{"id":21350,"date":"2014-03-20T22:23:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-20T22:23:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/Why-Im-Doing-the-Short-Story-Challenge-and-What-Ive-Learned-So-Far"},"modified":"2014-03-20T22:23:53","modified_gmt":"2014-03-20T22:23:53","slug":"why-im-doing-the-short-story-challenge-and-what-ive-learned-so-far","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/mikerm\/2014\/03\/20\/why-im-doing-the-short-story-challenge-and-what-ive-learned-so-far\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I’m Doing the Short Story Challenge and What I’ve Learned So Far"},"content":{"rendered":" \n

Why I’m Doing the Short Story Challenge and What I’ve Learned So Far<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This year, I’m doing a Short Story Challenge. Initially, the idea of this was that I would analyse a classic short story each month and write a story based on what I learned. I only ended up analysing one classic story, but I am writing plenty, and since that was the main point I’m happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Also, because I now have a reasonable number of stories, I was able to take up Charles Barouch’s idea of a single-author collection as part of his scheme to promote HDWP Books’ Theme-Thologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So what do I hope to gain from this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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1. Practice. The storytelling part of writing is, I know, my weakest skill, and short stories are a good way to work on it in a concentrated way. And with the HDWP collection, I’m working with an editor who isn’t my usual editor (and who I’m not directly paying for), which is good for my development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2. Exposure. Selling a short story to a magazine is like being paid to advertise your writing. So far, I haven’t sold to any major magazines, but I’m submitting, and have had an encouraging personalised rejection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Credibility. Even being able to say that you’ve published with a small press carries more credibility in some quarters than self-publishing. Being able to say your stories have appeared in X, Y and Z magazines likewise builds social proof: gatekeepers have acknowledged your writing! (Which you and I know is nonsense, but it’s still how perception runs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4. Momentum. I’m a bit stuck on my next three novels, and writing short stories in between means at least I’m doing something while I figure out how to move forward with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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5. Backlist. Having a good backlist appears to be a positive for authors these days – people seem more open to trying a new author if they have multiple titles out – and short stories can help increase the total. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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6. Money. Per-word rates for even the top story magazines are not great, compared with the glory days of the pulps, but you can potentially pick up a few hundred dollars here and there. It all helps with the cover art and editing expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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7. Ideas. I have a lot of them, and don’t do much with most of them. If I’m regularly writing short stories, I can use the best ones. This inevitably uncorks the flow of ideas, and I get more and better ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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8. Variety. Although most of my stories so far are in the Gryphon Clerks setting of my novels, I’ve started writing a few that aren’t, and it makes for a refreshing change and helps to keep me from burning out on my setting. There’s a particular mindset I have to get into, and a large amount of backstory and setting detail I have to hold in my head, to do a Gryphon Clerks story, and there are things from my everyday life that I can’t use because it’s in a secondary world. Those restrictions are removed if I do a story in another setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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9. Failing fast. I can try things at short length and see if they work. If they don’t, no big.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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10. Seized time. Particularly once I get further into a novel, I can only really work on it when I have a chunk of time to dedicate to it, because it’s larger to hold in my head (and I like to use Scrivener, which is only on one of my computers). I can work on a short story when I have half an hour to spare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fellow short story writers, anything you’d like to add?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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#shortstorychallenge \u00a0<\/p>\n\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why I’m Doing the Short Story Challenge and What I’ve Learned So Far
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