Many contests and magazines use the Submittable platform to accept and review the large volume of manuscripts they received from writers. When a publisher uses this platform, it’s great for us as authors because we can use the app to keep track of what we have submitted, and where it currently is in the process. Also, by using the submittable app, you can see what publications have submission dates that are closing soon, and which are going to be open for a while. When you see an opportunity that falls into your area of expertise and which has a reasonably distant closing date, you can tailor a piece to fit that slot. The key to successfully getting a story accepted is to build the theme of the contest or magazine into your work so solidly that the story would fall apart without it. Even if nothing currently offered has a reasonable closing date, knowing the trending themes publishers are asking for is crucial to building your backlog with salable stories, so if you don’t have a Submittable account, you should get one. What I hope to do in each story I begin writing is to identify what the theme the publisher wants stories written to means to me. Your story will be up against many entries, so you must make yours as unique as is possible. Analyze the theme and try to think creatively—think a little wide of the obvious tropes. Look for an original angle that will play well to that theme and then go for it. To support the theme, you must layer
These three layers must all be driven by the central theme and advance the story arc. The theme is introduced, either subtly or overtly, at the first pinch-point. Many times, we are given a specific word count we cannot exceed. So, with that in mind I suggest you put together a broad outline of your intended story arc, and when writing a short story, it helps to know how it will end. Divide your story arc into quarters, so you have the important events in place at the right time. If you try to "pants" it, you might end up with a mushy plot that wanders all over the place and a story that may not be commercially viable. When you assemble your outline, ask yourself
It’s easy to get involved in large info dumps and bunny trails to nowhere in short stories, and you don’t want that as your work will be summarily rejected. As an author, most of my novels have been epic or medieval fantasy, based around the hero’s journey and detailing how the events my protagonists experience shape their reactions and personal growth. The hero’s journey is a theme that allows me to employ the sub-themes of brotherhood, and love of family. These concepts are important to me on a personal level, and so they find their way into my writing. But what if you aren’t really writing anything for submission? What if you just want to write a short story for your backlog, something to have on hand in case something promising comes up? First consider the length—if you have no particular place to submit to in mind, keep the length down to 3000 to 5000 words. If you keep it shortish, you can easily tailor it to fit within a wide range of wordcount parameters. Then consider the theme. What themes are important to you? When you look for a book, what catches your interest? I am not talking genre here, I am speaking of the deeper story. When you look at it from a distance, what do all the stories you love best have in common? That is what your theme is, and what you must write to. Make that theme so intrinsic to the story that it wouldn’t exist without it. Then, write the best story you can, have it beta read by your critique group, and use their input to iron out the rough places. It really helps to have your group’s involvement, especially when you must edit your own work to the best of your ability. Let it rest for a few days, and then look at one more time before you submit it. _______________________________________________________________________________ Connie J. Jasperson is the author of nine novels. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies. A founding member of Myrddin Publishing Group, she can be found blogging regularly on both the craft of writing and art history at Life in the Realm of Fantasy.
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As professional writers, we are often invited to submit a story to an Anthology being put together by one of our various professional groups. While the groups may differ in their area of focus, certain elements will be the same no matter what genre the editors are asking for or the theme that will tie the anthology together. The story must embody the desired theme, and the editors only want your best work. What is “your best work?” Your best work
Why is theme so critical to work submitted to anthologies? Theme is what the story is about on a deeper level than what is seen on the surface. It’s the big meaning, a thread that is woven through the entire story, and often it’s a moral. Love, honor, family, redemption, and revenge are all common, underlying themes. Theme is an idea-thread that winds through the story and supports the plot. Without a central theme to connect the works of so many different authors, the anthology will be disjointed and uneven, a patchwork. The unifying theme ensures continuity. If you are all writing to a common theme, the readers who purchase the anthology will stay with it and read your work. Once you are satisfied you have caught all the errors and misspellings, garbled sentences, and plot holes, and that you have had it edited to the best of your ability, you must format your manuscript for submission according to the guidelines as set out by the anthology’s editor. For most anthologies, editors want the work formatted according to the guidelines as set out by William Shunn. Those guidelines can be found in detail at this website: https://www.shunn.net/format/story.html In essence, use Times New Roman or Courrier .12 font and be sure your manuscript is
If your professional group has a Facebook page or private chatroom, those guidelines will be posted there. Sometimes, we find out at the last minute that an opportunity for getting a piece into an anthology is open, and we think we can cobble a piece together in a day or two. I do advise against succumbing to this temptation, as your theme must be strongly represented throughout your story, and the work must be as clean as is humanly possible, two things that are difficult to accomplish when a story is slapped together. Don’t feel surprised if your sloppy, unedited work is rejected. The editor of the anthology has asked for your best work. You want the other authors to submit their best work so that your work will be included with the best the industry has to offer. Be respectful and do the same with your work. Do NOT rush it. Take the time to make your short story the very best work you can, so it represents you and what you are capable of. Connie J. Jasperson is the author of nine novels. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies. A founding member of Myrddin Publishing Group, she can be found blogging regularly on both the craft of writing and art history at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. In literature what is the “point of no return?” Scott Driscoll, on his blog, says, “This event or act represents the point of maximum risk and exposure for the main character (and precedes the crisis moment and climax).” Crises, even small ones on the most personal of levels, are the fertile ground from which adventure springs. Most disasters are preceded by one or more points of no return; places where the protagonist could have made a different choice and trouble could have been avoided. Our task as authors is to identify this plot point and make it subtly clear to the reader, even if only in hindsight. In life we often find ourselves boxed into a corner, frantically dealing with things we could have avoided if only we had paid attention and not ignored the metaphoric “turn back now” signs. I’ve used this prompt before, but it’s a good one, so here it is again: Imagine a road trip where you are sent off on a detour in a city you’re unfamiliar with. What would happen if some of the signs were missing, detour signs telling you the correct way to go? Also missing is a one-way street warning sign. At some point, before you realized the signs had been removed, there was a place you could have turned back. Unaware of the danger, you passed that stopping point and turned left when you should have turned right. Now you find yourself driving into oncoming traffic on a one-way street. That place where you could have turned around before you entered the danger zone was the point of no return for your adventure. Fortunately, in our hypothetical road-trip, no one was harmed, although you were honked at and verbally abused by the people who were endangered by your wrong turn. You made it safely out of danger, but you’ll never take a detour again without fearing the worst. In contemporary fiction, literary fiction, romance--no matter what genre you are writing in, “arcs of action” drive the plot. A point of no return comes into play in every novel to some degree. The protagonists are in danger of losing everything because they didn’t recognize the warning signs, and they are pushed to the final confrontation whether they are ready for it or not. Speculative fiction generally features a plot driven by a chain of events, small points of no return, each one progressively forcing the protagonist and his/her companions to their meeting with destiny. Contemporary and literary fiction is also driven by a chain of small events. In some novels, this takes the protagonist to a confrontation with himself, or a family is forced to deal with long-simmering problems. Many times in literary fiction the point of no return looks like a non-event on the surface. But nevertheless, these events are the impetus of change. In most literature, these scenes of action form arcs that rise to the Third Plot Point: the event that is either an actual death or a symbolic death. This event forces the protagonist to be greater than they believed they could be, OR it breaks them down to their component parts. Either way, the protagonist is changed by this crisis. The struggle may have been fraught with hardship, but the final point of no return is the ultimate event that forces the showdown and face-to-face confrontation with the enemy—the climactic event. No matter the genre, the story arc has certain commonalities—in literary fiction, they will be more subtle and internal than in an action adventure or space opera, but in all novels the characters experience growth/change forced on them by events. During the build-up to the final point of no return, you must develop your characters’ strengths. You must identify the protagonist’s goals early on and clarify why he/she must struggle to achieve them.
Misfortune and struggle create opportunities for your character to grow as a person or to change for the worse. We must place obstacles in our protagonists’ path that will stretch their abilities, and which are believable, so that by the end of the book they are strong enough to face the final event and denouement. Remember, each time the characters in a book overcome an obstruction, the reader is rewarded with a feeling of satisfaction. That reward keeps the reader turning pages. It doesn’t matter what genre you are writing in: you could be writing romances, thrillers, paranormal fantasy, or contemporary chick lit—obstacles in the protagonist’s path to happiness make for satisfying conclusions. The books I love to read are crafted in such a way that we get to know the characters, see them in their environment, and then an incident happens, thrusting the hero down the road to divorce court, or trying to head off a nuclear melt-down. After all, sometimes a dinner party happens, and the next day our Hobbit finds himself walking to the Misty Mountains with a group of Dwarves he only just met, leaving home with nothing but the clothes on his back. In chasing after them, Bilbo has passed the first point of no return. I say this because after having heard the stories and listened to their song, and after having seen the map, even if he were to turn back and stay home, Bilbo would have been forever changed by regret for what he didn’t have the courage to do. ________________________________________________________________________________ Crisis and the Point of No Return, © 2018 by Connie J. Jasperson was first published June 18, 2018 on Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Reprinted by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. We all know opposites attract—it seems to be a fundamental law of physics. It is as if the one end of the magnetic spectrum supplies a needed missing element for the other, something they can’t resist. In literature, polarity gives your theme dimension. Remember, the theme is the backbone of your story, the thread that runs through it and connects the disparate parts. Themes are often polarized: One obvious polarity in literature is good vs. evil. Another is love vs. hate. The circle of life explores birth, growth, degeneration, and death. Young vs. old is a common polarity—many times we find opportunities for conflict within the family. Both sides of this age-old conflict tend to be arrogant and sure of their position in each skirmish. Wealth vs. poverty offers the opportunity to delve into social issues and inequities. But looking beyond the obvious are the subtle polarities we can instill into our work, the small subliminal conflicts that support the theme and add texture to the narrative. Consider justice. Without injustice, there is no need for justice. Justice only exists because of injustice. Or pain–the absence of pain, emotional or physical, is only understood when someone has suffered pain. Until we have felt severe pain, we don’t even think about the lack of it. In literature, emotional pain can be a thread adding dimension to an otherwise stale relationship. Truth and falsehood (reality/unreality) go a long way toward adding drama to a plot and provide a logical way to underscore the larger theme. Ease should be framed with difficulty. The contrast of order and chaos can really power a story-line, and the way you perceive them will not be the way another author sees them. Many commonly used words have opposites, such as the word attractive, the opposite of which is repulsive. When you really want to add texture to your narrative, look at how you could apply the ideas generated by your list of antonyms, words with the opposite meanings. Think about how some of the concepts of the more common “D” words with opposites could be used to good effect:
I love and regularly use the Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms to spur my creativity. It can be purchased in paperback, so it’s not too spendy. Often you can find these sorts of reference books second hand. The internet is also your friend. A large, comprehensive list of common antonyms can be found at Enchanted Learning. If you don’t have the Oxford Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms and are feeling the financial pinch most authors feel, this is a free resource. Applied with a deft hand, opposites add dimension and rhythm to our work. Polarity is an essential tool of world building, as small polarities in the interactions your characters have with each other add to the atmosphere and serve to show their world in subtle ways.
What polarities can you use to your advantage in your current work in progress? When inserted unobtrusively they become invisible, an organic part of the larger picture. Yet, each small polarity will create a little conflict, push your characters a bit further, and underscore your larger theme. These are just a few ideas and thoughts to help you jump start your work, if you’re a little stranded. Happy writing! _________________________________________________________________________________ Using Polarity in Literature, © 2018 by Connie J. Jasperson, was first published on Life in the Realm of Fantasy June 25, 2016. Reprinted by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. It has been a while since we talked about the importance of citing and attributing sources for images and quotes, so this a good topic for today.
I write posts on writing craft for several blogs, amounting to five short articles a week. The way I handle my blogging commitments is this:
So WHY did I mention making footnotes? Isn’t that just for academic stuff? Not at all—we must give credit where credit is due. It’s your legal obligation, but there is a moral one here too: if you wrote something good and someone quoted you verbatim, wouldn’t you want to be credited? First let’s talk images: When we first begin blogging, sourcing images seems like no big deal. You google what you want, see what images pop up, right click, copy, and use them, right? Wrong! Don’t do it! You can get into terrible financial trouble and lose your credibility. A friend recently pointed a telling blogpost out, and it bears being referenced here again: The $7,500 Blogging Mistake That Every Blogger Needs to Avoid! So, now that we are clear as to our legal responsibility, what does the cash-strapped author do? An excellent article on using Creative Commons Images can be found here: I use Wikimedia Commons and Public Domain images. Wikimedia makes it easy for you to get the attributions and licensing for each image. Another good source is Allthefreestock.com, where you can find hundreds of free stock photos, music, and many other things for your blog and other projects. Sometimes I need images I can only get by purchasing the rights, and for those, I go to Dreamstime or Canstock, and several other reputable sources. For a few dollars, usually only two or three, I then have the right to use the image of my choice, and it’s properly licensed. The proper legal attribution is also there on the seller’s website, clearly written out with the copyright and artist name, so all you need do is copy and paste it to your footnotes. I keep a log of where my images are sourced, who created them, and what I used them in. I also insert the attribution into the image details on my website so that when a mouse hovers over the image, curious readers can go to the source. (In WordPress, you must be on the WP Admin dashboard. Click on the image and go to ‘edit details’). If you can do this, you won’t have to credit them in your footnotes. That is all well and fine for images, but what about quoting an article or other literary work? Sometimes we want to quote another blogger or use the information we have learned from them. Plagiarism is an ugly word, and you never want to be accused of it. To that end, we cite our sources—but there is a caveat here:
Citing sources for a blogpost or short essay: First, I open a document in my word-processing program (I use Word), save it as whatever the title of the post is in that blog’s file folder, and compose my post the way I would write a story.
Simple attributions/citations will look like this: Wikipedia contributors, "Gallows humor," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gallows_humor&oldid=759474185 (accessed January 30, 2017). When you quote from Wikipedia, citation is simple. All you do is click on the ‘cite this page’ link in the left-hand column, which is a menu of items pertaining to Wikipedia in general and to that article. ‘Cite this page’ is listed under ‘tools.’ Clicking on this link takes you to a page offering citations for that page in CMoS, APA, or MLA style, whichever suits your need. All you need to do is copy and paste the one you prefer into your footnotes, and your due diligence has been done. All this information for your footnotes should be inserted at the BOTTOM of your current document, so everything you need for your blog post is all in one place. When my blog article is complete and ready to post, I will insert a line to separate the body of the post from the credits and attribution notes. When readers view my blog, if my post were one that I did research for, they would see this at the bottom of the post: Authors need to blog about who they are and what they do because they can connect with potential readers that way. Using pictures and quoting good sources makes blogs more interesting and informative. Photographers and artists are just like writers—they are proud of their work and want to be credited for it. Protect yourself and your work by responsibly sourcing your images, giving credit to the authors and artists whose work you use. ____________________________________________________________________________________ CREDITS and Attributions Portions of this article first appeared here on the Northwest Independent Writers’ Association Blog in January of 2017, written by Connie J. Jasperson, © 2017. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Today, I have five thoughts for your consideration: One: Some people don’t know what to do with commas and attempt to do without them altogether. This is not a good idea. Commas are to clauses what traffic signals are to streets—they govern the flow of traffic, although, in the case of sentences, the traffic is comprised of words, not cars.
Comma Splice: My car is a blue Chevy Malibu and I like it, the dog likes to ride shotgun. Same two thoughts, written correctly: My car is a blue Chevy Malibu, and I like it. The dog likes to ride shotgun. Consider how many sentences you link together with the word and. Could brevity strengthen your prose? Conjunctions are the gateway to run-on sentence hell. If you are deliberate in your use of conjunctions, you will also use fewer commas. Craft your prose and use common grammatical sense. Two: Don’t write self-indulgent drivel. Go lightly with the praise, adoration, and general lauding of your characters’ accomplishments. Three: Use active phrasing. There were Small colorful flowers growing grew in each raised bed. and some slightly Larger flowering plants growing grew around the fountain at the center. With a mixture of mild pastels and vivid colors, it was beautiful. Four: Don’t waste words describing each change of expression and mood. Consider this hot mess of fifty-one words that make no sense: Eleanor looked at Gerard with concern. His voice changed so much in the telling of the story as his emotions came to the surface that it still seemed so raw, as if Timmy’s death had happened only days ago. In addition, his expressions also changed and his current one was akin to despair. It could be cut down to fourteen words that convey the important parts of the sentence: Gerard’s raw despair concerned Eleanor, seeming as if Timmy’s death had happened only days before. Five: Simplicity is sometimes best. “Delicious sounds captivated their eardrums.” Please, oh, please--just say it sounded amazing. If music touches the protagonist’s soul, it’s good to say so. We want to convey the fact the music was wonderful, and we don’t want to be boring. But when we try to get too artful, the prose can become awkward. Odors and sounds are part of the background, the atmosphere of the piece and while they need to be there, we don’t want them to be obtrusive, in-your-face. This is an instance of prose working better when it isn’t fancy. Five thoughts to get your writing week started–now, go! Write like the wind! _____________________________________________________________________________________ Five Thoughts on Writing, © 2018 by Connie J. Jasperson, was first published on Life in the Realm of Fantasy on May 7, 2018. Reprinted by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Several conversations in an online writer’s group has inspired me to revisit a post on the importance of identifying desires and objectives, which was first published in June of 2016. This post contrasts the works of two authors with unique and distinct literary styles: James Joyce and J.R.R. Tolkien. Although they were contemporaries, born ten years apart, the two authors couldn’t be more dissimilar. And yet their works have one thing in common: the protagonists want something and are willing to go to some lengths to gain it. This is the core of any great novel. When we sit down to write a story of any length, a novel or flash fiction, we often begin with an idea, and great characters, and little more. To make those things into a story, we must first ask what the protagonist wants, and we must know what she/he is willing to risk in their efforts to achieve it. Objectives + Risk = Story In The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien, Frodo is just an ordinary young hobbit, with no particular ambitions. On the same day as his older cousin Bilbo’s “eleventy-eleventh” (111th) birthday, Frodo (Bilbo’s heir) celebrates his thirty-third birthday. At the lavish double-birthday party, Bilbo departs from the Shire for what he calls “a permanent holiday.” He does so by using the magic ring (that he had found on the journey detailed in The Hobbit) to disappear. He is aided in that by Gandalf with a flash and puff of smoke, leading many in the Shire to believe Bilbo has gone mad. He leaves Frodo his remaining belongings, including his home, Bag End, and after some heavy-handed persuasion by the wizard Gandalf, he also leaves the Ring. Gandalf departs on his own business, warning Frodo to keep the Ring secret. Seventeen years or so pass, and then Gandalf returns to inform Frodo of the truth about Bilbo’s ring. It is the One Ring of Sauron the Dark Lord, and is evil. It forges a connection between the wearer and Sauron, and whoever bears it will be slowly corrupted, eventually becoming a Ringwraith. From the moment of learning the truth about the Ring, Frodo’s goal is clear to the reader: he must get rid of the ring. In Rivendell, he learns the only way to do so is to carry it into the depths of Mordor and cast the ring into the fires of Mt. Doom. Frodo wants to achieve this goal badly enough to walk into an active volcano and certain death to accomplish this. At no point in the narrative is the objective unclear. The path is blocked many times, and each of the characters is tested by the evil ring, some beyond their ability to resist it. The objective creates the tension, which drives the plot forward. But what about a book where the goal is not so clear? Let’s talk about Ulysses, by James Joyce. Ulysses chronicles the wandering appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, taking place over the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. Joyce established a series of parallels between the epic poem and his novel. This book has one of the best opening lines of all time: Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. Structurally, there are strong correlations between the characters and experiences of Leopold Bloom with Odysseus, Molly Bloom with Odysseus’ long-suffering wife, Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus with Odysseus’s son, Telemachus. It is set in early twentieth century Dublin with the events and political tempests of the time. Themes of antisemitism and the impact of Ireland’s rocky relationship with Britain as it was felt in those days are the underlying pins of this novel. It is highly allusive and filled with allegories. There is no obvious quest, although many minor quests are completed in the course of living through the day. The book opens with Stephen Dedalus, the first protagonist, having breakfast with Buck Mulligan, who is perhaps a friend, or maybe a rival. Stephen is not Leopold’s biological son as Telemachus is Odysseus’, but he fulfills that role. Unconsciously Stephen wants a father. But what do they want? It’s James Joyce, so it’s complicated. Stephen shares his opinions about religion with Buck Mulligan, speaking of how they relate to the recent death of his mother, and Buck manages to offend him. They make plans to go drinking later that evening. What does Leopold desire? He wants a son. In Episode 4, the narrative shifts abruptly. The time is again 8 am, but the action has moved across the city and to the second protagonist of the book, Leopold Bloom, a part-Jewish advertising canvasser. He and his wife have a daughter, Milly Bloom, who, at the age of 15, has left home to study photography. As the day unfolds, Bloom’s thoughts turn to the affair between his wife, Molly, and her manager. He also thinks about the death of their infant son, Rudy Bloom, who died at the age of 11 days. The absence of a son is what leads him to form an attachment to Stephen, for whom he goes out of his way in the book’s latter episodes. He rescues him from a brothel, walks him back to his own home, and even offers him a place there to study and work. Finally, we come to Molly. Within the city of Dublin, Molly is an opera singer of some renown. She is the mother of Milly Bloom, who, at the age of 15, has left home to study photography. She is also the mother of Rudy, the son who died at the age of eleven days. A significant difference between Molly and Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, is that while Penelope is eternally faithful, Molly is not. She is having an affair with Hugh ‘Blazes’ Boylan after ten years of her celibacy within her marriage. The final chapter of Ulysses, often called “Molly Bloom’s Soliloquy,” is a long and unpunctuated stream-of-consciousness passage. During the monologue, Molly accepts Leopold into her bed, frets about his health, and then reminisces about their first meeting and about when she knew she was in love with him. It is comprised of some 20,0000 words of her thoughts as she lies in bed next to Bloom. What does Molly want? She wants to be loved. In The Lord of the Rings, we have a clear and obvious quest, straightforward and seemingly impossible: Destroy the One Ring and save the world. In Ulysses, we have a group of people who all want something, but just as in real life, what that may exactly be is not as clear as we would like it. But there is an objective: they just want to get through the day and in the process, they find they are a family, thus achieving their individual goals. Once we know what our protagonist wants and what he/she is willing to risk to achieve it, we have our plot. How we dress it up is up to us—I admit James Joyce’s rambling is too daunting for me to read for pleasure. I had to read it in the environment of a college class to make it all the way through the novel with some understanding of it. I am a huge fan of Joyce’s magnificent one-liners, though. History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. --Ulysses, Episode 2 __________________________________________________________________________________ CREDITS AND ATTRIBUTIONS: Desires and Objectives © 2016 – 2018 by Connie J. Jasperson was first published on Life in the Realm of Fantasy on June 13, 2016. Reprinted by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Despite being primarily a novelist, I submit a lot of short stories to various publications over the course of a year. Many times, they are rejected for various reasons, but I polish them up and submit them elsewhere. Therefore, I keep a list of what short story was submitted to what magazine or anthology. If it is rejected with comments, I make a note of the remarks. I then consider them, and if they are valid, I make changes and immediately submit it elsewhere. The fact is, rejection can be a positive thing. If you are a member of a professional writers’ organization, such as NIWA, you may want to submit a piece to their annual themed anthology. These anthologies want stories that showcase their members’ best work and will want previously unpublished work that strongly represents the theme for that year. The theme of this year’s NIWA anthology is ‘Carnival’ and I’m looking forward to reading it. I strongly recommend you do not submit your work to vanity publications. Don’t even consider submitting to the slick-looking publishing house that contacts you by your WordPress blog email saying they want your work for “regional anthologies.” They want your work all right—and want to sell you publishing services you can do for yourself. You won’t benefit from any of their “services” but they will benefit from your desperation to be published. They will publish your work, and your payment is the glory of having it published, as they offer you no payment or royalties. They will expect you to market their product and they will offer you all manner of for-payment services that are dubious at best. When I first began this journey, I didn’t understand how specifically you have to tailor your submissions when it comes to literary magazines, contests, and anthologies. First, you must research your intended market. This means you must buy magazines, read them, and write to those standards. Go to the publisher’s website and find out what their submission guidelines are and FOLLOW THEM. (Yes, they apply to EVERYONE, no matter how famous, even you.) If you skip this step, you can wait up to a year to hear that your manuscript has been rejected, and they most likely won’t tell you why. Formatting your manuscript to your intended publisher’s standards is crucial. If you are unsure how that works, see my blogpost of July 24, 2015, How to Format Your Manuscript for Submission. Only submit your best, most professional work. It’s not worth a publisher’s time to teach you how to be a writer—you have to learn that on your own. A sci-fi magazine like Analog Science Fiction and Fact will not be interested in fantasy from an unknown author. If you read Analog, you can see they mostly publish hard, technology driven sci-fi. If they publish a fantasy piece at all, it will be by one of their regular contributors, and will likely have been solicited by them for a particular feature. Analog’s Submission page clearly says: “Basically, we publish science fiction stories. That is, stories in which some aspect of future science or technology is so integral to the plot that, if that aspect were removed, the story would collapse. Try to picture Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein without the science and you’ll see what I mean. No story! The science can be physical, sociological, psychological. The technology can be anything from electronic engineering to biogenetic engineering. But the stories must be strong and realistic, with believable people (who needn’t be human) doing believable things–no matter how fantastic the background might be.” You have been warned. Analog wants science, not magic. Therefore, I never submit to this magazine as I don’t write hard science fiction. I don’t enjoy the kind of work they publish, and that is an important clue: If you don’t read what they publish, you likely can’t write it to their standards. An excellent article that addresses that well is “What Editors Want; A Must-Read for Writers Submitting to Literary Magazines.” Because I have so many short pieces floating around in the ether, I now keep a document listing all my submissions by the
Remember, only submit your best work. If you have a well-written piece that reads smoothly when read aloud and is rejected for whatever reason, find a different magazine, contest, or anthology to submit it to. Chances are it simply didn’t resonate with the editor at that place, and who knows–it may be exactly what the next place is looking for. However, finding these contests and publications has been challenging, as often by the time I hear about them, the closing date is approaching which means I may not have time to get a rough piece into the right shape for submission. But even that is becoming less of a problem for me. I use an app for a submissions warehouse that makes it easy to find publications with open deadlines and contests which have several months lead before their closing date. The Submittable App. Many contests and publications use the Submittable platform to accept and review the large volume of manuscripts they received from writers. When a publisher uses this platform, it’s great for us as authors because we can use the app to keep track of what we have submitted, and where it currently is in the process. On your personal page, Submittable lists four stages in the process:
I can connect though both my PC and my phone so no matter where I am, I can check the progress of a particular story. It is the responsibility of the contest manager or publication to notify Submittable as to the status of their entries and submissions, and while most do, some contests managers aren’t as diligent about that. I assume that if it has been in process for more than a year, they didn’t want that piece. But, even better than being able to track your submissions, all the contests that are currently open via Submittable are listed on the Submittable Website in one place on the “Discover” tab, so the question of where to submit your work is easily answered. Every open call for submissions is listed, and any entry fees are clearly shown. At the top are the contests and calls that are closing that day. But if you scroll down to the bottom, you will find calls closing thirty days from now and beyond. If you are new to this, a good place to start is the Lascaux Review. This is a literary magazine, but they have great contests for flash fiction, drabbles, and poetry–and offer cash prizes. Their rules are fairly relaxed. The Lascaux Prize in Flash Fiction http://lascauxreview.com/contests ___________________________________________________________________________________ CREDITS AND ATTRIBUTIONS: Short stories, submissions, and vanity publications by Connie J. Jasperson was first published April 18, 2018 on Life in the Realm of Fantasy. Reprinted by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy Most writing coaches agree that the first 1/4 of your story is where you reveal your characters and show their world while introducing hints of trouble and foreshadowing the first plot point. That is the first act, so to speak. The Calamity: Something large and dramatic must occur right around the 1/4 mark to force the hero into action, an intense, powerful scene that changes everything. Quite often the inciting scene will be comparatively disastrous, and one that that forces the protagonist to react. He/she may be thrust into a situation that radically changes their life and forces them to make a series of difficult decisions. Putting this together requires intention on your part:
The Villain: Conflict drives the story. We know a great story has a compelling protagonist, but if you want to have a conflict that will impact the reader, you must have a worthy adversary. The hero has an objective, and so does the villain. You must identify the opponent. Who are they and what is their power-base?
We are rarely perceived as being villains for no reason. We don’t realize we are arrogant or obstructive—we have goals and don’t understand why others can’t see that. You must identify why they are so committed to thwarting your heroine.
Do the hero and the villain know each other, or are they faceless enemies to each other? How does the adversary counter the hero’s efforts? In fantasy, and often in thrillers and horror, we have an adversary who is capable of great evil. They may have supernatural powers, and at first they seem invincible. Their position of greater power forces the hero to become stronger, craftier, to develop ways to beat the adversary at his game. A strong, compelling villain creates interest and drives the conflict. Write several pages of back-story for your own use, to make sure your antagonist is as well-developed in your mind as your protagonist is, so that he/she radiates evil and power when you put them on the page. If you know your antagonist as well as you know the hero, the enemy will be believable when you write about their actions. The Hero’s Struggle: With the first calamity out of the way, the story is hurtling toward the midpoint, that place called the second plot-point. The characters are acting and reacting to events that are out of their control. Nothing is going right—the hero and his/her cohorts must scramble to stay alive, and now they are desperately searching for the right equipment or a crucial piece of information that will give them an edge. The struggle is the story, and at this point it looks like the hero may not get what they need in time. The adversary must first exploit the hero’s weaknesses. Only then can she overcome them and turn weakness into strength. The hero has a character arc and must grow into a stronger person. During this part of the story you must build upon your characters’ strengths. Identify the hero’s goals and clarify why he/she must struggle to achieve them.
Midway between the first plot point and the second plot point, what new incident will occur to once again dramatically alter the hero’s path? This will be a turning point, drama and mayhem will ensue, perhaps offering the hero a slim chance.
The books I loved to read the most were crafted in such a way that we got to know the characters, saw them in their safe environment, and bam! Calamity happened, thrusting them down the road to Naglimund or to the Misty Mountains. Calamity combined with villainy creates struggle, which creates opportunity for great adventure, and that is what great literature is all about. __________________________________________________________________________ Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy Some of the best work I’ve ever read was in the form of extremely short stories. Authors grow in the craft and gain different perspectives when they write short stories and essays. With each short piece that you write, you increase your ability to tell a story with minimal exposition. This is especially true if you write the occasional drabble--a whole story in 100 words or less. These practice shorts serve several purposes: Writing such short fiction forces the author to develop economy of words. You have a finite number of words to tell what happened, so only the most crucial of information will fit within that space.
Writing a 100-word story takes less time than writing a 3,000-word story, but all writing is a time commitment. When writing a drabble, you can expect to spend an hour or more getting it to fit within the 100-word constraint. To write a drabble, we need the same basic components as we do for a longer story:
First, we need a prompt, a jumping off point. We have 100 words to write a scene that tells the entire story of a moment in the life of a character. Some contests give whole sentences for prompts, others offer one word, and still others no prompt at all. A prompt is a word or visual image that kick starts the story in your head. The prompt for the following story is sunset. We sat on the beach near the fire, two old people bundled against the cold Oregon sunset. Friends we’d never met fished the surf. Wind whipped my hair, gray and uncut, tore it from its inept braid. The August wind was chill inside my hood, but I remained, pleased to be with you, and pleased to be on that beach. Mist rose with the tide, closed in and enfolded us, blotting out the falling stars. Laughing at our folly, we dragged our weary selves back to our digs, rented, but with everything this old girl needed—love, laughter, and you. The above drabble is a 100-word romance, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning places our protagonist on the beach with someone for whom she cares deeply. The conflict in this tale? The mist and wind make it too cold for our protagonist to stay on the beach and gaze at the stars. A hard, cold wind and heavy mist are typical of the Washington and Oregon Coast in August, two things you wouldn’t think could coexist, but there, they do. The resolution? A cozy evening indoors. When I am writing a story to a specific word count limit, I break it into 4 acts. A drabble works the same way–we can break this down into its component parts and make the story arc work for us. We have about 25 words to open the story and set the scene, about 50 – 60 for the heart of the story, and 10 – 25 words to conclude it.
Drabbles are incredibly useful. They contain the ideas and thoughts that can easily become longer works. The above drabble, written in 2015, combined with a photograph I took while vacationing in Oregon with my husband in 2016, was the inspiration for what became a longer poem, Oregon Sunset. Good drabbles are the distilled essences of novels. They contain everything the reader needs to know about that moment and fills them with curiosity to learn what happened next. When you have a flash of brilliance, a shining moment of what if, write it in the form of a drabble. Save it in a file for later use as a springboard to write a longer work, or for submission to a drabble contest in its proto form. Spending an hour getting that idea and emotion down so you won’t forget it is a small gift you give yourself, as an author. Whether you choose to submit a drabble to a contest or hang on to it doesn’t matter. Either way, the act of writing a drabble hones your skills, and you will have captured the emotion and ambiance of the brilliant idea. That is what true writing is about. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Credits and Attributions: Writing the Extremely Short Story by Connie J. Jasperson was first published Jan 8, 2018 on Life in the Realm of Fantasy as How writing drabbles develops mad skills © 2018 by Connie J. Jasperson, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by permission. The Short Story Arc Graphic by Connie J. Jasperson © 2015-2018. Used by permission. Connie J. Jasperson is an author and blogger and can be found blogging regularly at Life in the Realm of Fantasy. |
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