Fictional Characters

I started my Gratitude Girl blog at the beginning of spring 2021 and, every Wednesday, posted a letter of gratitude to someone I appreciate, someone who has had an impact on my life, regardless of whether or not I've met them in real life. I continued writing these letters of appreciation for two full years.

Since Nowruz 2023, or the first day of spring of this year, just for fun, I've been writing my letters of gratitude to fictional characters. In the last nineteen weeks, each Wednesday, I've expressed my appreciation for a new character.

Thoughts

Several days ago, as I was reading a book written by a member of the writing community, I realized I loved one of the characters in the book... and thought I should write a letter to that character this Wednesday, August 9, 2023. Then as my mind reviewed all the fictional characters I'd recently addressed on my blog, I realized they mostly came from television shows and movies, not from books. 

I thought back to all the fictional characters I've loved in books and wondered why I hadn't written about them... and found the answer: I'd forgotten the name, or at least part of the name, of these characters. After all, I've been reading for nearly five decades, and even though I might remember the role these characters played in the story or their personality, I vaguely recall their names. I thought about doing some research and finding these characters, or at least those I somewhat remember, and writing a book of gratitude for my favorite characters, some of whom are in books written by members of the writing community, such as The Girl in the Scrapbook by Carolyn Ruffles, The Secret Language of Women by Nina Romano, and Fifteen Point Nine by Holly Dobbie.

Then an idea came to me: Instead of digging deep into my own reading history, I could ask other readers to participate in writing letters of gratitude to their fictional characters... like I have been doing on my blog https://gratigi.blogspot.com/ This would add a lot of characters and perspectives... and it could benefit the writers of fiction.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

I'm creating an anthology of letters of gratitude to fictional characters.

Guidelines

1 - Each submission should be between 100 words and 300 words.

2 - The deadline for submission is August 30, 2023. I will not extend it.

3 - Each submission must include the full name of the character as indicated in the story and the full title of the book it came from. 

4 - Pen names are allowed. This is important because writers often fall in love with their own characters, and I want these writers to freely introduce their characters to the world.

5 - All submissions must be copied and pasted into the email and submitted to gratigi21@gmail.com with the subject line FICTIONAL CHARACTER. (Please don't send Google docs, Word documents, PDFs, etc.)

6 - I will not include any bios or links in the anthology, so whatever marketing contributors want to do, they must do in the writing of their piece. 

7 - The approved submissions will be announced via email by September 10, 2023, and the book will be published in October 2023.

8 - There is no entry fee to participate and contributors do not get paid.

9 - Multiple submissions are allowed.

10 - Submissions containing spoilers will not be accepted.

Thank you!

Gratitude Girl