The "ah-ha!" moment in my case was realizing that
if you want to learn how to write professionally, you should probably start
with the short form. I don’t think I'm alone in this, but I spent years writing
novels, producing two manuscripts that aren't publishable in their current
form. I'd encourage aspiring writers to spend a year on short fiction. Starting
with the novel is foolish. There's a reason the papers you write in school
start short and get progressively longer. You can spend years on the down draft
and preliminary edits of a novel before you get to the tough revisions and
polishing necessary to produce a quality manuscript with a good chance of
selling. After 20 – 25 short stories you will have practiced the full process
of draft, revision, polishing, submitting, editing, and re-submitting over and
over again. Working on a first or second novel for the same period, you may
only be able to practice the draft and first revision once, and never get to the
rest of the process. After 100,000 words in 3000 – 5000 word packages, you'll
have a much easier time making hard choices, cutting elements that you like but
that work against the story, and thinking like an editor. It's a more efficient
learning curve.
The other advantage of spending a year on short fiction is
that you will learn how good your work is. We learn best when we get frequent
and accurate feedback. When you concentrate on novels, you get feedback only
occasionally. You can't learn how pro editors really view your work or how it
compares to your peers' based on one or two submissions per year. If you write
just two shorts per month, and are diligent about quickly re-editing them and
resubmitting them when they get rejected, you can easily have 50 – 100
responses in that same year. It's better feedback, giving you a more accurate
sense of where you stand as a potential professional. Some of those rejections
will even have a line or two about what the editor liked or didn't like, which
is invaluable. This assumes, of course, that you are submitting to competitive
markets. If you send those 20 stories to author mills and non-paying markets
you can get a lot of mediocre work in print and a false sense of "making
it." You still get the practice of writing the pieces, but you aren't
getting good feedback on the quality.
Frequent rejections also stop hurting. You need to develop a
thick skin and get your head around the fact that publishing is a business and
not a referendum on you as a person. If you can't, it becomes easy to dismiss
the feedback you do get. When a writer starts complaining about how editors
don't "get" their work, or readers "can't handle" it, it's
a bad sign. Short stories are product; a first novel is a lovechild. A hundred
rejections and a few sales in, and you move well past taking it personally. I
can imagine the heartbreak the aspiring novelist endures, sending out that
manuscript and waiting with hope and yearning for 6 – 12 months before the
rejection slip. It's a formula for personal misery and professional stagnation.
K. H. Vaughan is a refugee from academia with a
Ph.D. in clinical psychology. In his other life he taught, published,
and practiced in various settings, with particular interest in decision
theory, forensic psychology, psychopathology, and methodology. He is an
affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association and a member of the
New England Horror Writers. He lives with his wife and three children
in New England. Updates on upcoming publications and occasional
articles on writing can be found on his website www.khvaughan.com
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