WHY WRITE SHORT-FICTION
by Dennis Doty I’ve had quite a few writers over the last year tell me that they don’t write short fiction. The reasons have been as varied as the writers. Some say, they have no interest in writing short stories, some say they just can’t seem to get the hang of the form, others say that they have been working on their novel for (fill in the blank) length of time and they don’t want to think about short stories until they are done. That’s all fine and well, but there are some serious advantages to writing short fiction that should be considered. No matter what stage your career may be in, we all strive to improve and perfect our craft. Writing short fiction will, without a doubt, make you a better writer. When writing a novel, it isn’t at all unusual to take a paragraph or even half a page to set a scene, show the reader your character’s motivations and goals or establish relationships between the characters. With a short story, you simply don’t have that luxury. By necessity, you learn to paint with an economy of strokes, a minimalist approach to the story. You still must have strong characters, the story still should flow, the pacing is still important, but you must do it all in a very short space. The successful short story writer is very aware of what can and cannot be included in their story. Every word is weighed for its value to the story. Does it move the story forward? Does it illuminate the character? There’s little room for fluff. Sounds tough, doesn’t it? It is. But I think that it’s totally worth it. I’m not the guy who wants to wait weeks, more often months and sometimes years to see my project completed. In High School woodshop, I didn’t have the patience to build a sideboard or a dresser. I was the guy who built a gunrack out of four pieces of red cedar so I could finish in a week. Never mind that my parents didn’t own guns. Grandpa did. Short stories aren’t instant gratification, but they certainly are completed a lot sooner than a novel. Instead of one, two or maybe three projects a year, I can easily finish two per month. More, if I really work at it. They may not net me a five-thousand-dollar advance, but they will sell. Now consider my ability to learn and master my craft. I don’t think that anyone will argue with me when I say that the two most important parts of any story are the hook and the denouement. Without a strong hook, you aren’t likely to get the reader to read your whole story. Without a satisfying denouement, you leave the reader feeling unsatisfied, cheated or confused. Getting these two parts right, takes practice. I’ve heard more than one professional writer say that it takes approximately half-a-million words to be really competent as a professional. Let’s do the math. A novelist will write six or seven books to reach that word count. That’s six or seven hooks and six or seven denouements. As a short-story writer, I will have written over one hundred and forty of each before I reach a half-million words. Finally, let’s look at profitability. Let’s assume that our novelist has seven titles in his or her half-million words. It’s taken him or her say three years of hard work to write these books and they can expect to continue to produce two books per year. I, will have produced around 140 short stories, and will continue to produce about thirty per year. If our novelist sells his book on Amazon at $14.95 per copy and sells one copy of each title, he will earn $73.25. If I sell my short stories on Amazon at $1.99 and sell one copy of each title, I will earn $97.51. Not only do I earn over thirty percent more than my novelist friend, but I can also combine stories into collections with some of the more popular stories in each and sell them for $15.95 for 25 stories. So now, I have 5 more products earning another $55.83. Selling just one of each title, I earn $153.34 compared to my novelist friend’s $73.25, more than twice as much for the exact same word count. Don’t get me wrong. There’s not a thing wrong with writing novels. I’m continuing to work on mine and plan to be a successful novelist one day. But I’m sixty-seven years old. I don’t have all that much time to perfect my craft and writing short stories gives me a lot more bang for the buck. Last time, we discussed Alpha Readers and Beta Readers. I promised that there would be more. So, let’s get started.
For a short story, you may only send it to one editor, but for our purposes, let’s assume that it is a novel. Your first stop is a Structural Editor. The Structural Editor: A Structural Editor (sometimes called a Substantive Editor) will read your story with an eye towards the story and its strengths and weaknesses. He or she, is your first paid professional to look at your work. As they read, your structural editor will ask themselves questions such as, does the story flow well, is it accessible (not overwritten or high blown, nor too simplistic), does it make sense, do I connect to the characters, are the characters well developed and believable, does their role fit their personality? They will look at your point of view. Do you use too many or too few? Is the voice consistent? They will look at the pace of your story. Does the tension build at an appropriate pace? Should this action happen sooner or later? Is your dialog appropriate and authentic? Does it flow smoothly and is it something which that particular character would say? They will look to see if your back story is overwhelming your plot. They will look to see if there is too much exposition or too much dialog. They will seek to identify your theme and see that it remains constant throughout your story. Everything that they do, is with an eye on the big picture. Their feedback may come in one or more forms. They may, and probably will, annotate your manuscript with notes, pointing out plot holes. They may cut large portions or rearrange chapters. They will likely send one or more emails detailing what changes they feel are needed. Phone calls are not uncommon between writers and their structural editor, but often are limited by number or time in the contract between the parties. Yes, I said contract. Your structural editor is likely to send you a contract detailing what they will and won’t do with your manuscript and when you can expect the work to commence and when to expect it to be completed. Don’t be alarmed. This contract or sometimes a letter of understanding is to protect both parties and prevent or resolve any misunderstandings. It will also spell out how your editor expects to be paid. For short stories, they will generally expect to be paid up front. For novels, there is often an up-front portion of their total fee which is paid prior to any work being started. After that, there are likely benchmark payments to be made. An example would be a contract or letter of understanding stipulating that the editing fee will be divided into four equal parts. Assuming that your novel is in the normal 80,000 word range, that would work out to approximately 320 manuscript pages. An editor might ask for progress payments of 25% of their fee up-front, and after each 80 pages of completed work. So, how much should you pay for structural editing? This will depend on both the editor and the condition of your work. The better you have self-edited prior to sending your work to the editor, the lower your fees should be. For more on editorial fees see http://the-efa.org/res/rates.php and https://jaefiction.wordpress.com/…/…/what-does-editing-cost/. When your manuscript comes back from your structural editor and you have made or rejected any changes they suggest, you need to send it out to a line editor. A line editor is much more than a professional Grammar Nazi. Yes, he/she will fix your grammar issues. They will also fix usage, missing or extra words, clarify areas which are ambiguous in meaning, substitute synonyms to prevent repetition, eliminate over use of run-on sentences, and let you know if there are areas in your work which might have legal consequences such as song lyrics or extensive quotes. When your work comes back from the line editor it is a polished manuscript and should be ready for typesetting. You should read over the edits, accepting most and rejecting possibly a few to retain the author’s voice and the speech patterns of your characters. Finally, you are ready for a proofreader. Your proofreader, unlike the Alphas, Betas and editors, does not get the manuscript in a .doc, .docx or .rtf file format. You should be sending them a PDF format of the final proof you will be sending to the printer. This is because your proofreader won’t be looking for grammar, plot holes and all the other mistakes and inconsistency which your editors should have already fixed. Your proofreader will be looking at how the actual book will look. They will check for consistent page numbering, hanging sentences (where you start a paragraph on one page, but the remainder is missing on the next), unintentional changes in font size or typeface, correct margins, and all of the visual aspects of your finished product. You can find typical proofreading rates in the articles I suggested above, but I would look for one who charges one cent per word or less and has excellent references. When they return your polished manuscript, you will read their notes, make any necessary changes and you are ready to send it to the printer. Is this a long and expensive process? Yes, but if you want to build a professional reputation and maximize sales of your work, there simply is no short-cut. What do I do if I can’t afford to have my novel professionally edited? Writers ask this a lot. The answer is painful. The correct answer is “find the money”. Maybe you will need to cut out soda pop or alcohol (God forbid). Maybe you will have to stick to the short story market until your sales can pay for the proper editing and printing of your book. We all make sacrifices to do what we love. And, if we truly love it, then we don’t want to put anything but our very best out there. I hope that you have found this article helpful and that you will come back to visit my author page and website in the future. If it was helpful, please leave me a like. #writing, #editing, #proofreading There seems to be a great deal of confusion about the wonderful folks all of us use to make our tales the best work possible. Who should we let read or work, and at what point should we let them read it? Just as important, who should not read our work? Let’s take them in the order that they should appear in our process. Alpha Readers: Most writers are familiar with and use Beta Readers, so what is an Alpha Reader? An Alpha Reader, sometimes called a Critique Partner, is a highly trusted individual who takes a look at either an incomplete manuscript or a rough draft and provides you with objective views of your concept, first impressions of your characters and the direction your story is going. They might point out areas which need further development. They are not someone who can be relied on to pat you on the back and encourage you to keep at it. That is NOT their function. They are an excellent way to spot what works in your draft, what doesn’t work and to insure the foundations of your story are solid before you spend a great deal of time editing it. So, you take their feedback, make whatever changes and revision you feel are appropriate and continue on until your story is finally complete. Beta Readers: For most of us, the Beta Reader is the first person to lay eyes on our manuscript. They generally provide overall feedback on your story as well as pointing out plot holes (also called continuity errors), those gaps or misstatements which fly in the face of logic, such as “Jones stole a paint pony from the hitch rail and fogged it out of town”, then arrives at the hideout on a “sweating, wind-broke bay”. Another example of a plot hole might be where an object is laid aside and later appears either in hand or across the room as if by magic. Don’t laugh. It happens all the time--to all of us. Your Beta should also point out incorrect words (such as window seal instead of window sill, excepted instead of accepted, etc.), and factual errors. An example of a factual error would be having a character prior to 1873 “thumbing cartridges into his Colt”. There were plenty of Colt revolvers going as far back as the 1840s, but there were no cartridge models until 1872 and they weren’t readily available until late 1873. Your Beta Reader should also point out inconsistencies in character. You may wish to have your character grow and face their fears over the course of your novel, but Frodo is never going to draw sword and charge a Hobgoblin. It’s not in his character. Finally, your Beta Readers should be honest enough to tell you that this piece is terrible writing. Yes, it’s nice if they can find a gentle way to put it, “Charles, you never told me your children were writers”, or “This is really good. What grade is Tommy in now?” Maybe they will try a humorous tack, “Bro! How wasted were you, when you wrote this?” However they do it, tell you they must, and you must take it and thank them for it. There are as many ways to work with Beta Readers as there are Betas. Some will give a short, written critique of the work, others will leave track changes on your manuscript. Some are excellent at finding those pesky plot holes, others at picking out the misspellings and odd word choices, some are the proverbial grammar Nazis, a select few are superior at catching the little factual details that otherwise would get you a stack of hate mail about why Poinciana is only found in the very southern tip of Texas and nowhere else in the United States including your New Mexico locale. Personally, I love my Beta Readers. They make my work infinitely richer and so much more believable and entertaining. So, you make the necessary changes and revisions. If there were plot holes and inconsistencies which required a major rewrite, you will want a second round of Beta Readings, but at last your story is the best that you and your team can make it. You send it off to your editor. We’ll cover them next time. Until then, thanks for stopping by. Lately, I’ve heard quite a bit of discussion about the different lengths of fiction, and the relative difficulty of each. So, let’s begin today with what the varying lengths of fiction are. There is a lot of disagreement on where the border lines between forms are, so keep in mind that the numbers I am using do not necessarily reflect the definitions of any editor or publication, but are rather generalizations. With that disclaimer, here we go.
>200,000 words Russian Novel 120,000 to 199,000 words Epic Novel 50,000 to 120,000 words Novel 30,000 to 50,000 words Novella 12,000 to 15,000 words Long Short Story 2,000 to 10,000 words Short Story 1,000 to 2,000 words Brief Short Story Under 1,000 words Flash Fiction About 500 words Short Short Story 100 words Drabble 50 Words Dribble 140 Characters Twitterature There are a few even shorter forms including the 15-word story and the 6-word story. We’ll talk more about these at the end of this blog. Notice that the term Flash Fiction is inclusive of several other definitions, which are sub-categories of Flash Fiction, and which all fall under 1,000 words. I’ve heard writers with multiple published novels say that they simply can’t write short stories. Others have made the attempt, and find it incredibly hard. The consensus seems to be, that the shorter the piece, the more difficult it is to write. Some writers, don’t want to attempt something as difficult as short fiction, until they are comfortable with their skills, and have established themselves in the longer forms. Just as many, myself included, see the short story and its shorter cousins to be a means to hone their craft, develop skills, and establish a following prior to attempting a longer work; a sort of apprenticeship. For myself, I find that most of my writing falls in the low end of the standard short story around 2,500 to 3,000 words. I write some shorter and some longer, but that is where my average story falls. Although my longest work to date is about 75,000 words, it is a horribly rambling and somewhat disjointed piece, which has never made it past the first draft. I keep promising myself to get back to it and I believe that I will eventually. I attribute this rambling largely, to the fact that I am a pantser. I write with no outline, and relatively little advanced planning. Plotters, on the other hand, will have their entire novel outlined with volumes of character sketches, plot lines, sub-plots, character arcs, et cetera, before they ever begin to write. They are far more organized than I. So, why do so many accomplished writers have such a hard time with shorter pieces? I believe that it is a combination of two factors. The first is word choice. The shorter the piece being written, the more important it is to cut the non-essential words, and to make each word that you keep serve a function. Each word must be essential to building your character or moving your story forward. For a novelist, this can be a very difficult task. They are accustomed to working in little bits and pieces such as backstory, motivation, setting, et cetera. They may be a writer of fantasy, used to creating and populating entire worlds and cultures, creating economies and religions which must be explained to the reader as they go along, inserting a bit of information here and there, so that the reader understands how this world works, who is allied with whom, which races and lands have traditional enemies, and so forth. There is little room in a short story to accomplish all that, and much of it is unnecessary. The second factor which makes short fiction so difficult for some is focus. The short story is not the proper means to tell the tale of poor farm families from the Dust Bowl of Oklahoma being displaced and their struggles to move west and make a new life for themselves in the farming communities of California. One could, however, tell the tale of a single couple struggling in those immigrant camps to find medicine for an infant, and the sacrifices they make to do so. Here, the story is narrowed down to just a few characters with a single conflict to resolve. If you are writing flash fiction, it needs to be distilled even more. Perhaps you could tell the simple story of a wife who barely has enough to eat and her struggle to find a way to buy a gift for her husband. Here your story had been focused down to two or three characters and a simplified quest. Maybe you are writing micro-fiction. Now you have only six words to tell your story. You might come up with something like a rather famous one attributed to Hemingway. “For sale. Baby shoes. Never Worn.” For writers accustomed to the sweeping drama with underlying themes, complex characters, and subtle sub-plots, it is no wonder that the short story or flash fiction present a real challenge. It is, however, something which will improve their writing by forcing them to focus and to make their every word count. It will result in tighter, richer writing even in their longer works. I promised early in this piece that there would be more about micro fiction. Here it is. I recently submitted several pieces to Haunted Waters Press for their Penny Fiction section. The requirements were to write stories of exactly fifteen words. Although my entries were eventually rejected, I believe they are worth looking at to see what can be done with so few words. You can find them in the Musings and Writings section of my website at www.dennisdotywebsite.com. While you are there, check out some of my other writing and maybe some back issues of my blog. Thanks for stopping by. #writing, #fiction, #writingadvice, #shortfiction |