  Short Stories
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This Short Stories Newsletter is dedicated to readers and writers of short fiction and to those who want to know more about the art of telling big stories in small spaces.
This month:
Top of the Heap
So, how do you get to the top of the pile? (Spoiler alert: there is no one true answer...) |
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So, at the time of this writing I've already received my first batch of stories to sift through as a Submissions Editor (ie, First Reader or Slush Reader). It's been an illuminating experience as a reader and I'm already learning some little things that will help me (I hope) in my own quest for eventual publication.
There are some do's and don'ts of writing that you hear over and over again regarding submitting stories for publication; some of them are truer than others, and some of them are based on the mostly-fantasy vision that we have of how stories are submitted for publication.
I think the first takeaway I have from the early days of this experience is: Make sure your story is memorable. An average story, perfectly executed, is still average. A story with flaws and foibles that is still memorable is more likely to stand out to an editor, for good or for ill. Looking at various acceptance rates for professional-paying markets ($0.06/word and above, according to SFWA and some similar organizations), the odds of getting in through the slush pile are dismal-- many mags have 1% or fewer acceptance rates. Now, clearly, it's not as simple as playing the lottery; there are ways to significantly increase the likelihood of an acceptance.
Know thy market: This seems really obvious to me, but if you've never read a magazine, how do you know what types of stories they publish? Certainly, it's not possible to read every issue of every magazine you might want to submit to, but it's still useful to look at their back catalog and see what you can see. Many magazines offer access to a free issue, usually an older edition, as a sample that might give you an idea of what an editor's "voice" is like. Oh yes: editors have voices. It's not the same way that an author might have a distinct voice, but editors certainly have ways of choosing styles of work which give a cohesive message about the body of the work, and often about their worldview-- the world they choose to present through their publication. A friend of mine who is widely published once lamented to me that a particular well-known editor has still never once bought a story from him; to me it was pretty obvious that he'd never written a story which aligned with this editor's voice. He's got a story on submission there now... I have my fingers crossed!
Open the story with a bang: This is, I'd say, at least rooted in truth. A friend who's reading your story for you because they're your friend might not mind that it takes you three pages to get cookin', but an editor wants to at least hear the sizzle in the first couple of paragraphs. Now, mind you, you needn't pack all of your story into the front end, but to be really memorable, you want to begin with something distinctive.
Stick the landing: Man, I can say it, officially: there is nothing more frustrating than a story which is technically perfect right until it's supposed to end, and the end goes all 8-minute linguini on you, as a reader. I know. I have a bunch of them loose in my portfolio, in varying stages of attempts to "fix it." While there's no magical curative to this problem, there's an easy place to look if you have a string of rejections following a piece. Take apart the ending and make sure that it balances the weight of the rest of the narrative; the reader wants to feel like something has changed or been changed by the experience, and that change should be reflective of the mood and tone of the writing as well as satisfying to the (unstated) goals of the piece which the reader infers through the reading.
What other "surefire" tips have you heard? What stories have you read lately that have inspired you?
Until Next Month,
Take care and Write on!
~jay |
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Feedback from last month's edition: "If It Might Fit, You Ought to Submit!"
brom21 writes:
This was so encouraging! I do plan to publish and your advice is comforting. I have never submitted but I am revamping a few stories that I will submit. I do have one question; when you do rejected what do you do next? How do you know what to change or do you just keep submitting regardless? Thanks for the newsletter!
Excellent question, brom21! Your question was the inspiration for my newsletter this week. The short answer is: you keep submitting. The long answer is: Well, sometimes an editor will be nice enough to send feedback on why a story didn't work for them, but the reality is, even form rejection letters can tell you a bit about the work, between the lines. A long string of form rejections following a specific story could mean that you're not targeting the right markets, or that you might be aiming too high-- professional-pay markets are ridiculously competitive and getting through the heap is incredibly difficult. It might just not be the right story for that market. Above all, never take a rejection of a story as a rejection of you as a person! I'm now on the sending end of those letters and I can confirm: It sucks to send them as much as it does to get them.
Mara ♣ McBain  writes:
Great topic! No one likes to dwell on failure, but it's a fact of life. One of the crazy things about writing is you never know how your "Babies" will do out in the world. I published a romance that I loved. The cover is eye catching and my favorite to date, but it has done nothing. LOL I call it my step child, but like all my babies...I still love it, success or not!
Oh, man. I think we all have the One Story we love that editors will just never grasp. It's so infuriating!  ah, such is life, right?
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Short Stories: September 17, 2014 Issue [#6554]
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