Placing Short Fiction, Part Two: Contests and Red Flags

By José Pablo Iriarte, @LabyrinthRat

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: Contests can be a great way to get your writing out there, but be wary of those who take advantage of writers. José Pablo Iriarte shares some red flags that a publisher doesn't have your best interests in mind.

In my last guest post, I talked in general terms about selling short fiction, focusing on considerations such as how to find a market, how much pay rate might matter to you, how to format manuscripts, print versus online markets, and magazines versus anthologies. In my mind, the theme was You've finished you story . . . now what? As I said in July, though, there was really too much I wanted to say to be able to fit in one post, so now I'm back with more thoughts on what to do—or what not to do—with your short work. Today the focus is less on selling and more on adjacent questions, such as . . .

Selling Short Fiction, Part One: The Basics

By José Pablo Iriarte, @LabyrinthRat

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: There are a few things you ought to know before diving into the short story market. José Pablo Iriarte answers questions writers often have with short fiction.

When my spouse and I give presentations to conferences and writing groups, I'm usually the grumpy one who wants to focus on craft more than business, because I believe no gimmick or pitch is going to make you a selling writer if your craft is not professional grade.

That said, I've seen enough red flags in magazine practices, in contest submission guidelines, and in assumptions expressed by new writers to make be feel that we definitely should talk about the business side of things, when you're a short story writer. You might have a sense, from reading Fiction University and from other sources, of how you approach novel publication. Some of those lessons overlap into short fiction, but in many ways the short fiction landscape is unique, so it's worth talking a little bit about how to seek publication.

How to Punch Readers in the Feels: A Case Study

By José Pablo Iriarte, @LabyrinthRat

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: The best stories do more than just tell a tale. José Pablo Iriarte shares tips on how to pull more emotion from your plot.

As luck would have it, my newest published short story hit the world this week: "Proof by Induction," in Uncanny Magazine, a story about grief and about mathematics. If you want to see an example of what I mean when I talk about short fiction craft, I hope you'll check it out. (Content warning: death of a parent.) You can find the issue online here, or go straight to the story here. You can read the story for free online, but if you like what you see at Uncanny, I would encourage you to subscribe to them through Weightless Books or Amazon, or support them on Patreon. You can also buy this individual issue here. If you're a reader of this website, you know that good fiction is worth supporting, so that magazines like Uncanny can keep on publishing it.

Forget Hooks: How to Pull Readers Through a Short Story by Making Promises and Raising Questions

By José Pablo Iriarte, @LabyrinthRat

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: Keeping readers engaged in a story is no easy task. José Pablo Iriarte shares tips on how to keep readers wanting more.

I'm going to talk about story openings in this post, but this isn't a post about story openings. Rather, it's about grabbing the reader's interest and sustaining that interest throughout an entire story. That's important to authors working at all lengths, of course, but I think writing short stories comes with its own special challenges when it comes to reader interest.

You would think that short story authors would have it easier when it comes to pulling the reader through a story. What is a short story but the perfect prose morsel for the short attention span age? But on the other hand, we don't just want readers to finish our stories. We want our stories to be memorable. We want them to lead to something . . . the reader seeking out our other works, or reprint sales, or award consideration. With a novel, you've got tens of thousands of words with which to make an impression, to win the reader over or wear down their barriers.

6 Ways to Fit More Story in Less Space

By José Pablo Iriarte, @LabyrinthRat

Part of the Focus on Short Fiction Series

JH: Hemingway’s famous “six-word story” proves you can pack a lot of story into a small amount of space. José Pablo Iriarte share six tips on creating depth in short fiction.

When I have conversations with other authors about writing and selling fiction—particularly when I'm talking with folks who are aware of my magazine and anthology sales—I often hear novelists say some variation of "I couldn't write short fiction to save my life! It's so hard to get a whole story in such a small space!" Often there seems to be an implication that some people are born short story writers and some are not, which is where I take exception.

Because the thing is, I also used to believe that I just wasn't born with the knack for writing short. Back around 2012, before I made my first sale, at my writing group's first meeting of the new year, when we discussed our writing resolutions, I remember how mine was to figure out how to write a story of under five thousand words. This was something I had never yet succeeded in doing. In the years since, I've sold nearly thirty short stories to top spec fic markets, been nominated for awards, and generally come to be known as a short story writer.