Short Story Paradox

1.
The Rejectionist assesses the realistic odds of having a short story collection published. It ain’t pretty. Even if you get a collection published, you’ll probably have to sign a 2-book deal in which you obligate yourself to writing a novel. In sum: if you want to publish a book, you’re better off trying to publish a novel. Even if you publish a short story collection, you’ll have to publish a novel.

2.
But here’s the paradox. The workshop format, prevalent in MFA programs, is way more short story friendly than it is accommodating of novels. How do you read a novel in 30 page chunks and provide feedback based on a 30 page excerpt? The best MFA novel writing workshop ever was run by a visiting writer who asked for 60 pages, minimum, per workshop; we each went two times that semester, and so by the end of the semester, we each workshopped 120 pages of our novels. Even if the feedback wasn’t perfect, having workshopped 120 pages of our novels covered substantial real estate. And the feedback was way more useful for having covered 120 pages.

But every other workshop asked for a thirty page maximum. Ridiculous, if you’re workshopping a novel. And besides, the format itself is ridiculous for novels–because it’s hard to workshop the damn thing unless you’ve read the entire draft.

In sum thus far: Despite the publishing industry’s predilection for novels, MFA programs are structured to help students produce short stories.

3.
As you might know, I signed up with Writer’s Relief a few months ago–I haven’t gotten many responses from litmags yet, but I’ve, so far, really appreciated all the legwork that Writer’s Relief provides when it comes to the submissions process, especially with research as to where I should submit a particular story. So much so, that I signed up for another round with them.

For my second round, I sent them a story that had a word count of 6,200 words. It was, they said, too long for many litmags to consider. (It’s true–litmags that come out in hardcopy have to consider the price per page of a piece; additionally, the attention span of editors is very very short). Could I possibly shorten it to less than 4,000 words, possibly less than 3,000 words?

Egads. But I did shorten the story down to less than 3,000 words–it became an entirely different story (instead of a father and son story–it became a story solely about the father). It made me sad to do this, but I sent it off to much happier response.

In sum: Publishing houses prefer novels to short stories. MFA programs nurture short stories more than they do novels. But the only welcome venue for short story publication, litmags, prefers very short stories.

4.
In sum: Don’t write short stories. But if you do, write very very short ones. If you like to write short stories that are over 6,000 words (like I do), or if you like writing novellas…you’re screwed. Have a nice day!

Relief on the way…

I signed up with Writer’s Relief, a literary submission service, this week.

I first heard of Writer’s Relief over ten years ago, from a friend who said the service was totally legit and helped her friend with tons of litmag submissions. Determined to make a go of it on my own, and wary of the service (was it a scam? It sounded too good to be true!) I filed her recommendation for later use.

Fastforward five years: hundreds of litmag submissions later, totally harried by the process, sick of having to research new litmag venues for my work, and having no more room/time for litmag submissions because I’ve prioritized my novel writing above all else, Writer’s Relief began to make sense for me.

I tweeted my discouragement about the litmag submission process–how time consuming, how disappointing, how dismaying…and a friend, that very same friend from ten years ago, tweeted, “Writer’s Relief.” Okay, I thought. And then another friend recommended Writer’s Relief, too. She’d used it because she was a newbie to the litmag submission process–and she recommended them.

So I submitted my work on over to them, and a week or so later, I received a letter in the mail that said they’d take me on as a client (and noted that they really liked the openings of my stories–hey, I’ll take any compliment I can get as a writer). The price isn’t cheap, but I’ve decided to sacrifice on other things for the sake of my writing, again, as part of my crusade to prioritize my writing above all else.

So far, I have found that the folks are great, the process is clearly outlined and very organized…stay tuned for more updates on this service.

Has anyone else used Writer’s Relief? I’m looking forward to working with them.

Update: Writer’s Relief was okay. They didn’t do anything I would have done on my own–I thought perhaps they’d do some research and find literary magazines I hadn’t heard of/might be a better fit for my writing, but it seemed like a pretty generic list of litmags. The cover letter tweaking was nice, but again, not groundbreaking.

It is great for people just starting out with submissions. Or with people who have zero time.