John Graham Jones - Writer -

Articles

How to write short stories

Don't write short stories unless you want to do it for fun or because you feel an insatiable compulsion to do so, or you want to start to write fiction and want to do something you can complete in a fairly short period of time in order to test your ability.
Otherwise, don't bother.
If you think you can make money out of writing short stories, the chances are you won't. If you think it's the easiest form, it isn't.
Like miniature paintings, short stories are out of fashion. Novels are 'in', film scripts are well in; stage plays, radio plays and TV plays are hanging in there somewhere. But short stories are out!
Not quite out. There are magazines that still use them: CHAT, TAKE A BREAK, BELLA, BEST, WOMEN'S WORLD... etc... But you have to be able to write in a certain way to be acceptable to the editors of these types of magazines. You can't "do your own thing". While the format is not rigid - not as rigid, for example, as that for Mills and Boon novels - there are certain basic ground rules that need to be followed.
And there is the BBC which still, we hear, considers unsolicited scripts. Unfortunately this market appears to be drying up: more often than ever before stories by famous authors are used, stories that have already been published so that, for example, BBC Wales now is able to use only two or three stories per year.
And there are some literary magazines like THE LONDON MAGAZINE, STAND, PLANET, THE NEW WELSH REVIEW, GRANTA which still publish short stories. OK, go ahead and try, but my belief is that you either have to be well known in other literary spheres to be even considered or you have to win one of their competitions (which is not backing good odds), or you know the editor personally, or you are lucky, or you are so good that no one in his right mind - not even an editor - could turn you down.
And there are 'new mags'. These are published by people who want to see their own work in print. They publish friends and hope that the friends will also publish magazines which use their work. They don't pay. Often they don't return your work. Sometimes they don't even reply to your query (not even when you supply a SAE). See the article on Small Presses in The Writer's Handbook.
So why write short stories when the odds against you publishing them are so high?
As I said, don't.
And yet.... And yet....
Well, there's a great deal of pleasure to be had out of writing short stories even if they remain in the top drawer of your desk for ever. Like people who paint as a hobby, you don't expect to sell your work. Unlike people who paint, however, you can't show your work to friends. Well you can but the response is not usually rewarding.
But there are writing classes you can join and in these classes you usually have the opportunity to read your work (and receive criticism which can, for the beginner, be a bit off-putting, but gird your loins etc. and try it out).
So my advice is DON'T write short stories if you think you will make money out of it; write novels or film scripts or TV scripts or radio scripts. You may be lucky with them in which case you'll earn a fantastic amount of money. Even if are successful with selling a short story you won't get much money for it.
So why do it?
So why do I do it?
BECAUSE IT'S THERE, like Everest!

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