THE MOST COMMON SHORT STORY MISTAKES + how to stand out! (from a litmag slush reader)

Рет қаралды 11,183

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 50

@blabbinglobster Жыл бұрын

In the last couple of years, literary journals have been saying that submissions have never been higher. I have seen many journals in both Canada and the US close off submissions indefinitely to deal with the backlog. The competition is very daunting, but do not give up. I recently placed a short story after nearly two years of trying. I had been given excellent feedback but often told the piece did not fit in with the issue they were preparing. Finally, persistence paid off.

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

This is very true! I even find for myself, I’m publishing work way less frequently and I have several friends who’ve had huge drops in their acceptance rates as well.

@VideoGameRoom32 Жыл бұрын

This is a helpful video. I wrote a short story and looking to make it better. I'm more used to writing a full length novel though. Thanks Shaelin.

@shanelaporte Жыл бұрын

Invaluable. Thanks for sharing this with us.

@jhagen22 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for this! Very helpful. I've been getting back into short/flash/micro fiction and it's nice to get some really good practical advice.

@kat_in_wonderland Жыл бұрын

I really liked this video! This really helped me to add some important questions to my edit list. Like, is my story starting at the right spot? Is the tone undermining my story? Is my POV close enough while still keeping in touch with the world? Thanks Shaelin, as always!

@Lara_Ameen Жыл бұрын

Congratulations on becoming a slush reader! I wrote a ton of short stories or flash fiction last year and finally a few of my flash pieces are being published this year. I’ve been submitting short stories/flash fiction since 2019 (I think?) and it’s so interesting because sometimes a piece will get a ton of rejections and then it will finally get an acceptance, so it’s hard to know what magazines are looking for. I’ve also written a few of my flash pieces in second person (something I wouldn’t do in longer stories) and not everyone likes second person. Anyway, this video was so insightful! Thank you! 💜💕

@panosss Жыл бұрын

could you recommend some of your favourite short stories??

@baddnerves3321 Жыл бұрын

Wonderful advice. Your insights are very valuable. For those of us who do not have access to writers workshops (due to locality), are there spaces for sharing and reviewing each other's short stories you reccomend? Presumably, these would necessitate closed groups since most submissions cannot be published publicly online.

@cullen9119 Жыл бұрын

Ya, "Write what you want to read" screwed me over long before I even thought I'd like to write. Too bad I like reading ERB and REH

@Exayevie Жыл бұрын

I have been in love with purposefully distant third person ever since reading All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. That said, I know getting distant third person to work (that is, it still reveals the character), is SO hard to do. It doesn't surprise me that the author who first impressed me with it is widely considered the greatest living American novelist.

@Exayevie Жыл бұрын

@@NousTrapper It may be my favorite book. Actually by page 8, I knew it was going to be at least one of my favorites.

@ye_zus Жыл бұрын

RIP

@emmacox2617 Жыл бұрын

Hi Shaelin, long time viewer here. I absolutely love all your content. I have a request for a video, if you want to do it of course, because I have been struggling to find books that do something interesting or unique with POV. POV is probably my favorite thing to think about as a writer and reader, and it's what sets the written word apart from other storytelling mediums. But you can't really Google search for POV like you can genre, or at least, I haven't had much success doing that. So, could you recommend some books or short stories that do something fun with POV? Bonus points if they are fantasy or sci fi, but anything would be awesome.

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

I have an older video called “unconventional POVs to try” or something along those lines!

@JM-yn8bd Жыл бұрын

Good points overall. I don’t agree with pushing voicey, close Third or First Person, but I’m not surprised by the advice either. It’s a very fashionable trend right now. I used to read slush, too, and I’m over it. Everyone chirps about immersion. I’ve gone the other way, lately, and relish a neutral-sounding Third Person narrator.

@wordfullyyours Жыл бұрын

Thank you for this video! It's very useful! 🙂

@ModernLifeisThrift Күн бұрын

I read slush too and I agree with most of these. Here are some other common issues: Usually someone dying randomly isn't actually an earned or meaningful ending to your story. Please do something else. The story is nothing but a set up and a twist It's a summary rather than an actual narrave everything is set in bars

@AdamFishkin Жыл бұрын

The inciting incident and the climax getting mixed up?? Now THAT is interesting ....

@phillipsmith254 7 ай бұрын

At the 6:30 mark you talk about "experimental" writing. I'm curious as to what your magazine considers "experimental" or what definition they use for this. The human brain is wired to understand what a story is, and while there is a small amount of debate as to story structure, (three act, Truby's seven steps/ twenty-two steps from "The Anatomy of Story", "Save the Cat" and others) we all still look for certain elements to understand what the author is saying. Even in film, experimental doesn't always work. One example that comes to mind is the 1999 film "The Limey". I've watched this a couple of times, and the jumpy editing, backwards flow, and choppy narrative is jarring. Perhaps I don't have enough experience with speculative fiction, so I'm wanting to understand exactly what "experimental" would look like or read like. Thank you for your video's, they are very informative.

@aestera7544 Жыл бұрын

Hi Shaelin! Was wondering if you ever submitted to more well-known magazines like The Paris Review, Granta, The Atlantic etc and did you have any luck with those? I heard that those magazines don’t publish unagented writing so I don’t know if I should try to submit to those

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

I have a few times, but obviously haven't had any luck being accepted by any of them lmao. I think it's worth throwing your hat in the ring, but managing expectations with magazines of that scale.

@superfluityme Жыл бұрын

I found your point about having 'no sense of the protagonist' interesting. I have noticed that younger writers don't have the life experience to know human psychology so focus more on the story. I only started writing as a mature aged person. I know how I write today, the detail and intimacy with the characters, I could not have done in my youth. So perhaps for the younger writers it might be helpful to query some older people. To have them explain how and why a person would behave the way they do in the situation or situations found in the story being written.

@blackmist5351 Жыл бұрын

How did you become a slush reader if you don't mind?🥺

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

In my case, the magazine posted a call for readers on Instagram and so I emailed them. I’m a previous contributor to the magazine so the fiction editor knew me, so there wasn’t really an application process, but in some cases they want to see a writing sample or something like that.

@blackmist5351 Жыл бұрын

@@ShaelinWrites Thanks so much!! Hugs

@laurencetescabalx6090 Жыл бұрын

To anyone reading this comment, Is it okay to change the pov style of the story (not of the character) midway through a scene, or periodically throughout a book? I'm planning to implement that on my wip though many said that it would be too jarring to read and also confusing.

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

You can use multiple POVs in story if it’s done to benefit the story and enhance what you want to accomplish - it isn’t the norm and can be jarring if not done well/intentionally, but ultimately nothing is off limits!

@laurencetescabalx6090 Жыл бұрын

@@ShaelinWrites Wow thanks for the help! Definitely something to consider.

@cjpreach Жыл бұрын

Shaelin - You talk so fast! What was the name of the magazine for which you read?

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

PRISM international!

@u_t_d_s_h-1_a Жыл бұрын

A lot of said publishers are phonies---good only at pompous impressions and would not recognize good manuscripts until another (real) publisher has made the story famous with publication . . .

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

Literary magazines range from hugely established, to small and niche, and yes, some are scams or don't really know what they're doing. Just because there are some scammy magazines doesn't deride the entire practice of submitting to magazines, and the magazine I mentioned in the video and that I read for is one of the oldest and most established in the country. It's up to the writer to do research and decide which magazines they want to submit to based on their goals.

@markborok4481 Жыл бұрын

OK, KZbin is deleting my comments. The story I was referring to in my earlier post was called "Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest", by Sherman Alexie.

@hobokingbilly Жыл бұрын

Helpful and inspirational. Thank you.

@trinity3272 Жыл бұрын

Day 1 of asking shaelin to make a video om books about cults

@nevisnebis1207 Жыл бұрын

I’d love to see Shaelin just chat about cults. “Cults with Shaelin” sounds like a chill video to sit with :0

@yvonnerogers6429 Жыл бұрын

👍🏻

@prairiebutch Жыл бұрын

i read for a litmag for a while and could seriously have made a drinking game out of stories written by cishet men with unnecessary/anatomically dubious descriptions of women’s bodies

@ShaelinWrites Жыл бұрын

this is so real omfg