Writing & Selling Short Stories & Personal Essays
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These three generous writers have agreed to let us watch as they work through the following chapters, allowing us to observe them as they make decisions about their publishing options. These three writer friends are especially agreeable to this because they are fictional.
Well, not entirely fictional.
Joan and Samantha and Hershel represent writers I’ve worked with over the years through my Market Coaching for Creative Writers program. They are composites of authentic situations. They are me and you and that writer you met at a conference last summer. My hope is that hearing their stories and watching them on their journey will help inform your own choices as you progress to publishing success.
You Can Get Published
You have two choices when you finish a piece of writing. You can either hide your prose in a drawer or send it off in hopes of publication. You’re leaning toward the second choice, of course, since you’re reading this book. But still, you might be nervous.
I get it. The idea of marketing your work can sound overwhelming. There are exact manuscript guidelines to adhere to and long-standing professional standards. There’s a large publishing-world vocabulary to absorb and unknown editors to impress.
But I’m here to tell you that marketing your writing is actually very easy. You just need to know how. Remember that list of five steps up there?
Categorize your work.
Find potential markets.
Write a cover letter.
Format your manuscript.
Submit like a pro.
You can handle those five steps, right?
Guess what? You don’t have to take these steps alone. Joan, Samantha, and Hershel are coming along on this journey, sharing their thoughts as they prepare and submit their work. You’ll have a front-seat view of their decisions and motivations, which will help you make choices about your own publishing options.
More editors and published writers have shared their insight on these topics, too. You’ll hear advice about the best time of year to submit your work, what to say in a cover letter if you don’t have any prior publishing credits, and when you should resubmit to a journal that has previously rejected you. By the end of part two, you will feel like an insider because you will have heard real stories about submitting short prose from people who make the effort every day. Whether you’re a Joan, a Samantha, or a Hershel (or any combination of the three), I’ll help you find your way. Let’s get started.
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CATEGORIZATION
Categorization is the process of identifying all of the marketing potential in your work. Stepping back to study your manuscript as a sellable piece of creative writing is key to publishing success. You need to communicate what you’ve written in specific industry terms. When marketing short writing, you need to be clear about what you’re offering editors. Did you write a short story, an essay, or an article?
That might sound like an easy assignment, but to sell short prose, you have to know more. What kind of short story or essay have you completed? Some short stories are identified as genre fiction, while others fit into literary fiction. Some essays are creative nonfiction, while others are not. And sometimes you think you’ve written an essay, but it’s actually a nonfiction article.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry. This section of the book is going to explain the nuances of short prose. You’ll learn to identify the potential within your finished writing so that you can maximize your publishing opportunities, no matter what you wrote. First, let’s review the types of writing that Joan, Samantha, and Hershel have created.
Joan has a handful of personal essays she’d like to see published. She’s worried about the ones she’s written about her mother, though. She’s not sure if she wants to publicly reveal as much as she has, but she knows the truth about her mother’s mental illness could help others. She’s considering fictionalizing these essays as a way of keeping her mother’s name out of print.
Samantha is working on her Madagascar memoir, and she’s ready to submit pieces about her travels in that country along with the funny essays she’s written about travel in general. Samantha has been back to Madagascar three times since her initial visit there. She’s written about how the political climate has changed in that region and the differences in her experiences as an American tourist there over a decade of visits. Samantha thinks that some of her pieces could be sold as nonfiction articles instead, but she isn’t sure.
Hershel has four short stories ready to go. He reads mystery and suspense books when he’s on tour with the band, and though his short stories have an air of suspense, he doesn’t think he has written genre stories. When he is home, he reads political nonfiction and literary fiction, which he thinks influence his work more than his mystery reading does, but he could be wrong. He isn’t sure where his writing style fits into the market. Is he a genre writer or a literary writer? Maybe he’s both.
CATEGORIZING SHORT STORIES
Short stories are sold with two main pieces of information in mind: word count and genre. But there’s much more to know about your stories. There are many distinct categories of short stories in both literary and genre writing.
Word Count
First, let’s take a look at your word count. Stories are calculated by counting the number of words in the body of your story, without the title or the heading. The industry calculation is that one page equals 250 words, but for shorter pieces, you’ll want to be specific. You can count the words by hand or use your word processor. For programs such as Word and Pages, highlight the body of your prose to check the word count. Then have a look at the following fiction length categories.
MICROFICTION up to 100 words
FLASH FICTION 100 to 1,000 words
SHORT STORY 1,000 to 20,000 words
NOVELLA 20,000 to 50,000 words
Anything longer than 50,000 words is considered a novel.
Let’s take a look at Hershel’s short stories since he’s the writer with strictly fiction on his desk. Three of Hershel’s stories clock in between 2,000 and 3,000 words, and one of them is much longer—nearly 7,000 words. After reading the chart of acceptable story lengths, Hershel is now thinking that he might polish up a mini-story he wrote about his guitar and try to sell it as flash fiction.
Next, Hershel needs to know whether he’s written genre stories, literary stories, or both. This will help him decide which types of magazines to approach. As a rule, genre magazines acquire genre stories and literary magazines acquire literary stories, but consumer magazines acquire both types of stories.
Sometimes it can be hard to tell what you’ve got in front of you, and that’s how Hershel feels. He thinks his work would fit into a literary magazine, but maybe he should approach mystery magazines instead. He’d like to see his work in print, not just online, but that doesn’t help him decide where to submit his stories. Many magazines offer print options. To market his prose effectively, Hershel needs to know exactly what he’s offering.
Genre Fiction
Genre fiction refers to stories that fit the traditional genre categories of mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Genre books are often categorized as “popular fiction” because the stories put an emphasis on entertainment and therefore are very popular with the masses. This is also the expectation when selling short genre stories: They are meant to be enjoyed by a wide audience.
Genre magazines expect high-quality prose and well-developed stories. Genre stories rely heavily on scene writing, the use of specific visceral details, and loads of tension. If you write genre stories, you’ll have many outlets for publishing, as long as you meet the plot expectations of this category.
About those expectations: Genre stories are plot-driven tales. I repeat: plot-driven tales. This means that your story must be heavy on action, and that action must be purposefully directed to the reader’s expectations of each specific genre. Let’s take a look at the expectations for each of the main genres:
MY
STERY: In these stories, somebody solves a crime.
ROMANCE: Romantic love happens between two people; the story usually ends on a positive note.
SCIENCE FICTION: Science-fiction stories feature science and technology. They pose and answer a “what if” question.
FANTASY: Characters in fantasy stories usually have special powers. Magic is the norm.
HORROR: Horror stories must elicit fear or dread.
Literary Fiction
Literary fiction, on the other hand, is a bit trickier to define. Literary stories are highly artistic works. These stories have an emphasis on meaning instead of entertainment, are character-driven instead of plot-driven, and are often experimental in their storytelling.
Literary stories are deep manifestations of the elements of craft. They employ the use of evocative language and thematic purpose; they showcase authentic phrasing and arresting voices; and they contain symbolic, psychological, or metaphysical themes.
One note: A short story can contain elements of a genre category and still be considered literary fiction, as long as the story is written using sophisticated craft techniques and isn’t a plot-heavy story. For example, many literary magazines publish literary science fiction, literary suspense, and literary fantasy stories.
Did I Write a Genre or Literary Story?
Still confused? So is Hershel. We’ve discussed the differences between genre stories and literary stories, but you might be looking at the story on your desk and scratching your head, too. Your story might have a toe in each of these two worlds. You might have a horror story told with poetic prose or a mystery story that is, in itself, a metaphor for the Vietnam War. Hershel is wondering about his stories set in his fictional town of Tillview. They are suspenseful tales about a meteorologist, but he’s not sure if they include enough of a plot to sell as a mystery. He’d purposefully used the weather as a metaphor for the meteorologist’s relationship with his father, so wouldn’t that make them literary stories?
Many writers find themselves in this position. You don’t need to worry about finding publishing opportunities. There will be plenty. These genre-crossing stories are popular with readers because they are both tangible and artistic at the same time. You just need to find the right outlet. This book is here to help you make the right decisions about where to send your prose, so let’s get a clear answer to the question: “Where should I send my literary/genre story?”
Decide by doing some math. If your story is more than 50 percent plot-based action, then the best bet for finding publishing success is to send it to a genre magazine. If 50 percent or more of your pages are spent on character interiority or highlighting the human experience in some other way, then send it to a literary magazine.
Still not sure? That’s okay. Check the voice. If you’ve employed a lyrical, original, or daring voice, try a literary magazine first. If your prose’s style is clear and sparse, try a genre magazine. You can even send it to both markets at the same time.
After reading this far, Hershel is confident that most of his short stories do fit comfortably into the literary market—all except one. He’s sure there’s one mystery story on his desk, so he plans to send that one to a genre magazine for publication. The others he’ll send to literary magazines.
How Much Truth Can a Fictional Story Contain?
Hershel has another question. His longest story is mostly true. He based the main character on himself and wrote about the summer he studied abroad in France, specifically the day he got his first tattoo. The shop and the tattoo artist are still working right there in the same place, not that they’d remember him. Hershel wants to know how much truth a fictional story can contain before you have to call it an essay.
The answer is that you can write about anything that really happened to you and call it fiction anytime you want. In fact, I think all great fiction is born from a writer’s own experiences. Usually that experience is only a seed that grows to become its own narrative, but you can write down true events from your life and call them fiction when it serves your goals. Your story can even be 100-percent true and still be sold as a short story, as long as you’ve used fictive craft elements in your prose. Many creative-nonfiction essays read like fiction, and many are sold as fiction.
The big question to ask is: Why would you want to sell a true story as fiction?
Several of my Market Coaching clients have chosen to sell a true story as fiction because they were trying to gain credibility in the area of fiction and a byline for a short story is a terrific way to do that. These clients had a novel in the works or were planning to begin a novel.
Other writers I know chose to sell their true stories as fiction because they didn’t want the people involved in the story to be upset about being mentioned. They made name changes and even gender changes to hide their true identities.
And then there’s the group of people who really want to have some distance from the truth of what they’re revealing on the page. These writers don’t want to point out that this happened to them, but they do want the truth of these human experiences to go out into the world.
There are probably other reasons for selling your true stories as fiction. Examine your personal publishing goals to help you decide how to market your true stories. If it reads like a piece of fiction and you’d really like to sell it as a piece of fiction, then go ahead and sell it as such. You don’t even need to add a disclaimer when you do.
An important note: If you’re telling 100-percent truth, or a really high percentage of truth, then you’re going to want to make sure that the other “characters” in your story would be okay with what you’ve written. Just because your editor acknowledges that you’re calling the submitted story fiction, the angry ex-girlfriend you’ve badmouthed in your prose might not. Change the names of people and places to avoid libeling anyone.
After reading this section, Joan has decided to fictionalize one of the stories she’s written about her mother—the one about a day at the carnival when Joan’s mother was escorted, drunk, from the ferris wheel—and submit it as a short story. She’s planning to change the location from a carnival to the Seattle waterfront where there is a tall seaside ferris wheel. It isn’t a far stretch from what really happened, but she might make other changes along the way.
Hershel has decided to go ahead and market his long (mostly true) tale to literary magazines as a short story, rather than sell it as an essay. You can examine your own bank of experiences anytime. Maybe you have a true story in your past that you’d like to rewrite as fiction, too. It can be a freeing and cathartic thing to do.
Short-Fiction Categories: Going Deeper
You know your word count and whether or not you wrote a genre story or literary story. You even know that you can sell your true story as fiction, and you’ve made a decision about that. It’s time to dig deeper. Knowing even more descriptors for your prose will help you make the most viable match to a magazine.
Here are some other, more specific ways that your short story can be described:
ADVENTURE: Action-oriented, usually involve man vs. nature conflict
AMATEUR DETECTIVE: Mystery stories where the protagonist is a detective of sorts
CHILDREN’S/JUVENILE: Intended for a young audience
CHRISTIAN: Driven by an inspirational Christian message
COMMERCIAL/MAINSTREAM: Meant to appeal to a large general readership
CONTEMPORARY: Deal with popular current trends, themes, or topics
EROTICA: Intended to arouse the reader sexually
ETHNIC/MULTICULTURAL: Prominently feature central characters who are black, Hispanic, Native American, Italian American, Jewish, Appalachian, or members of some other specific cultural group
EXPERIMENTAL: Innovative in subject matter or style, unconventional, avant-garde
FAMILY SAGA: Chronicle families’ lives
GENRE FICTION: Adhere to specific conventions or expectations, include mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy,
and horror
GOTHIC: Feature atmospheric, historical settings with a sense of foreboding
HISTORICAL: Set in a recognizable period of history that is a key factor in the plot
HUMOR: Writing intended to be funny
HYPERTEXT: Electronic stories where the reader determines the plot’s direction by opting for one of many author-supplied links
LITERARY: Sophisticated and technique-driven, emphasize character evolution more than than plot
LGBTQ: Focus on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or queer characters
MILITARY/WAR: Stories about the military and war
NEW AGE: Involve astrology, psychic phenomena, spiritual healing, UFOs, and mysticism
NOIR: Hard-boiled detective mysteries
SATIRE: Use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose people’s stupidity or vices
SLICE OF LIFE: Revolve around characters in a mundane situation, offer the reader some illumination about everyday life
SOCIAL: Writing intended to inspire positive social change
SPECULATIVE: The all-inclusive term for fantasy, horror, and science fiction
SUSPENSE: Conjure a sense of anticipation and fear
THRILLER: Arouse a feeling of excitement or suspense, feature heightened situations involving international espionage and violence
URBAN FANTASY: Magical characters (elves, vampires, fairies, etc.) interacting in a modern-day world