from her, catching against the sharp corners of this nowhere place. "Autumn?" he said, a quiet breath in the space between them.<p>";
var i = Math.floor(2*Math.random())
document.write(r_text[i]);
//-->
<!--
var r_text = new Array ();
r_text[0] = ""I don't know," Autumn said, moving close. Closer. "But I want to find out."<p>Autumn kissed him. He smiled into it, and in the nighttime room the windows opened, one inside the other, daylight bright and blinding through every one.<p>";
r_text[1] = ""I don't know," Autumn said, moving close. Closer. "But—"<p>Thunderous knocking at the door.<p>No thoughts, then. No skin.<p>One bag each, and—this was why they always kept the windows open.<p>Sometimes things are lost, stay lost, exist only in the loss. (And that is what safety really means.)<p>They ran, the cold howling behind them, searching out the next warm place to build themselves again.";
var i = Math.floor(2*Math.random())
document.write(r_text[i]);
//-->
</script>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</body>
</html>
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