Opportunity is Knocking
I make no secret that for the past six months, the only writing I’ve accomplished is blogs and school papers. Part of the problem was a major distraction in my life, but that distraction is long gone and I’m slowly getting back on track.
But the real impetus that has gotten me back on the writing train is the focus of writing short stories for magazine publications. For one, it’s a way to make a little money without having to do the agent hunt or nerve wracking pitch appointments. It also gives you something to put on a resume or query letter if the magazine buys your story. While not requiring the commitment it takes to write a 400 page book, it does require plotting, character development and snappy dialogue. Having to write 800 words instead of 80,000 means having to say things as simply as possible but still having a punch. For anyone who has trouble writing more concise, this is a great exercise.
I’ve known since college that there was a market for short fiction as this was how my creative writing teacher made his living. I just have no idea why it never occurred to me to pursue this route. Though many magazines print various types of short story fiction, today we’ll focus on those looking for stories relating to women.
The first source I found is called the Writing Site and it lists a few women’s magazines looking for these kinds of stories. Publications such as Redbook, Women’s World, and Seventeen magazine are all listed along with submission guidelines, how much they pay, and the submission address.
Dorchester Media has their hand in the magazine waters with their publications dedicated to nothing but short romance stories. The magazines are called True Romance, True Confessions, and True Experience. This one is harder to find on the shelves, but one source reports they have circulation around 225,000. They pay $.03 a word and specific submission info for each mag can be found here.
One I heard about very recently which I believe is quite new is New Love Stories magazine. This one is put out by Phoenix Magazine Publishing Company and they are looking for a wider range of Romance genre stories including Historical and Paranormal as well as Contemporaries. All info for New Love Stories can be found here.
This is just a few of the leads I’ve found and I’m sure there are lots more out there. If my library has the Writer’s Market book, I’ll find more of them very soon. I want to make clear I’m not suggesting anyone give up writing and selling a full length Romance novel in order to pursue this market. I’m simply suggesting this as a way to supplement our writing careers and build our resumes. When you get down to it, this is another way to practice the craft and everyone knows, the more you write, the better you get.
So, has anyone ventured into this area? Anyone submitted shorter stories to magazines? If not, would you consider it? And how do you feel about creating stories that are 800 or 3,000 words? Think you could do it? Would you have a hard time writing enough or writing so little?
Books by the Crew
24 comments:
I just posted in the Captain's blog...WOW were spoilt for choice today!
Is this intended or has one of you been on the rum again? You're supposed to look through the narrow end of the telescope by the way. :wink:
I think short stories are a great way to keep you ticking over as you struggle with the magnum opus. I did once contact a magazine asking if they would accept submissions by e-mail and received a reluctant affirmative. I even got as far as expanding a couple of the drabbles that I wrote but never submitted them.
The payments might keep me in scotch but will never pay for a new Morgan Sports Car. And I don't really need the money anyway.
When I have a reasonable number, I think I might put them together into a book of humorous and satirical shorts, and consider publishing that.
I wish you well with your endeavours. 8)
It's tough to write shorts. I remember the drabble days and finding just the right about of words to the word limit.
I've written short stories (15K) I doubt I could do a story much shorter than that.
Good luck to you. It will be a way to keep writing.
Good luck, Terri! I've written short stories for school lit mags but don't think I could do it now. I spent Saturday cleaning up my writing room, and 'the right space' does make a difference in my writing attitude. In fact, I just finished the last chap in my WIP...of course, I still have 25,000 more words to stick in somewhere, LOL.
Great idea Terri - love the desk, by the way! I desperately need to carve out a "writing space" as well that doesn't include laying on the couch or on the bed with my laptop (and which would mean I could take down all my charts, lists, and pics for my current WIP off my living room walls so people stop giving me funny looks when they walk in!)
I haven't tried short romance stories, though I think that's a great way to umph up craft skills, as you have so much less room for error than in a full-length novel.
I did try my hand at flash fiction (400 words or less), and apparently, I'm not so hot at that. Sent it to a few magazines, got some nice rejections and maybe's.
If anyone is interested, I found this group/list to be phenomenal for practicing flash or short stories: http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/practice.shtml They send out a prompt once a week with a word limit, you submit yours to the group and get critiques back. I had a lot of fun with it until I ran out of time to keep up *g*
Q - The Captain be stepping on me time. I fixed it for now and she can fix it for good later. LOL! It's not that I'm suggesting this would pay the bills, but if you want to show the lovely tax people that you are making money at this and so all those deductions are justified, this is a pretty good way to do it. :)
I actually have an easier time writing short, probably because lavish detail and setting aren't my strong suit. I loved writing the 500 word drabbles on the bulletin board and have considered using some of them for this endeavor.
Tiff - I think writing short or long has much to do with the voice and your voice does lean to longer works. But then it helps that you knock out full MSs every few months. That ability and discipline plays a HUGE role!
Maggie - Congrats on getting to THE END! Even if it's not done, it's sort of done, and that counts! I'm sure you could write anything you wanted, but like Tiff, your ability to knock out full MSs makes it worth your while to stick with those.
Hal - All your stuff is on your living room wall?! LOL! That's too funny. I checked out that site and it does look like a good way to practice, but as you mention, it looks like a time commitment. There are plenty of sites on the Net to post short fiction, but I decided with this blog to stick mostly with actual print publication to get away from the Net for a while.
Good for you Ter! I think learning how to write with the fewest possible words is a great skill! You're going to be great at it.
I immediately thought of the e-publishers and small print presses who do shorts and anthologies. That'd be a great place to get started too, I think.
I've considered writing something for Harlequin's Nocturne Bites (10-15K). I think I could manage that in a month or so but I've never been interested in writing short fiction, like short stories. I did in college, for my creative writing classes, but that was years ago.
Best of luck, Ter! :)
My math problem extends to calendars. I thought the 9th was a Tuesday. I didn't mean to actually step on Terri's Toe Time.
Published is published, I say. Go for it. I'm sure it's almost as hard to break into magazines as it is books, but to those who can figure it out, voila!--a lucrative sideline.
I won a contest in 1992 (I was 17), where we wrote essays about rural electric operatives. Specifically our rural electric operative, Boone County. (Sin won the same contest by the way.) Anyway, my dark horse of an essay won (I was tied for 7 & 8 place in the contest. If there had been any other guys who'd entered the contest, I would have lost. We had to read our essays aloud; and though normally that is the WORST of my talents (and believe me, up until the night of, it was definitely my worst talent), I read my essay and won. But the cool part wasn't winning the trip--though that was cool--it was that A) they wanted to publish my essay. They hadn't published ANYONE's essay before before they enjoyed mine so much they wanted to publish it and B) my single-handed flubbing of the 'spontaneous' essay of why I should represent the county led my English teacher to allow students to use notecards for contest winners in following years. I think Yount still refers to my flubbing with horror.
Anyway--I was published--PUBLISHED--and I still have the little brochures with my essay in it. It was really cool.
Marn - It's true there are plenty of e-publishers out there who take shorter stories, but I have something more general in mind. This is the kind of thing where I can say my work was included in something that is mass-produced and widely distributed and I can hold it in my hand. NO disrespect to the epubbers, I know they fall under all those qualifications, but they still have to be sought out by Romance readers and often your story is one of thousands on a site.
In this situation, you might be the only one in that issue, or you might be one of less than 10. Either way, I think these give the opportunity to reach a wider audience because someone might pick the mag up for a weight-loss article and find your story.
Hellion - I always love that story. Did you know when you wrote the thing it had any chance of being published? I'm guessing not. Do you think having that essay published gave you motivation to write other things?
I think getting a short published, even just 800 words, would be a kind of motivation to keep going. And though I realize getting into a mag is not easy at all, probably not any easier than getting an agent or selling a book, but I can write more short stories in a short period of time than I can full length books, so for me, this seems a good option right now.
No, I didn't know. They'd never published any of the essays before. In fact, the way the presented it to me was such it seemed that the idea occurred to them that night to publish an essay.
And as for writing other things, no. I'd wanted to write since the 5th grade. So by the time, I'd gotten to the essay, I'd gotten rather cocky. I was rather devastated my essay was such a DARK HORSE. *LOL* I thought it should have ranked a little higher than 8th place. Even though all my peeps wrote really excellent essays and I should have just been happy to be nominated with them. A lot of Harrisburg people were nominated that year.
Dude, if you can break into the magazine market, that'd be awesome. Lots of big whig authors wrote articles (still write articles) before they broke into the book-length publishing.
My friend Kat couldn't quite break into the magazine bit--and she wrote really great short stories...so I know it's HARD....
Yeah, I know there are no guarantees I'll ever have a single word see the light of day. But I figure it can't be any harder than writing a 400 page book, selling the hell out of it, and getting rejected constantly. LOL! Just another way to experience the rejection letters. But at least I'll be accomplishing something along the way. I'm the kind of person who needs to see a finished project to keep me going.
*Glanced at water bottle...nope, not rum. I'm sure it was the Revenge blog I posted on last night... hmmmm!
Ah, calender confusion...! Got it!
I think it's a great way to get some cred for the query letter. And a nice way to pad the income. No, haven't done it. But I did take an online class on novellas. I think I'd do better with the really short...I'll have to check out the resources ya listed... :)
Hey, Chance! Captain was trying to get a head start so she could start the day tomorrow with ready-made comments. :)
Yep, I'm all for having something to add to the resume. Since right now I got nada, this seemed like an option. And who couldn't use some extra money? Heck, reinvest it in craft books or a new comp or something. Extra money is never a problem. LOL!
Or buy a DVR with your earnings!
I've already put a DVR in the TV room below decks.
*sticks tongue out at Captain*
I have also been toying with this idea. A couple of my chapter mates haver written for True Romance. It may well be worth a shot. Your writing space looks like just the ticket.
I hope it brings you great amounts of creativity and energy.
Dude, I'm too long winded for 800 words. More power to anyone who can chop their words down and say what they really mean.
Hola, from the airport. I'm checking in with work and double checking some insurance stuff and then boarding my flight for greener pastures.
Santa - I think the True Romance was the first mag of this type that I heard about. Let me know if you jump in. LOL! I bet you could create some great little scene snippets centered around your deli. As the Deli Thug Turns!
Sin - But this could be your chance to practice writing more concise. Not that there's anything wrong with what you write, but aren't you even tempted to try it? Think of it as a challenge. LOL!
Happy flight! Do they actually have green pastures in Arizona?
And, I've tried writing concisely. It ends up being longer than the original. LOL
Now, I'm off to walk the plank.
They have faux green yards laid over desert sand.
Hope the weather is warm and toasty fer ya! Happy flight!
I've been in the doldrums with me big writin', I like the idea of smaller writin' all the time.
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