Short Story Why do I still write bad stories?

Why don't you go and take a class on writing short stories, or read more stories, that would help too!

 

Given that @deadrats writes short stories for a living, I would say she's perhaps more advanced than most classes are aimed at.

 

I'm having such a bad day, and it was really nice to see this. I joined this forum when I was starting to think that it would never happen and everyone (not speaking of forum members) made it seem impossible to publish in big, known places and get paid a decent amount for my work. But reading your little comment just reminds me that this is really what I do now. This is what I wanted to do, and in a small sense I've sort of "made it." Or maybe I've begun the process of "making it." Full disclaimer: I'm also an essayist. But everything I write is for the literary journals and magazines. And I should be really excited about some forthcoming publications. I just been pretty down in general and feeling like a failure at life, at everything. And it doesn't help that I have a half a dozen of so bad stories to write before I get something good. But thanks for reminding me that however I'm getting there, I'm getting there.

I do think those things can help greatly. As @Naomasa298 mentioned, I am a professional writer. I've also gone all the way in school (MFA). I believe that taking classes with the right professor or instructor can make a world of difference for writers. I still attend lectures and lecture style courses when it's with an author I admire and want to learn more from. I never want to stop learning. And I do believe such things or worth the cost or I try for scholarships which has been working for me lately. But a general class or a workshop class in general I think would take up more time than it would benefit me. I'm more likely to teach a class on short story writing than take one. Although, if it was even a beginner class, the right instructor might have me maxing out my credit card to sit front row (or visual front row). My problem isn't that I can't hit the mark. It's that I can't always hit the mark. And my score card doesn't look all that great when you add up all the misses in between the hits.

As for reading, I totally agree with you. I would give up writing before I would give up reading. Do you have a favorite short story writer or a magazine/journal that you really like? I'm always up for suggestion and checking out new things.

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I'm really grateful to be a part of the community we've got here.

 

Have you been to The Puritan? Malahat Review?

 

I think some of the issue might be because you write a very difficult segment of paid-writing. It seems not only what you write is technical, but you might also have highly educated readers, making it doubly-challenging to get right 100% of the time.

Just a an example, I have been researching romance novels since realizing my latest work is a romance-thriller. From that I have noticed a trend for romance novels is to have the author write books in "series", and why not? A romance novelist can create (1) set of characters, with their physical traits, their back stories, and settings, and by changing just the plot, get (5) books out of the series. That is a lot less creativity, for a pretty big return, which is not something your writing genre can do. You have to be 400% more creative to get the same amount of finished work, all the while making points that convince very intelligent people to change their mind-set.

But at the same time, the readers of romance novels are fine with books written in series, and generally are more forgiven in details. As an example, my sister is a cardiologist, but loves romance novels because it is a way for her to destress from work. She reads so she can disengage from real life for a bit, so she is going to be very forgiven to authors on details, but when reading an essay about her real life work which is essentially life and death, she is going to be scrutinizing the details, and have much higher expectations of the author.

So, as I said, you have a doubly-challenging genre in which to write and get it right 100% of the time. So do not beat yourself up too much.

As for having a hard time in life right now, I am not sure if it helps or not, but there are many of us that have had some recent situations that are just plain dire. So you are not alone in feeling defeated in life.

 

I've tried the Malahat Review before, and I'm somewhat familiar with both publications. However, they're out of Canada, and I tend to write pretty American short stories. I do try The Fiddlehead somewhat more regularly, but they take forever. I'm waiting on a submission that's been with them for over a year. But I do tend to stick to American-based publications. Of course, there are exceptions like The Fiddlehead and Granta. I believe I'm pretty knowledgable when it comes to the magazines and journals. But on this thread I was really just focusing on the work that comes before submissions. Are you also a short story writer? Are those your favorite publications? If so, I would love to hear about why. Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

 

I think writing a series sounds quite challenging. I'm not at all up on the publishers of romance, but publishing anything is never easy. Knowing the market and its readers expectations is a big part of any form of writing. I've been creative writing for around seven or eight years, and I mean that's when I really took the plunge and started treating it like a job. I've been publishing short stories for about three years, almost three years. I had a handful of creative writing credits before than, but none of them were worth mentioning.

Before trying to write for literary journals, I loved just reading them. In fact, my only intention at first was to read them. I guess like your sister, reading was a way to destress and I was reading what I liked. Of course, I read novels as well, but I am so in love with short stories. And I guess I have what would be considered high-brow taste, but that's just what I enjoy reading. After becoming more of an avid reader than I had ever been I decided to give it a try. And, man, did it take a lot of tries. That's when I took classes and went back to school and did everything I could to give myself a better chance in this industry.

But I've always written bad stories in between the good ones when it comes to short fiction. Most of the time I don't give up easy on a story, but I'm also not banging out killer story after killer story. I went to see this author speak many years ago. He had written something like 30 novels before getting his first book deal. Maybe we all have to write bad stories to write the good ones. That sure seems to be the case with me, though, I wish it wasn't.

I'm not sure how much genre is at play here. The idea of writing a series feels overwhelming to me. I do believe the better you know your market, the better it is for your writing and that we like to write what we like to read. I've written a few genre short stories, and they sure weren't anything special. So, for me, my brain just works better with literary stuff. Although, zombies stories are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me.

No matter the genre or form, did you ever write something and think afterwards (in a good way) how did I even do this? And then it can be so frustrating to wonder why you can't do it again, at least not with the next story or chapter or whatever and maybe not the one after that or after that. It just makes me feel like some sort of fraud, like somehow I tricked these editors into thinking I'm better than I am. I've probably mentioned feeling like a fraud before, which I would have to say is a result of success in a way. Since I've published at a certain level, I have to continue to be able to do that and I question how long I'm going to be able to fool people into thinking I'm a good writer? Does anyone else ever feel this way? I mean it's great to publish a story, a book, a poem, or whatever, but then you have to be able to do it again and again. I said I'm prolific, but I should make it clear that's a necessity for me. And that comes down to I'm just not as consistent as I would like to be. I just can't always get there. Nothing feels like it's gotten easier, regardless of practice or publishing.

 

Form my own experience, one of the best ways to develop your skill is to write what you are passionate about. When you put the work and research into what you really (Want) to write, it won't seem like a burden to you, and you will quickly find yourself developing.

 

Yes I am a short story writer as well! I stopped writing short stories recently and wrote novels for about a year but I have been writing novels for four years now. I like The Puritan because they have some really good short stories and poetry. (I mostly like their poetry)

 

Thanks. I'll check that out. Agni also has some great poetry (and other works) within their pages. But lately the poetry has been really good.

 

Peter Clines dedicated The Fold: For my mom, Sally, who read all the bad stuff until there was finally some good stuff.

I know the feeling when something isn't working. I decided on a whim to give NaNoWriMo a try this year. Nothing official or anything to do with the website, I just wanted to try writing my 50k in a month. I thought, why not? I've been about that efficient lately with another book from which I badly needed a break for mental health reasons. Anyway, two days and less than two chapters into this new book, I knew I had to scrap the whole project. I couldn't find my voice, and as a consequence, the narration was terrible. If that were the only problem, I might have kept writing and hope to fix it later, but it wasn't. It's a good story. I've had it outlined for some time, and I know it could be something special. I'll probably try again at some point, but it definitely wasn't working this time around.

I don't write many short stories. I've tried my hand, and a couple were great, or at least had great potential, but in between, I wrote utter crap, and no one can tell me differently. I used to write poetry, mostly in high school and a few years after. It was the same. I wrote a couple of hundred poems, and a few dozen were actually worth the time I spent on them. I was young and undisciplined, so even the ones I loved were rarely pro level, I'm sure. I think a few were though. Come to think of it, I even won a couple of local contests. Huh. I'd almost forgotten that. Either way, quality varied greatly.

As you know, I'm currently seeking representation for some children's books I've written. I'm barely starting out in the biz, and who knows? It might come to nothing. So our situations and goals and chosen media might be different, but I definitely feel your pain. Oh, and those kid's books are two or three I think might make it, but I've written or at least started a dozen or so. Most were embarrassingly bad or total nonstarters. Apparently that's my method too.

 

Hm. i might get an idea for a short story once every few years or so, but i don't have much trouble selling them. i write SFF though, so what i do might not work for your literary markets, but for short fiction, I

• make sure that I actually have something to say. yes, I'm talking about theme and meaning. everything in the story serves that theme.
• all stories must transform the main character. they must change their mind about something they believed or wanted without question, as a result of the events of the story forcing them to confront that thing.
• every single word must be crucial to the story. it must be technically excellent. in short fiction, prose has to do four times the work of the prose of a novel, so i choose every word with care.
• i wait to write the short story. when i have an idea, i don't rush to the paper until I am on fire with it, and then i devote myself totally to getting the story down as quickly as possible. i write 5000 word stories in one sitting--novelettes might demand a rest in between, and novellas are drafted within a week.
• and then I walk away. This is really important. I find that i need the fire to be cold for a long time before i can edit the story effectively. i wrote a 9300 word novelette in late winter this year. i forgot about it for months. then i pulled it out and dedicated myself to crafting the story. then i put it away again and went back to it a couple of weeks later, decided it was ready, and sent it out in mid may. (it sold to the second market i sent it to.)

 

That seems really interesting to pull off, I should try that sometime, Although I don't like the waiting to write part. I usually outline and then get to the story right away. Hope to god that the draft is good and worth re-writing!

 

Oh one more thing can I copy and paste this? I want to use this for my future writing.

 

Stories are like cakes, some are dry with holllow centres, and some are deep and spongy with a rich jam filling, and until they are done the baker and the writer cannot be sure of success, but the baker will bake again, and the writer will write again, because that is what they do.

 

I realise this is an old post. But THANK YOU for posting. I think this is true for most artists in any medium--professional or not. Churning out good stuff is hard. Otherwise, everyone would be making masterpieces right and left. As frustrating as it is, I think that's just the nature of being good at what you do. Some folks do seem to get away with selling a higher percentage of what they create, but I'm not immediately willing to call that skill. Actually, I don't know what that means. But anyway...

P.S. Congratulations on reaching the point where your prolific-ness has earned you the title: Professional. Your honesty and success gives me hope in regards to my own character arc as a novice writer.

 

This has also been my experience. So I just sold a story to Analog. This particular story had been rejected -- form rejected, actually -- by almost a dozen other markets first.

Once a writer gains a fundamental level of competency, it really does become subjective.