Untitled - The Write Practice

155 Pages·2012·0.85 MB·English

Let’s Write a Short Story!

by Joe Bunting
Copyright © 2012 by The Write Practice

TheWritePractice.com
Write a short story every week. It's not possible
to write 52 bad short stories in a row.
Ray Bradbury
Let’s Write a Short Story!

Contents

Introduction: More Competitive than Harvard 6
Why publishing short stories is more competitive than Harvard,
and why you should submit them anyway.
Let’s Get Started 19
What is a short story and how do you get one published?
Effective Story Writing Strategies 40
How a short story structured differently than a novel? What
subjects do magazines love to publish? How do you save dozens
of hours by “recycling”?
Write a Better Story 53
Craft advice from literary classics and prize-winning writers.
Let’s Write a Short Story!

Getting Rid of Writer’s Block 86
At some point, you’re probably going to get stuck. Get rid of
writer’s block faster.
Editing to Perfection 99
A few tips to sharpen up your story quickly.
Submitting Your Baby 110
You’re a little protective of your story. I understand. Here’s how
to prepare yourself to let it go.
How to Get the Most of Your Stories 125
Why short stories could be the new online platform for fiction
writers.
Let’s Write a Short Story!

Conclusion: The Meaning of Writing 133
Writing is about more than getting famous and making money.
Make sure you connect to the deeper meaning of the craft.
Appendix A: 44 Magazines to Submit To 147
There are thousands of literary magazines, making it confusing
and overwhelming for a new writer. Here’s a list to help get you
started.
Appendix B: The Short Story Formatting Checklist 153
Before you submit your story, make sure you’ve remembered
everything.
Endnotes 155
Let’s Write a Short Story!

Introduction:
More Competitive than Harvard

If you google “Harvard Acceptance Rate,” you’ll find that in 2012, out of over 34,000
students who applied only 5.9 percent got in. Those are not great odds. Think of sixteen other
people you know. If you all applied to Harvard, only one of you would get in, and it probably
wouldn’t be you. However, Harvard’s acceptance rate is nothing compared to the top literary
magazines.
The top literary magazines in America usually get about 1,000 submissions per month,
12,000 per year. A few submissions come from literary agents on behalf of the writers they work
for, but most come from unknown or mostly unknown writers just trying to get their big break in
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Let’s Write a Short Story!

the literary world. Of the estimated 12,000 submissions a magazine like The New Yorker gets per
year, they pick only about 50. That’s 0.4 percent.
To put that in perspective, think about 249 people you know. If all of you submitted to a
literary magazine, only one of your stories would be accepted. And it almost certainly wouldn’t be
you.
It gets worse. Between July 2011 and July 2012, about 970 stories were submitted to
Glimmer Train Stories by writers who use the popular submission tracking service, Duotrope.
Only one was published. That’s 0.1 percent.
Think about 1,000 people you know....
It’s 50 times harder to get into Glimmer Train than it is to get into Harvard, according to
Duotrope’s stats.
No wonder writers have a reputation for being alcoholics. Who needs a drink after hearing
that?
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Let’s Write a Short Story!

Not all literary magazines are this difficult. Daily Science Fiction, a popular online magazine
that delivers a new science fiction or fantasy story to readers’ inboxes every weekday, has an
acceptance rate of a little more than 3 percent. However, of all the magazines I looked at as I
researched this book, that was one of the highest. I hope you didn’t think writing and publishing
short stories was going to be easy.
Why Short Stories?
What do these stats tell you? If you want to get your short fiction published, not just in one
magazine but to have pieces published in several of them, you need to get serious. You can break
into the literary magazine scene, but it will take perseverance, hard work, and a little luck.
The reasons for writing short stories, though, make it well worth facing the obstacles. Here
are eight:
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