I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
Without further ado, short story observations by Stephen King – with a few from myself…
====================
Eight years ago, at BIBLIOSTARTV.com, during an interview, Stephen King said, “I started with short stories when I was 18, sold my first one when I was about 20. And produced pretty much nothing but short stories. I wrote a couple of novels, but they were not accepted and a lot of them were so bad that I didn’t even bother to revise them, but the short stories were making money and I got very comfortable with that format and I’ve never wanted to leave it completely behind.”
While my entire PUBLICATION history has been with short stories, I HAVE written ten or twelve novels…yeah, seems a waste, doesn’t it? But, the fact is that it’s not! My very, very, very first attempt at writing a novel called PLANET OF STORMS was…weak in so many ways. The worst part about it, is that I can’t recall ever having plotted it out! My most recent attempt? It took me eleven years to write. Not the actual writing – I posted it as blog entries starting in 2011, I finally gave up when I couldn’t figure out how to end it, and so few people were following it that it hardly seemed worth it. I shelved the whole project until early last year. I sat down, copied and pasted ALL of the individual blog entries into a single document. I’d done the story from four/seven points of view.
What’s that mean? I had three entirely Human characters: Paolo, Aster, and Stepan – modeled on the Apostle Paul, Queen Esther, and the first martyr, Steven. The fourth character was modeled after Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego – but instead of four individuals whom their Babylonian captors renamed them “Mishael, Hannaniah, and Azariah. Daniel was also given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar. These four young men represented a small number of people who remained faithful through this time of exile.” In my novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY, the four became DaneelAH, MishAH, HanAH, and AzAH – they were clone siblings and had no status but Artificial Human – they were slaves.
I have tried a couple of short stories in the world of MARTIAN HOLIDAY, one or two haven’t found homes, but I’m hopeful for my most recent story…
“[Stephen] King put a nail in his wall on which to hang rejection slips from publishers. Each rejection slip was a reminder that he was closer to his breakthrough. Every one of us faces failure. Each failure is a critical juncture that forks the road into two paths: resignation or perseverance. Most people won’t continue pushing past their first failure.” (Stephen King’s Top 13 Writing Tips; Bobby Powers (2019); writingcooperative.com )
I did – and after starting to keep track in 1990, it took another year before I actually began to sell my writing. I wrote a variety of types: short stories, essays, articles, curriculum (paid for, actually: Newton’s Apple, and regular TV series, THE NEW EXPLORERS – the combined for which I was the Science Museum of Minnesota’s 1995 Teacher of the Year (wined and dined in Washington DC along with 49 others, one from each state), met my legislators (and have a photo of me with the late, great Paul Wellstone…he was very short!), a collection of science-based children’s sermons [which I sold outright for $100 to a VERY pious (read: sketchy) Christian publisher who told me hardly anyone would buy it, so it wasn’t worth my time to get royalties or anything. It’s still in their catalogue: http://store.csspub.com/prod-0788012940.htm. Don’t buy it from them…if you must, buy it used.); letters to the editor, local newspaper articles, and in 1997, I saw the publication of two stories in MAJOR magazines (for which I was paid an (at that time!) INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF MONEY) in CRICKET: The Magazine for Children, and ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact. I thought I’d ARRIVED!
“Write with the door closed. Rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.” ‘To me,’ Bobby Powers, ‘that quote means I need to put in the hard work to produce something before I go around raving about it. Talking is too easy. Only after I’ve finished my first draft do I allow myself to show it to others to gather their feedback.’” Ryan Holiday (American author, modern Stoic, public-relations strategist, owner of the Painted Porch Bookshop and host of the podcast The Daily Stoic) notes, “Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources.”
Despite the wisdom of the Aged, I rarely have others read my unpublished work. I suppose that that hies closer to what King suggests when he says, “Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.” I just don’t think it means to hang on until you’ve shown it to your writing buddies. That’s never worked for me – even when one of my writing buddies was Bruce Bethke (originator of the word “cyberpunk”). I gravitate Holiday’s philosophy. (Actually, I was reflecting that virtually NO ONE in my family and immediate circle of friends has EVER read anything of mine that’s been PUBLISHED, let alone a draft piece.) When I have attempted to have others read my pre-published “stuff”, they’ve generally not gotten the point, or missing entirely that a character is a recluse because his skin is piebald (dark and light, irregular patches from head to toe). A reviewer wrote: “ The romantic subplot is unnecessary, and somewhat adolescent.” I wanted to say OF COURSE IT’S ADOLESCENT! The veterinarian has NEVER had interaction with adult women (or adolescent women for that matter!). “…with an over-the-top villain who acts in unbelievable ways.” What would be a believable way to act toward people whose ancestors tortured your father during the Korean Conflict? She loathes them and wants them all to die…I believe that the Islamic Fundamentalists who crashed their planes into the World Trade Center Towers in New York had a bit of “over-the-top, who acted in an unbelievable way”… If they hadn’t acted unbelievably, we would have caught them. Today, they wouldn’t have managed to pull it off…
In 2006, Nathaniel Rich & Christopher Lehmann-Haupt interviewed King for THE PARIS REVIEW. When asked if he really admired so many short story writers, he said “…short stories themselves have become a niche market, short stories are an even smaller market, and so you want to make people as aware as possible that this stuff is out there. But even a superstar has favorites! He could write another blockbuster 1000 page novel. But he said, “I often write [short stories] between novel projects. When Lisey’s Story and Cell (both published in 2006) got done, I was flat. I tried to start another one, but I couldn’t, so I wrote a couple of short stories. Then I began to read all these stories for Best American—a dozen, two dozen, three dozen, a hundred—and finally I got rolling on another novel. I mean, I’ve always got a couple of ideas for future stories whenever I’m working on something. But you can’t think about what you’re going to do next. You’re like a married guy who’s trying not to look at women in the street.”
Well then…that explains the short story I’m working on right now, “Nuking Ukraine”! I can’t get it out of my head…then because it involves a cross-Ukraine trip carrying a nuclear package…and I’ve never been there…I have to use Google World to “see” the area the tractor trailers (4 of them) are driving through (what it was like 1-5 years ago!) to describe what they see and how they’re traveling…
I’m drawn to the story often during a day, even when I can’t work on it at the moment (like now – I’m getting this ready to go up on my blog tomorrow), I’m still thinking about it; still plotting it (even though it’s going to be shorter than 6000 words, the plot has to draw the reader in and excite them in the same way it excites the main characters – and me for that matter!
So, there you go! A bit of wisdom from Stephen King – I’m glad to read that he and I seem to have some connections as writers; and I’ve learned something new in reading about how much he loves writing short stories!
While my entire PUBLICATION history has been with short stories, I HAVE written ten or twelve novels…yeah, seems a waste, doesn’t it? But, the fact is that it’s not! My very, very, very first attempt at writing a novel called PLANET OF STORMS was…weak in so many ways. The worst part about it, is that I can’t recall ever having plotted it out! My most recent attempt? It took me eleven years to write. Not the actual writing – I posted it as blog entries starting in 2011, I finally gave up when I couldn’t figure out how to end it, and so few people were following it that it hardly seemed worth it. I shelved the whole project until early last year. I sat down, copied and pasted ALL of the individual blog entries into a single document. I’d done the story from four/seven points of view.
What’s that mean? I had three entirely Human characters: Paolo, Aster, and Stepan – modeled on the Apostle Paul, Queen Esther, and the first martyr, Steven. The fourth character was modeled after Daniel, Shadrach, Meshak, and Abednego – but instead of four individuals whom their Babylonian captors renamed them “Mishael, Hannaniah, and Azariah. Daniel was also given the Babylonian name Belteshazzar. These four young men represented a small number of people who remained faithful through this time of exile.” In my novel, MARTIAN HOLIDAY, the four became DaneelAH, MishAH, HanAH, and AzAH – they were clone siblings and had no status but Artificial Human – they were slaves.
I have tried a couple of short stories in the world of MARTIAN HOLIDAY, one or two haven’t found homes, but I’m hopeful for my most recent story…
“[Stephen] King put a nail in his wall on which to hang rejection slips from publishers. Each rejection slip was a reminder that he was closer to his breakthrough. Every one of us faces failure. Each failure is a critical juncture that forks the road into two paths: resignation or perseverance. Most people won’t continue pushing past their first failure.” (Stephen King’s Top 13 Writing Tips; Bobby Powers (2019); writingcooperative.com )
I did – and after starting to keep track in 1990, it took another year before I actually began to sell my writing. I wrote a variety of types: short stories, essays, articles, curriculum (paid for, actually: Newton’s Apple, and regular TV series, THE NEW EXPLORERS – the combined for which I was the Science Museum of Minnesota’s 1995 Teacher of the Year (wined and dined in Washington DC along with 49 others, one from each state), met my legislators (and have a photo of me with the late, great Paul Wellstone…he was very short!), a collection of science-based children’s sermons [which I sold outright for $100 to a VERY pious (read: sketchy) Christian publisher who told me hardly anyone would buy it, so it wasn’t worth my time to get royalties or anything. It’s still in their catalogue: http://store.csspub.com/prod-0788012940.htm. Don’t buy it from them…if you must, buy it used.); letters to the editor, local newspaper articles, and in 1997, I saw the publication of two stories in MAJOR magazines (for which I was paid an (at that time!) INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF MONEY) in CRICKET: The Magazine for Children, and ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact. I thought I’d ARRIVED!
“Write with the door closed. Rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.” ‘To me,’ Bobby Powers, ‘that quote means I need to put in the hard work to produce something before I go around raving about it. Talking is too easy. Only after I’ve finished my first draft do I allow myself to show it to others to gather their feedback.’” Ryan Holiday (American author, modern Stoic, public-relations strategist, owner of the Painted Porch Bookshop and host of the podcast The Daily Stoic) notes, “Talk depletes us. Talking and doing fight for the same resources.”
Despite the wisdom of the Aged, I rarely have others read my unpublished work. I suppose that that hies closer to what King suggests when he says, “Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it.” I just don’t think it means to hang on until you’ve shown it to your writing buddies. That’s never worked for me – even when one of my writing buddies was Bruce Bethke (originator of the word “cyberpunk”). I gravitate Holiday’s philosophy. (Actually, I was reflecting that virtually NO ONE in my family and immediate circle of friends has EVER read anything of mine that’s been PUBLISHED, let alone a draft piece.) When I have attempted to have others read my pre-published “stuff”, they’ve generally not gotten the point, or missing entirely that a character is a recluse because his skin is piebald (dark and light, irregular patches from head to toe). A reviewer wrote: “ The romantic subplot is unnecessary, and somewhat adolescent.” I wanted to say OF COURSE IT’S ADOLESCENT! The veterinarian has NEVER had interaction with adult women (or adolescent women for that matter!). “…with an over-the-top villain who acts in unbelievable ways.” What would be a believable way to act toward people whose ancestors tortured your father during the Korean Conflict? She loathes them and wants them all to die…I believe that the Islamic Fundamentalists who crashed their planes into the World Trade Center Towers in New York had a bit of “over-the-top, who acted in an unbelievable way”… If they hadn’t acted unbelievably, we would have caught them. Today, they wouldn’t have managed to pull it off…
In 2006, Nathaniel Rich & Christopher Lehmann-Haupt interviewed King for THE PARIS REVIEW. When asked if he really admired so many short story writers, he said “…short stories themselves have become a niche market, short stories are an even smaller market, and so you want to make people as aware as possible that this stuff is out there. But even a superstar has favorites! He could write another blockbuster 1000 page novel. But he said, “I often write [short stories] between novel projects. When Lisey’s Story and Cell (both published in 2006) got done, I was flat. I tried to start another one, but I couldn’t, so I wrote a couple of short stories. Then I began to read all these stories for Best American—a dozen, two dozen, three dozen, a hundred—and finally I got rolling on another novel. I mean, I’ve always got a couple of ideas for future stories whenever I’m working on something. But you can’t think about what you’re going to do next. You’re like a married guy who’s trying not to look at women in the street.”
Well then…that explains the short story I’m working on right now, “Nuking Ukraine”! I can’t get it out of my head…then because it involves a cross-Ukraine trip carrying a nuclear package…and I’ve never been there…I have to use Google World to “see” the area the tractor trailers (4 of them) are driving through (what it was like 1-5 years ago!) to describe what they see and how they’re traveling…
I’m drawn to the story often during a day, even when I can’t work on it at the moment (like now – I’m getting this ready to go up on my blog tomorrow), I’m still thinking about it; still plotting it (even though it’s going to be shorter than 6000 words, the plot has to draw the reader in and excite them in the same way it excites the main characters – and me for that matter!
So, there you go! A bit of wisdom from Stephen King – I’m glad to read that he and I seem to have some connections as writers; and I’ve learned something new in reading about how much he loves writing short stories!
References: https://www.mhpbooks.com/stephen-king-on-why-writing-short-stories-is-important/#:~:text=In%20an%20interview%20with%20Bibliostar,as%20Misery%20and%20Gerald's%20Game. ; https://writingcooperative.com/stephen-kings-top-13-writing-tips-69dbbcbb4cc2?gi=05ba78099d7c ; https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5653/the-art-of-fiction-no-189-stephen-king ; https://thesarcasticmuse.com/2015/03/13/stephen-kings-advice-writing-short-stories/ ; https://www.bibliostar.tv/stephen-king-on-the-craft-of-short-story-writing/ ; STEPHEN KING ON WRITING: https://www.abebooks.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-King-Stephen-Pocket/30082098144/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade0to10-_-product_id=COM9780671024253USED-_-keyword=&gclid=Cj0KCQiA_P6dBhD1ARIsAAGI7HBxnyr5dtROPSoTJXTm_J6rSk3I9yfXoMfv6OGcGo5kNDsnD9YZIJYaAstwEALw_wcB
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