I created this blog in the hope that it might be a useful guide for a new author writing a short story in Eric Flint’s 1632 universe. The only magazine authorized to publish these stories is 1632 and Beyond. Prior to 2022, such stories were published in the Grantville Gazette. Sadly, the Gazette was part of a corporate entity that went insolvent and could not, practically speaking, be revived.
First, let me say this. 1632 and Beyond’s acceptance rate is way higher than any other SF magazine out there. If you’re willing to put in a little time (okay, maybe more than a little) reading at least the first books in the series, and you write well enough to get personal rejections from other magazines, I can almost guarantee you are going to sell us a story.
As I write this, there is still a lot of information for authors created when the Grantville Gazette was operating. We in the process of either creating or transitioning the old information to make it more applicable to 1632 and Beyond.
I am going to assume that you have at least read the first book in Eric’s series, 1632. If you haven’t, you really need to do that before you do anything. And if you never even write us a story, it’s still a great book, so you haven’t lost anything. It’s actually available for free in the Baen Free library. https://www.baen.com/catalog/category/view/s/free-library/id/2012
Okay, now you have a good idea of what the universe is all about and you can start thinking about your story idea. But before you do that go check out Eric’s “Dead Horses.” This is a list of topics that just are not going to work as story ideas. For example, there wasn’t a fighter jet that just happened to be flying over Grantville when the Ring of Fire occurred. https://1632.org/1632-tech/dead-horses/
Next, I’m going to strongly suggest that you avoid, as much as possible, interacting much with intricate historical fact or things that have been covered in detail in one of Eric’s books. At least for your first story. For example, it’s probably a bad idea to write about the Battle of Breitenfeld. That would require a lot of historical research and it’s also written about in 1632 and, therefore, you would have to be consistent with that and anything it implies.
Let’s also avoid any characters that have been extensively written about in any of the books or prior short stories. That said, there are still some that have been barely mentioned that you might can use. The easiest thing to do is to use “downtimers” that you create. (Google “sixteenth century german names”—if you are using Germans). A “uptimer” is anyone that Eric transported back in time to 1632. Everyone who was already there is a “downtimer.”
If you really need an “uptimer,” this is how to go about it. So, I’ll assume that you need a particular type of uptimer, or perhaps a particular gender and age. Go to the “Grid” and use the spreadsheet to find some candidates. https://1632.org/1632-tech/the-grid/ Look at the “claimed” column to see if some of the author already has “dibs” on this character. This is another thing that is in transition, as I write this blog, a lot of character claims may be cleared by the time you are reading this. Next, you would want to search your character in the “RoF Character Search Engine.” Unfortunately, at the time I’m writing this, that webpage is down. A lot of the information duplicates the grid information but there are also references to where that character might appear in existing stories and, sometimes, a bit of backstory you won’t find anywhere else.
Next let’s talk about Baen’s Bar a little. You will have to create an account to access it. Once you do that if you have a question, ANY question, post it in the “1632 Tech” sub-forum. Yeah, I know it says “Tech” in the title but any questions are acceptable. There are people with a ton of 1632 knowledge that check this sub-forum regularly. So for example, you could ask: “Can I use Inez Wiley in the Fall of 1632 to take a trip with friend to Magdeburg?” or “What transportation might a group of people use to get from Grantville to Magdeburg in the Fall of 1632?” Someone will chime in with an answer. You might even be told the name of the train and its schedule for the latter question.
All right. At this point let’s put a pause on things and I’ll ask you to read my short story “Monkey in the Bible.” With a couple of changes, this story (with some changes) is a good example of how you could write something that doesn’t involve much canon or technical problems. The first change would be to make my uptimer ladies into downtimer ladies. Or at least three of the four. And we will need to change how Inez learns there is a copy of a Guggenheim Bible in nearby Erfurt. Inez finds out about it by looking through her deceased husband’s (Enoch’s) belongings. We can also eliminate Enoch and avoid getting into his backstory. Instead, let’s say our downtimer ladies find the old circular about the Guggenheim bible in a rummage sale in Grantville. After that, my story still would pretty much work with these changes with very little canon or historical research needed. Okay, the ending would need a rework, but you get the idea. (My story should be posted in a separate blog close to this one.).
Next let’s talk about some questions I would’ve needed to ask in 1632 Tech as I wrote my story. Here are some I recall:
Can I interrupt train service so that my ladies are forced to take the wagon back to the Grantville?
How would my ladies get to Erfurt by train? Where would they need to switch trains?
Can my character speculate as to how Eric’s time travel theory worked?
Was my up timer character, e.g., Lyle, in Grantville at the time of my story?
It will be hard to completely avoid events already written about. For example, I had to come up with a reason my ladies could not simply take the train back to Grantville. I needed to put them on the road so they had an encounter with the highwaymen. So, I timed the events of my story to occur when there was a military campaign going on in the East. This was a fictional campaign written into the books by Eric. Military necessities, I reasoned, could easily have caused the railroads to temporarily suspend passenger service for some military priority. I got a little push back in 1632 Tech for wanting to do this. At least one person did not want passenger train service interrupted, but they didn’t object too much. This is an example of the give-and-take you might run into.
So, once you make the changes I suggest, I think you have something that avoids a lot of tech and canon.
So what’s next? Well, you can send your story directly to the editor-in-chief. Standard manuscript form is fine. Don’t worry about the guidelines posted somewhere in 1632.org. We are revising all that and those were never strict rules anyway. A better course, however, would be to posted on Baen’s Bar in the “1632 Slush” forum. Here again, there’s are some instructions online that are out of date. What I do is very simple but it takes a little bit of time. First, single space your story in Word (or whatever your processor is). Copy and paste your story from Word into the “New Topic” window. Then add blank lines between each paragraph. Unfortunately, the blank lines in Word disappear when you past them into the Baen Forum “new topic.” I think there is a way around this but I could never get to work. Adding the blank lines takes the longest but it’s really not that bad.
Now you wait for comments and suggestions. Occasionally, someone does come across as a little less diplomatic than they should be. They will probably get admonished if they do. You just gotta roll with the punches. Overall, people are very helpful and they want your story to succeed.
Your story will probably be in slush for a while. Months perhaps. And you will probably have to do a couple of revisions based on the comments. Eventually, you get a message from the editor to “send it to me,” or words to that effect. Congratulations. That almost certainly means your story has been purchased.
More questions? Please reach out to the forum or feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to text, email, messenger, or talk.
Chuck Thompson's Writings 