submitting fiction

How Writing and Submitting Short Stories Improved My Novel

January 16, 2019 By Arthur Klepchukov 16 Comments

If you’re writing a novel and are nowhere near the end, why spend time on short stories? Doesn’t that distraction delay getting to the end of the current draft, a moment that always feels months away? I thought so once. One year, I wouldn’t let myself touch any other project until I’d worked on my novel every day. This lasted five months until I revisited “The End.” Again.

Why should a novel writer devote precious writing time to short stories? After five novel drafts, two years of submitting shorter fiction, and seven publications, here are my reasons.

Do Something With All Those Ideas

Not every idea deserves a novel. And there’s something cathartic about expressing an idea soon after inspiration strikes. I’m not holding my breath and suffocating the idea because I have to focus elsewhere. As powerful as some ideas feel in the moment, most are quite happy as short stories or flash fiction or poems, or being expressed at all. I now tend to start each idea in the shortest possible form. I only expand the word count if my gut and reader feedback suggest there’s more to say. In the meantime, I grow my list of stories and drafts, not only my list of ideas.

Understand the Impact of Every Edit

An effective edit rarely moves me in the same way as what inspired the story. Revising a longer work can be a dreary process because it’s difficult to grasp the impact of my efforts. This is not the case with flash fiction. Try changing a word in a 100-word story, swap sentences in 250 words, or drop a paragraph among only 1,000 words. You’ll notice an immediate impact on the entire piece. This inspires me toward better revisions by reminding me how powerful each change can be.

Feel A Sense of Completion More Often

Novel drafts take months or years to write. Short story drafts can take weeks. Flash fiction, anything under 1,000 words, can be even briefer. I’m not saying shorter work is easier to write, or requires any less thoughtful revision. But the satisfaction of reaching the end of a draft will happen sooner with shorter fiction. This can prevent listlessness after always having the same answer for “what are you working on?”

Practice Finding Comps

I read every market to which I submit. If I want a literary journal to publish my story, I not only follow their submission guidelines, [Read more…]

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Query Letters Part 2: The Extras

September 10, 2016 By Annie Neugebauer

Last time, after doing my best to convince you that it’s worth the work to master the query letter, I went through the most important part of said query letter: the pitch. If you’re already set up with an agent and editor and/or are publishing on your own, that’s pretty much all you need. But if you’re actually querying, what else should go in your query letter?

Enter: the extras. I say ‘extras’ because, yes, at its heart the most important part of any query letter is the pitch. Without a good, intriguing pitch of your book, no one will ask to see more. But don’t let that word choice fool you into thinking these other components don’t matter, because they absolutely do. They can, if done well, even push a ‘maybe’ into a ‘request.’ If a pitch comes across as so-so, intriguing comp titles, a killer bio, or even a perfectly-worded intro paragraph may well urge an agent to ask to see more.

[Note that the goal of a query letter is not to sell your book or even to land an agent; the goal of a query letter is to get an agent interested enough to read your manuscript, which must do the rest. :)]

So let’s break down the extras that can go into your query letter, with some things I’ve learned about each. I say “can go” because most of these things are at least arguably optional, and could be left out or minimized on a case-by-case basis. Still, we’ll cover each.

Personalization

I’m starting with this one, which I personally think is the least important, because it usually goes first. The idea is to include a brief (brief!) introductory paragraph that’s personalized to each specific agent that you’re querying, either letting them know why you chose them or reminding them how you’ve met, interacted, etc.

Now, I didn’t always do this, and you’ll hear a lot of conflicting information about whether or not you should – even from agents themselves. If you know that an agent you’re querying prefers them, go ahead and do it. If you know he/she hates them, leave it out. And if you don’t know, my rule of thumb is to only include something if it feels genuinely personal and genuinely relevant. In other words, don’t force a faux-personalized intro. “I saw from your list that you’re looking for (insert your genre here)” isn’t likely to impress. You having done your research is presumed.

But if you loved their talk about your genre at a conference, are critique partners with one of their clients, or pal around all the time on Twitter, go ahead and use that to connect them with who you are. This is also the place to mention referrals, previous requests, pitch contests, etc. Don’t have any of those things? (Disclaimer: never make them up.) I lean towards skipping it; save your space for your amazing pitch and bio.

The Stats

This is what I think of as the second most important section of your letter, after the pitch. The stats. The goods. The hard facts. A stats paragraph can appear anywhere in the letter (but is typically seen either as the opener or right before the closer; fine arguments can be made for either) and should include: 1) title 2) age level, 3) genre, 4) word count, and 5) comps. [Read more…]

Query Letters Part 1: The Pitch

July 9, 2016 By Annie Neugebauer

Last time I did my best to convince you that the query letter is a skill worth mastering. The heart of the query, your pitch, is useful not just for querying agents but also for the back of your book, pitching to editors, plotting, problem-solving, and even brainstorming. Naturally, the next big question is, “Okay, how do I write one?”

Unfortunately, there’s not a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. Every query pitch is unique, as is every writer’s path to getting out a good one. Unless you have an extremely lucky knack for them, the answer will almost certainly involve lots of study, work, practice, repetition, practice, critique, and did I mention practice?

Nonetheless, there are certain nearly-universal guidelines you can use to get started. Today I’m going to give you my version of these in hopes that they help you with your own pitch writing, but keep in mind that reading and writing many pitches really is the best way to ingrain the pattern into your brain. Aside from going to bookstores and libraries to read the backs of lots of books (what works to make you want to keep reading? why? what doesn’t? why?), there are many wonderful resources for writers such as Query Shark, Agent Query Connect, and Writer’s Digest where you can read real query letters and commentary on them.

And here’s one more important thing to keep in mind with your query: a pitch is not a summary. The goal of a summary is to encapsulate everything that happens in your book. The goal of a pitch is to make someone want to read more of your book. This means intentionally picking and choosing which information to include and which to leave out. Intrigue is a great way to pique interest.

What Goes In Your Pitch

The skeletal structure of most pitches will look something like this:

Attention-grabber
Essential Premise
Protagonist
- Goal
- Motivation
- Obstacle
- Stakes
Antagonist
- Goal
- Motivation
- Stakes
Supporting Character
- Motivation
Closing Hook

Of course, by the time you write it into sentences that flow from one to the next and make coherent sense, they might be in a different order, and you might have extra tidbits thrown in or even an element or two missing. That’s just fine, as long as the pitch works as a whole.

The attention-grabber should be your first sentence. Sometimes this will be your “elevator pitch.” Sometimes it won’t. Regardless, it should be in some way compelling. Depending on your genre, it can be witty, disturbing, surprising, gorgeous, funny, or anything else that will make a tired reader perk up. Don’t hold back; now is your time to hit ‘em with your best shot.

What I’m calling “essential premise” here isn’t necessary for all books/genres. I’m talking about world-building basics. Contemporary novels can often skip this unless the setting is unusual, but any speculative genre will need to give some basics so we know if we’re in a medieval fantasy village, a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or a radioactive cupcake factory. If the rest of the query doesn’t make sense unless you know the setting/premise, which also applies to time period and location, take a sentence or two to capture it.

Then get to the meat. Who’s your protagonist? What does he or she want? Why? What’s in her way? What happens if she can’t get it? These things should be in all pitches.

The antagonist should get some time too, though likely not as much. Who is he? (What’s in his way will likely be your protagonist.) What’s at stake if he fails or succeeds? [Read more…]

Don’t Hate the Query Letter: Master It

May 14, 2016 By Annie Neugebauer

There is nothing in the world that makes my critique group members groan louder than when someone brings in a query letter. It seems everyone hates query letters. Me? I’m the weirdo who gets excited.

Before you leave because I’m obviously insane, let me explain.

I didn’t always love query letters. I used to dread them like any self-respecting writer. But if you’re seeking traditional publication (and actually, self-publishing too, but we’ll get to that), they’re a necessary evil. There are very few ways to land an agent without first mastering the art of the query letter. So that’s what I set out to do, slowly but surely, by torturing my critique group with all of my drafts and versions and projects until one day, one time, something just sort of… clicked.

[Note: Query letters generally consist of several parts: an introductory greeting, a 1-2 paragraph pitch or summary, an informational paragraph that includes word count, genre, market potential and/or comparison titles, a bio paragraph, and a closing. For the purpose of this blog, I’m referring only to that 1-2 paragraph pitch – the “meat” of your query letter – as the query.]

To prove that I don’t have some sort of supernatural innate query skillz, let me share this with you: the query for my first novel got 0 requests. The query for my second got 2 requests for partials. Ouch, right?

With the query for my third novel I brought in a draft and my crit group said it was a hot mess. I started over. I brought it in another time before I had the base that was worth line-editing and polishing up. That query letter got me 7 requests for the full manuscript. Ah-ha. I was onto something. (Unfortunately, the manuscript wasn’t nearly as ready as the query, but that’s a blog for another day.)

So when it came time to query my fourth novel, I was merciless. I took in four or five entirely different versions to my critique group. They wanted to throttle me, but they were honest, and that’s what you need in order to learn what works. When I landed on the right version, that was my click. I got it. I felt it. There’s a rhythm and a style to that type of summary that once you have, you have. (The best way to find this is to write lots of them. The next best way is to read the back jackets of books similar to yours and see how/why the good ones work.) I polished it up and got 15 requests for the full, which resulted in 3 offers of representation. And here’s the really sneaky part: that query letter became the pitch letter my agent and I used to go on sub, too, which also resulted in multiple requests.

Oh, and, self-pubbers? Here’s an unpleasant little tidbit. You need the query too; you just call it “back-cover copy.” I suspect that there isn’t a novelist in existence who gets to avoid the dreaded 2-paragraph book pitch. At its core, it’s your query letter, your pitch letter, and the back of your book. So rather than pitching a fit (puns!), seeing if you can slide by without it, or settling for a less than stellar pitch, why not bite the bullet and master the art of crafting your query?

Maybe your sparkling personality can land you an agent in-person. Maybe your rock star agent writes your pitch letters for you. And maybe you’ll hire an editor to write your back-cover copy. If that were me, I would still value the query, and here’s why: I use it for several other things. I use it before I write books. I use it to analyze flaws in written books. I use it to brainstorm new book ideas. Once you stop thinking of the query letter as something invented to make you miserable, you can start implementing it as an incredibly useful tool. Let’s unpack that. Reason by reason, here’s the value I see in mastering the query. [Read more…]

Surviving Submissions: Donning Your Chain Mail

March 9, 2016 By Sarah Callender

From left to right: Porter A, Therese W, Kathleen B, Vaughn R, Keith C (looking dejected) and Donald M at 2014 UnCon. — From left to right: Porter A, Therese W, Kathleen B, Vaughn R, Keith C and Donald M, preparing to submit their work to publishers.

In the late 1990s, I wrote a short story—my first ever—and submitted it to The New Yorker. It was a really amazing piece of fiction, one that reflected dozens of minutes of toil and revision. I do not remember the plot (which suggests there was none) except for one detail: the female character sits on a therapist’s couch, and, wrapped in a blanket like a burrito, floats into the air and–poof!–vanishes.

I am certain this 7,000-word work of art was roughly 7,000 words too long.

More than fifteen years later, I see how many things were wrong with that experience. First, the piece was a piece of garbage. I did not know how to write a story, and I had no one guiding me through the process. I should have sought advice from someone, if not another writer, than at least a friendly barista or the wine guy with the radio voice at the Safeway where I buy cheap Riesling.

Wrong thing #2: I had the gall to submit to The New Yorker. Sure, I had read The New Yorker, usually while waiting for my dental appointments, usually looking at the pretty cover or the cartoons because the stories were, well, a little uppity in my opinion. Perhaps I thought that the inclusion of my story would endear me to the other works of fiction. But certainly, even if my story had been an actual work of art, I was not familiar enough with the publication to know whether it would be a good fit.

These days I am a better writer with a better understanding of story structure, and yes, I carry around suitcases of humility. I have given up trying to like The New Yorker’s fiction and instead peruse People while waiting for my dental checkups. And when I submit an essay or a story, a grant proposal or retreat application, I do so in a much smarter way.

In 2015, I (someone who lives with bipolar disorder 2) got involved in an organization with this goal: reduce the stigma of mental illness by sharing our stories and serving as a resource to others with mental health conditions. With this in mind, I wrote an essay about mental illness in a marriage. Once again I aimed high, and after much revision based on my critique partners’ feedback, I sent the essay to The New York Times. Seven weeks later I received a form letter rejection from the editor: Dear Sarah Callender . . .

A form letter rejection feels crummy. And submitting smartly doesn’t eliminate the possibility of rejection.

After receiving the form letter rejection, I threw a fifteen-minute pity party, then told my puppy I loved him about fifty times. He wagged and replied fifty-one times that he loved me back, and I started researching other places where I could send the piece. After all, it’s the first rejection that’s the hardest. And the second and the third and the fiftieth, and honestly if one more well-intentioned, kindhearted person tells me how many rejections Rowling had before Harry Potter was acquired, I might shriek. She had her manuscript rejected twelve times. Twelve. Big whoop.

But rejection forces me to consider and reconsider just how badly I want to be an author. It tests my mettle and keeps me improving my craft. It reminds me of the importance of knightly (and daily) chain mail. Although this mental illness essay experience had the same result as the vanishing-burrito fiasco, I had gone about writing and submitting it in a very different way. And I felt good about that.

I’d love to share what I have learned about submitting essays, op-eds, short fiction and grant applications. [Read more…]

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