Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays

by Windy Lynn Harris

We lived near Port Elizabeth, and the road to St. Dominic’s Priory led through a stretch of coastal bush on the outskirts of the city. A short drive for an adult—only twenty minutes—but for me, when I was young, it was a passage through the kingdom of the animals before I entered the world of Irish nuns, arithmetic, and ABCs.

  My father and I often encountered troops of vervet monkeys. We moved tortoises off the road and saw the occasional bushbuck. In early spring, when somnolent puff adders and cape cobras sought the warmth of the tar road, we stopped for snake rescue. Most South Africans drive right over snakes; my father tried to save them by skillfully ushering them back into the bush.

  Not every drive, however, offered such simple joys. One morning we found a fatally wounded bushbuck on the road. I waited in the car, crying, while my father and the motorist who had accidentally hit the buck struggled to end its life.

  By the time I reached my moody teenaged years, it was second nature for me to look for animals on the side of the road. [Fugard smoothly moves through time in her memory with this line.] Long drives to our holiday home in the dreaded Karoo (a vast semidesert region that occupies much of the Western and Eastern Cape interior, not the greatest hangout for a fifteen-year-old girl) turned into more opportunities to see animals. Desperate thoughts about boys nicknamed Bristles and Mouse would fade as I stared out the car window. Yes! Springbok grazing in the distance. Baboons scrabbling into the bush. Wow! Three blue cranes at that dam.

  It took leaving South Africa at age eighteen and then returning to visit a decade later for me to discover the great game reserves of the country and, on subsequent visits, those of Botswana and Zimbabwe.

  I’ve galloped away from lions while on a horse safari, canoed through a gantlet of hippos, and walked silently through the bush to view a breeding herd of elephants, yet I still feel luckiest when I stumble upon animals during my back-road explorations.

  These days, as I grow more aware of the vulnerability of animals outside protected areas, there is an added poignancy to each encounter. [There is a reverence for animals throughout this piece.] “Jackals are vermin, so why not run them over?” seems to be the approach of some people. Crop farmers and baboons are sworn enemies, and until recently sheep farmers shot eagles. A few years ago, monkeys in the bush near Port Elizabeth were found with their hands chopped off, the work of an African herbalist.

  My most recent poor man’s safari took me though the far reaches of the country’s Northern Province, a scorchingly hot land where the monotony of miles of mopane scrub is broken by conical termite hills and eerie baobab trees. Roadside sightings in this part of South Africa tend to involve slightly larger animals.

  During one nighttime drive, I spotted a caracal, an animal that’s rarely seen, even in a game reserve. The long tufted ears were a giveaway. I braked and reversed just in time to watch the elegant golden cat slip into the night beyond my headlights.

  Driving into Pontdrif, the border post between South Africa and Botswana, I encountered my first bat-eared fox, lying dead outside the house of a police officer. While I studied the huge ears of the fox, the police officer, a gentleman devoted to putting an end to the poaching in the area, explained that he’d found the fox dead on the road that morning. He took it home to study it and maybe even have it mounted; he was interested in taxidermy. Electric-green flies crawling over the body told both of us that it was too late for that; the fox had already begun to decompose.

  “Look out for cheetah,” the police officer said to me when I left Pontdrif late that afternoon. “I’ve seen them sitting in the road.” I took the R521 south and drove slowly. I scanned the tangle of bush beyond the roadside fences, but after twenty miles I’d seen no wildlife of any kind. Not my lucky day, I thought, and I picked up speed.

  And then, just north of Alldays—a miserable, sweltering little village with a cheap hotel, taxidermy shop, mortuary and butcher—I almost collided with a cheetah. Suddenly there it was, a flurry of spots and the most extraordinary long legs unfurling across the road in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, just in time to see the animal crouch down and whip beneath the fence on the opposite side of the road, its long tail trailing behind like a billow of silk scarf.

  I whooped and cried and thumped the steering wheel for the next five miles. Then I noticed an African fish eagle on a dead tree next to a small dam and a family of antennae-tailed warthogs scuttling into the bush. I was still in the kingdom of the animals, and it was dusk, close to the hour when a black-backed jackal might dart across the road ... [Fugard ends this essay with renewed excitement. She is filled with possibility.]

  3

  VOICE

  We hear the word “voice” a lot in appraisals of writing. The term can be confusing. You might hear, “Aden’s voice is just so original!” or “The voice of this piece really punched me in the gut.” These are terrific compliments, but what exactly is voice? Most commonly, voice refers to how a writer’s unique word choice and syntax reflect her worldview, identity, or personality. So if someone tells you that your writing has a strong voice, he is expressing his appreciation for the singular stylistic fingerprint imbued in your essays/stories.

  You’ve probably already got your own personal narrator voice—and practice will only improve it.

  THE TOOLS OF THE TRADE

  Your authentic voice can shine with a combination of diction, the details you select, images, syntax, and tone. Let’s take a closer look at each of these elements and how to use them like a pro:

  DICTION refers to your choice of words. Words affect the reader’s experience when they are chosen with purpose. For example, instead of saying house, consider using the word mansion, cottage, or Victorian. Each of those words has a unique connotation. Consider the different effect you can create when you refer to a person as vain and when you refer to someone as proud. The word vain assigns a negative connotation to this person, while the word proud might reflect the same character traits but in a much more positive light. You can choose to be poetic, vulgar, literal, formal, or anything else in your prose and show it to your readers via diction. If you intend to entertain, choose playful words or an ironic combination of words. When you want to persuade, use straightforward, confident language.

  DETAILS include the facts, observations, and specific moments you choose to share in your story or essay. You can enhance the reader’s experience by choosing concrete details. For instance, a dented red Mustang is more descriptive than a car. Details encourage reader participation. Each word creates an opportunity for the reader to fill in the physical world he sees in your prose. You can also manipulate the reading experience through the number of details you include. When you use a handful of specific details in a paragraph, the reader leans in, gets closer to your story. When you use fewer details, the reader will feel a distance.

  IMAGERY adds an extra layer to your prose through sensory details. These sensory details evoke a vivid experience for the reader. The tools at your disposal are the five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste. Using these, you can trigger pleasant or unpleasant emotions, create confusion or surprise, or be provocative—all through your choice of images.

  SYNTAX is the order of your words, which creates the rhythm of your piece. You can manage this effect by varying your sentence length. Short sentences speed up momentum. Long ones slow down the action and let readers closely examine scenes. Repetition of certain words can also be an artistic choice.

  TONE reveals your underlying attitude toward the characters/people and situations in your writing and your story’s/essay’s subject matter. Are you angry? Sad? Apologetic? Somber? Whatever your feelings about your topic, let your readers know. Tone is achieved through the combination of your diction and syntax and is emphasized through the details and imagery you choose. Readers perceive your tone by examining these elements. They connect to the material and its underlying meaning via your attitude.

  “Developing voice as a writer is about finding the courage to be
yourself on the page. The secret to understanding voice is revealed when you watch and listen to a child at play. Children express themselves without self-critique. They are who they are without apology. Feelings and observations bubble up and out naturally. Delightful and endlessly entertaining, they observe and interpret the world around them according to their God-given natures.

  “As writers, we need to peel away the layers of life and cultural restraint to rediscover this pure essence of ourselves, to learn again to delight in and observe the world around us without apology, according to our authentic selves. Readers want to read you, not you trying to sound like another writer.”

  —SUSAN POHLMAN

  YOUR VOICE RIGHT NOW

  Your voice becomes more evident as you create a body of work to examine, but you can still study even a few of your written works for style clues. What you’re looking for is that uniqueness only you bring to the page. Is there a cadence to your sentences that repeats? Do you use metaphors regularly? Are there poetic phrases within your prose? Do you develop common themes?

  Check your voice every year or so, and study your evolution. Compare a recent story you wrote with one from a year ago. What about your writing has improved? Are your essays becoming more complex? Are your stories layered with deeper themes? What do you wish was more refined?

  This might sound like you’re doing an inventory of your writing skills—because you are. The more you understand about the craft of writing, the better you can apply that knowledge to your stories and essays. This, in turn, affects a market’s desire to publish your work.

  Don’t worry if you have trouble identifying your style. With time, you will create a strong voice. Keep writing, examining, and growing in your craft.

  How to Study Voice Through Reading

  One of the best ways to learn the intricacies of your own voice is to study the voice of other writers. Studying the individuality of a writer’s style helps us identify what “having a style” looks like; it assists us in discovering our own voice. Let’s take a close look at voice and examine it on the page. I’ve chosen excerpts from three different published first-person short stories. You only need a page—or sometimes only a paragraph—to get a sense of a writer’s voice.

  The first short story, “The Half Dollar,” is by Denise H. Long, who has a knack for character dialect. Her story is a terrific example of diction and tone working side by side.

  (excerpt from) THE HALF DOLLAR

  by Denise H. Long

  Published in Blue Monday Review, January 2016

  It had only taken my sister Roberta one time of trying to keep a bit of her five-and-dime wages to realize Pop meant business. My sisters and I never had any money of our own. Pop said any money earned was family money.

  But I found that half-dollar, which is different, I think. What happened to it was up to me. I was walking home from school, and there it was, lying on the ground in front of Fletcher’s General. I saw Benjamin Franklin’s face staring up at me, glinting in the sun. Nobody was nearby. I’d seen Rufin Tomasik backing his dad’s ancient Model T runabout moments before, the relic tied together with leather straps and a prayer. The coin could’ve been his, but he was long gone. So I pinched it from the dirt.

  Heavy in my hand, the large metal surface dwarfed my palm. It was the most money I’d ever held that didn’t belong to somebody else. I tilted it back and forth, watching the sun bounce off Franklin’s bald head, winking. Like Pop would say, though, “With possibility comes responsibility,” the long syllables rolling off his tongue right before he spat in the empty coffee can Mama cleaned every day and left by his chair.

  I thought of going into Fletcher’s right then and there. Plunking the half-dollar down on the counter. Watching Lainie Fletcher’s eyes bug out when I tell her to fill up one of their little brown bags with Turkish taffy and cherry lumps and then taking my change home with me to keep. But I didn’t want change. I wanted my half-dollar intact. Whole and heavy in my hand.

  Notice Long’s clean and direct writing style. Her diction is informal. She gives hints of small-town innocence through words like Pop, pinched, dwarfed, and plunking. The glinting half-dollar becomes something much more than a piece of money to the little girl. It is a symbol of her struggle in the world. Long puts this symbol on display and shines a light so bright that we can’t look away.

  The second story is from Brianne M. Kohl, whose use of detail stands out on the page.

  (excerpt from) RHONDA’S FITBIT FIELD NOTES

  by Brianne M. Kohl

  Published in Literary Mama, April 2016

  I am mired in a room with a yellow glow. We painted the walls Lemon Twist and decorated in accents of gray, green, and brown. It sounds ugly, but it isn’t because of all the teddy bears. I sit on the floor with my son, Ryder, as he hands me toy after toy: teething rings and stuffed-animal rattles and the occasional brightly colored rubber block. He smiles with his little baby teeth, tongue twisting around the nubs. We have matching plump bellies and cankles. On him, it is adorable.

  At dinner, I say to my husband, “I think it is time for a change.” My thirteen-year-old daughter, Kayla, snorts.

  “What kind of change?” Jerry asks.

  “A real one this time,” I answer. “I think I’m going to get a Fitbit.”

  “What is that?” Kayla asks as Ryder slaps a hand on the tray of his high chair.

  “It’s like a watch that tells you how active you are.”

  “Why do you need a watch to tell you how active you are?” Jerry asks.

  “It’ll keep me motivated,” I say and scoop another bite of orchard-fruit medley into Ryder’s waiting mouth.

  “It’s a lot of money to spend on something we don’t really need,” he says. Kayla has pulled her phone out and is texting her friends. The television blares as the news comes on.

  “Don’t undermine my success, Jerry,” I say.

  Kohl’s choice to name the color of the room Lemon Twist is one of those details that sets the tone for the piece. The main character tries to be bright and cheery like that color, but she’s disappointed by her plump belly and cankles—sweeter versions of other descriptors. Especially evident here is the writer’s attitude toward her subject. Rather than mopingabout body issues, this is a story about fighting for self-worth, summed up perfectly in the line delivered at the end of this excerpt: “Don’t undermine my success, Jerry.”

  Last, we have a story from writer Bree Barton, who is a master of syntax.

  (excerpt from) SEXING THE STARLING

  by Bree Barton

  Published in Mid-American Review, July 2016

  My name is Sunshine. They say it’s a fat girl’s name, but I’m only a little bit fat. I was named for the shaft of light that slipped through the bathroom window and fell on the $9.99 pregnancy test my mother bought at the drugstore. The way she tells the story, it was the middle of July and it wouldn’t stop raining. The rain made her horny, which is why she fucked sixteen men that summer, which is why I have no idea who my father is.

  “You were the sunbeam,” she says, “in the warm summer rain.”

  I like that expression, warm summer rain, because I can bisect each word down the middle, hang it over a little hook in my mind. Bend it into two equal halves between wa and rm, sum and mer, ra and in. I spend a lot of time bisecting words. I feel conflicted about some words, especially mom and dad, because mom would hang oh-so-perfectly over the hook, but I’d have to hang it on the o and I don’t like disturbing the letters themselves. I much prefer hanging words in the sliver of a spacebetween.

  “You should get her into crafts,” Stone’s mother tells my mother. Stone is my best friend in the eighth grade. “She’d be great at crafts. Such a busy little mind.”

  So my mother finds a “Taxidermy for Teens!” class and signs me up. She waits to tell me until after dinner when I am poring over her magazine, the one with nude male models on each glossy page.

  “I don’t want to skin a
dead bird, Mom.”

  Barton’s artful syntax begins in the third paragraph. She allows her character to literally play with words on the page, breaking them apart and fitting them back together, ending in a made-up word, spacebetween. The juxtaposition of this wordplay and the nearly monotone dialogue adds up to a fresh, original voice.

  Each of these stories has a strong identifiable style. The writer’s voice shines through, right from the opening words. The next time you read a short story or an essay, see if you can pick out examples of diction, detail, imagery, syntax, and tone. Then look at your own writing. What do you see?

  TEN TIPS FOR STRENGTHENING YOUR VOICE

  You’ll know you have a distinct voice when somebody says to you, “I would know your work anywhere.” Usually it’s a mentor or critique partner who says this to you first; later, you’ll hear it from readers. Honing your voice is important, but how do you make your current writing shine brighter? Try these ten tips:

  Expand your vocabulary. Read widely, study your thesaurus, and buy one of those “word of the day” calendars.

  Study sentence structure. Do you miss sentence diagraming? Me too! Go old school, and play with words again. Subject-verb-object, oh my!

  Give grammar another look. Even the most competent writer can benefit from brushing up on her grammar skills. Knowing the rules of grammar increases your confidence when you write—and saves you time in the editing stage.

  Magnify the details. Be specific and intimate in your descriptions of the people, settings, and actions on the page. Every word in dialogue, action, interiority, and narration counts. Choose your words with purpose.

  Get sensual. Make a list of sensory words for each of the five senses, and challenge yourself to use them. Add at least two to every essay or story you write.