SubDeity posted...
Alright, I'm in. Time to start shaping that that idea I PM'd you into a pitch.
You seem to be the one most interested in doing this, and that's what I'm looking for. This stuff is a pain in the ass. It will almost certainly be the most difficult thing you ever do. There are many things I could tell you, but I'll give you the most important stuff and PLEASE feel free to ask questions here. The other Cracked writers are really nice, but they all are pretty self-satisfied and tend to turn any newb question into a circle jerk about how proud they are of themselves (I do it too, to be fair.)
1) Don't be a jerk.
Your pitches will fail. God knows mine did. It took me 7 pitches to get one they liked. That seventh one was an abandoned article that really wasn't that hard, and I was lucky to see it just as it was moved to the abandoned folder. Of my first six, 4 were terrible, one was good enough, but I just decided to drop it because another had been accepted, and one was totally good enough and the Cracked editors are wrong and dumb and I hate them.
You may notice I'm being a jerk. I am, but on a different forum. I also complain to my mom, my friends, and people in the park about how Cracked just Doesn't understand my sense of humor, man
Yet I have never once complained about anything on the actual forum. The reason is simple. Writing for Cracked is a job. They pay you for your work, treat you with respect, and have the ability to terminate you at any time for any reason. If you were working at Starbucks (and hadn't actually ever sold a coffee to anyone) and your manager kept telling you how to fix things, what do you think would happen if you decided to lash out and alert them that they should back off because you know how to make coffee better than them?
That's what will happen in the workshop. If a pitch gets rejected, take it as a learning experience (trust me, it is) and go make another one using the knowledge you've gained. Don't whine, don't contest, if a editor doesn't like it just let it go.
2) As long as you're not a jerk, rejection means NOTHING
This one is hard to swallow for new writers. They work their asses off on a (usually painfully misguided) pitch, and get shot down by an editor with a simple, "Hey, this doesn't work, read these guidelines to better understand the rules" message. Yes, that sucks. I've felt it. But PLEASE know from the start that the only negative of having a pitch killed is that you wasted your time.
There are 250 or so pitches submitted each week. Roughly 200 of them are terrible. 25 of them are OK, but simply not interesting enough to keep going. 10 of them make it considering, but due to one reason or another never make it. (Those are the ones that end up in the abandoned folder). So that means 15 of 250 articles a week actually make it to the front page. There simply isn't enough time or effort for anyone to pay attention to all the bad pitches. The people who constantly in that top 15 DO get noticed, but the other 235...it's like you never pitched at all.
I've been with Cracked for a year. I remember one person who never had an article published. He was a huge jerk to me and got banned for it. So remember that: if/when your pitches fail, NO ONE will remember or care. Not because we're all super nice, but because you're simply one failure out of 235 that week.
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Love, Bobeta