John Woodington The official site for the author.

A Chekhov Novella – “A Boring Story”Posted by John Woodington on December 22nd, 2009

I just finished reading Chekhov’s novella “A Boring Story,” and it was wonderful.  Subtle, emotional without being sentimental or melodramatic, extremely readable at every page.  Really a joy to read.  I read it in the collection Lady with Lapdog and other stories, which so far has me engrossed.  Chekhov is one of my favorite writers, and may be the person I consider to be the “best” writer of all time.  In writing seminars throughout college, I was taught very few hard and fast rules about writing, though there were two that stand out in my mind that should never be broken.  They are:

1) You may only use ten (10) exclamation points in your entire career, so use them sparingly.
2) Read Chekhov.

Not only does Chekhov provide a beautiful example of what great writing is and how it is to be accomplished, but he does it in a way that makes a writer want to write more and more, and read more and more of Chekhov’s work in return.

Another thing that this particular collection of Chekhov’s work shows us is that one good way to get a novella published is to include it in a larger collection of short stories.  In our lifelong quest to figure out how to publish novellas successfully, this may be the most straightforward way to accomplish the feat.  It works well because it can be disguised as a short story, and therefore included in a book-length collection, which a publisher is more willing to go for than a standalone novella.

Many great novellas are contained within the pages of a short story collection, the foremost of which is probably “The Dead” in James Joyce’s great collection Dubliners.  In more recent times, Stephen King and Neil Gaiman have both published novellas within collections of short stories, and have done so quite successfully (from a financial perspective).

There are exceptions to the publish-a-novella-in-a-collection-instead-of-as-a-standalone-book, as can be seen by the new novella by Rick Bass, which has been published by Narrative Library.  But those are the exceptions.

A Novella Rejection and Sustaining a NarrativePosted by John Woodington on December 19th, 2009

Since we are often talking about novellas here, I thought I’d share my own endeavors in the novella.  Below is a rejection I recently received from a very kind editor for my novella “Goodwill.”

I find the premise of your story engaging, but for me it doesn’t sustain 60 pages of interest. Having watched the television series Dexter, I’m not sure it covered enough new ground for me in the “dark passenger” department, either. That said, you clearly have writing chops. I hope this rejection doesn’t rub you the wrong way, and that you’ll continue to send work to [This Publication].

First off, I have chops.  Yay.  Next, let’s take what this editor said to heart, because I think it is extremely useful.  He says the story is engaging, but doesn’t sustain for 60 pages.  This is one of the keys to getting published–sustaining the narrative throughout the length of the story.  Obviously this guy thinks I didn’t do that effectively enough, and that’s fine.  I can work on that.  But recognizing that that is what needs to be edited or changed is extremely valuable.  One thing I always ask my reviewers is if there is any point in the story where they feel bored.  Boring spots are deadly, and can almost guarantee rejection.  Yes, sometimes you’ve got to throw in a sentence or two to get from one thing to the next, and those two sentences may not be the most thrilling in the story.  But overall, narrative drive has to be in place.  The reader has to want to keep reading.

The second thing to take to heart from this editor is that you should not write any stories that resemble episodes of Dexter, and while I haven’t ever watched an episode of this particular show, I believe him.  Hell, he rejected my story (partially) because of this, so it can’t be all nonsense.

Also, don’t write stories that resemble reality shows.  No one wants to read Rock of Love Bus: The Short Story.  Naw meen?

Short Stories, but still no NovellasPosted by John Woodington on December 18th, 2009

The quick Friday post:

1) I have gotten in contact with the people at Eye Contact and they will be sending me extra copies of their latest edition with my short story “Visitation Hour” in it.  So if you’d like a copy, contact me.  I’d also like to apologize for using the word “contact” thrice in that last sentence.

2) I am reading Anton Chekhov’s short stories, and feel both wonderful and wretched.  The stories are so good ( which is good) and they make me realize that mine are not as good as his (which is bad).  So I’ll have to work on making them better.

3) I was going to post a link to a website that offered a plethora of novellas for purchase, since it seemed like a good place to also submit your own novella for publication.  Then I realized they only published classic novellas, so if your last name isn’t Tolstoy or something like that, don’t bother sending them anything.

How Good Are You at Google Searching?Posted by John Woodington on December 16th, 2009

Narrative is really letting me down with their recent Puzzler competitions.  This week’s Puzzler is yet again a series of questions for you to answer, basically a how-good-are-you-at-Google-searching-in-disguise-as-a-literary-quiz Puzzler.  These are a real waste of time, in my opinion.  The Puzzlers where you actually had to write something were so much more intriguing.  I don’t believe I’ll participate again until there is something to write, rather than somethings to answer.

In my own writing news, I’m working on a short story currently titled “Reunion,” about a guy who meets up with a high school sweetheart by chance through their respective infant children, and whose presence sends his life in a direction he would not have thought possible.  I’m also trying to figure out what changes I need to make to my short story “Lawnmower Boy” before I consider it ready to send out for publication.  And I’m also tinkering with a short story titled “Airport Town in Autumn,” about a vacation town that goes a little crazy when all the tourists leave for the season.

On top of all that, I’m gearing up to begin editing the novel I drafted this past winter and spring, titled AlieNation.  And by gearing up I mean sitting and avoiding working on it by telling myself that I need to work on short stories first.

And still yet on top of that, it is wicked cold up here in Minnesota.  So cold that when I take my dogs outside for a bathroom break, I have to breathe through my mouth, because breathing through my nose freezes all of my nose hairs.  A little gross?  Sure.  But seriously.  Wicked cold.

Do Publishers Want Novellas in this Economy?Posted by John Woodington on December 13th, 2009

I got a really insightful comment from writer Minnie Estelle Miller who said, regarding the publishing industry and the publishing of novellas, “since the market is so tight and crying black tears about the loss of income, why not publish novellas?  One would think they are less expensive to produce than novels.”

One would think that, yes.  In fact, I would assume that a 150-page novella would cost a publisher a fraction of the price it would cost them to publish a 400-page hardcover novel.  I think the trouble comes in not in the cost of publishing, but in the money earned back per the sales of the published novella versus the novel.  A hardcover novel can sell for upwards of $30.00 and even more, whereas a novella would probably sell in the $10.00 to $15.00 range at the most.  So the publishing company pays a couple more dollars per unit to publish the novel, but they make a far better profit margin on the novel than they would on the novella.  Remember, it’s all about the money (mostly) for the publishing house, so even though they spend more to publish the novel, they make more money on it in the end anyway, which is what they’re looking for.

Which brings up a good point.  If you want to make money as a writer–money that would amount to enough so that you wouldn’t have to work another job to supplement your income–you should probably be writing novels.  I can’t think of anyone on the planet (literally) that makes their living writing short stories or novellas.  Then again, I believe Nicholas Sparks’ “novels” are actually novella-length works packaged into novel-esque books.  Sparks aside, novels are what bring in the dough–when you can get them published and earn advances and royalties on them, that is.  Still, as far as the short story is concerned, the most you could make off of a short story is around $1000.00 (maybe a little more if you get one picked up by the infamous New Yorker).  And while that’s no paycheck to sniff at, it’s not enough to feed, clothe, and house you for any length of time.  Even writers who frequently publish short fiction in top venues (like T.C. Boyle, for one) still have day jobs to pay the bills.  (T.C. is a prof at USC, I believe).

There is something that publishing short stories can get you, though.  They can get you credibility, which can get you a book deal, which can get you on your way to selling those novels you’ve been writing.  Publishing short stories has proven, for me, to be significantly easier than publishing novels, and I like to think that the more short stories I publish, the more credibility I’ll have in the eyes of literary agents and publishers, which could lead to a publishing deal of the lucrative nature.

In other news, I’m very much in the Christmas spirit, enjoying our Christmas tree, hot chocolate, and the first round of Christmas cookies.  I’ve put our Christmas lights out in the trees around our house, and have realized that I’ve many many more lights to go before I realize my Clark Griswold dreams.  Maybe next year….

Publishing Novels and Novellas, and the Unfair Advantage of Holiday ThemesPosted by John Woodington on December 11th, 2009

A quick Friday post for y’all.  The snow has fallen here in Minnesota, and it is quite beautiful.  I say this because I am not forced go outside to use the bathroom as my dogs are, and they are not very thrilled by the -2 degree weather (not counting the windchill).  I used the cold days to finish reading War and Peace, and in light of the fact that no one wants a lengthy description of my feelings on the book, I will just say that it was grand in scope and bold in its achievements, and while it wasn’t a page turner, I do feel the better for having read it.  Since it was a rather lengthy read, I’ve decided to wait a week or so before continuing on my Russian Literature journey, and read through the latest issue of The Missouri Review before picking up Anna Karenina.

In writing news, I’m working on a couple of short stories, and also toying with the idea of trying to publish a novel that my agent was unable to publish before we parted ways.  Not sure how I feel about putting all the effort into getting it published, though it would be nice to see a novel of my own creation in print.  Finding a publisher is the hard part, of course.  Could be a full-time job in itself.

We’ve been talking about the possibility of publishing novellas a little bit here, and I have received scientific proof that a novella can in fact get picked up for publication, as can be seen in this release from  Publishers Lunch:

NYT bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry’s Christmas novella THE PERFECT CHRISTMAS SONG, to Roger Cooper at Vanguard Press, for publication November 2010, by Kimberly Whalen at Trident Media Group (NA).

Yes, it’s a Christmas novella, which means it had an unfair advantage against all the other non-holiday novellas up for publication, and yes, it is by an established writer, but still.  It can be done, and there’s the proof.

Dealing With and Avoiding Literary RejectionPosted by John Woodington on December 9th, 2009

Maybe we should have a little talk about rejection.  Every author goes through rejection at every stage in their career.  Rejections from small, online literary magazines, rejections from big literary magazines, rejections from The New Yorker (of course), rejections from literary agents, rejections from publishers, rejections from cooler people in high school and college.  Rejections galore.  It’s a part of the writer’s life and should be embraced (except for those rejections by cooler people in high school and college–those you should weep over and console yourself with Ben & Jerry’s and Meg Ryan movies).  How to deal with rejections in the literary world?  That should be relatively easy; it’s all about venue.

I would recommend dealing with literary rejections the same way you might deal with romantic rejection: by taking those rejections and posting them all over the Internet for the world to see.  Just kidding.  Don’t do that.  Seriously, don’t.  You’ve got better things to do with your time.  No, what you should do is take that rejection as a learning opportunity, and then move on.

Unlike romantic rejection, literary rejection is not meant to be a personal attack against you.  It is simply a way for editors to say that your story (or poem or article or novel) is not right for their publication, and that you should try placing it elsewhere.  If you are serious about writing, you will come to learn that everyone likes different things, including editors, and they will accept or reject a piece solely because they think it is not a fit for their particular publication, not because it does not have literary merit.

One thing I am assuming here is that you are submitting work that should or could be published somewhere, in some venue.  I do believe there are stories that don’t deserve to be published, like your ten volume fantasy epic about a bodice-ripping paladin, or the last six books in the Sword of Truth series.  That said, there are a few things you can do to avoid instant rejection.  Like I said, rejection is fine, as long as it’s based on the publication to which you are submitting.  The New Yorker is rejecting your short story because it isn’t a right fit for them (and because they hate you a little), but not because your story is “bad.”  There are, however, things that will get you rejected without an editor even reading your story to the end.  And these things should be avoided at all costs.

1) Poor grammar/spelling – This is basic stuff.  Don’t misspell any words, and use proper grammar (unless, of course, you can break the rules of grammar to wonderful effect).  Poor grammar and misspellings are the sign of an amateur writer, and are sure to get you rejected without any sort of basis on the literary merit of your story or poem.

2) Failing to adhere to submission guidelines – Again, very basic.  If The New Yorker says “email submissions only,” don’t send them your poem packet via snail mail.  If they say “paste your story into the body of the email,” don’t send it as a Word attachment.  There is one caveat to this rule, and it is a submission guideline to which you should never adhere: many places prohibit simultaneous submissions.  They want you to submit your story to them and them alone, and not to anyone else at the same time.  This is straight up BS, and you should ignore it.  I have yet to find a publication that has a way of telling whether you have submitted your story simultaneously or not, and you don’t really want to sit around and wait for six months while Granta works on your three-line rejection slip.  Send out to multiple places at all times, regardless of what the guidelines say.  You will benefit in the long run.

3) Boring/unengaging work – You’d think this would be obvious as well, but surprisingly it is not, especially to the writer of a given story/poem.  Often we writers are too invested in our own material to judge it critically, and we can miss basic things (like engaging plot and character depth).  If you send in a ten-page story, and it doesn’t get going until page three, you’re going to get rejected every time.  You’ve got to hook your reader, even in literary fiction, which carries an unwarranted reputation for stuffiness, overintellectualization, and density.  I know, I know, you’re thinking, “But those stories in The New Yorker are boring from beginning to end and yet they get published!”  Yes, yes they do, because they are good stories, and while they’re not formulaic Dan Brown page-turning pulp, they do often work on multiple levels of consciousness that your bodice-ripping-paladin-fantasy-epic does not.

Finding the right venue for your particular work is probably the best way to accelerate the process of publishing.  I’ve written stories that have been rejected 50+ times because I’ve sent them to the wrong venues (*cough cough* The New Yorker *cough cough*), and I’ve also had stories accepted on the very first submission, because I knew the story was a perfect fit for that particular venue.  So don’t be discouraged when you get that rejection slip in the mail/email.  Stick it in a folder somewhere as a memento and send your work out again to a proper venue.  It will greatly increase your chances of publication.

Note: The New Yorker is rarely a “proper venue.”

Published and Hard to FindPosted by John Woodington on December 7th, 2009

Eye Contact, the literary journal at Seton Hill University, has published my short story “Visitation Hour.” It’s out now, though finding a copy of that journal seems to be a little more difficult than just going to their website and clicking on an order button. When I figure out an easy way to get a copy, I’ll post it here.  I received two copies of the journal in the mail on Saturday, and it looks really nice.  Thanks again to Seton Hill for publishing my piece.

In other news, I’m in the home stretch of reading War and Peace.  About 50 pages to go.

There’s an interesting article in The Guardian about eBooks and ePublishing and eReading and eWriting and Don DeLillo.  In my quest to figure out if I agree with the ePublishing trend of things, this article makes an attempt to steer me away from it, and while it makes some good points about reading and writing the great works of social consciousness, it also seems like it’s clinging to the past in a way that makes the future seem hopeless, which I don’t agree with.

And finally, reviews are coming in for my short story “Lawnmower Boy,” and so far they are positive.  Which I’m not sure is a good thing.  I like it when people give me some unknown-to-me-until-then insight into a story, and it pushes me to redraft a stronger story in the end.  When people say, “this is great!” and “I loved reading this!” that doesn’t help me a whole lot.  Maybe I should just be grateful for the praise.

Getting Published in The New Yorker is not Impossible (mathematically)Posted by John Woodington on December 4th, 2009

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my reference to getting published in The New Yorker magazine (or, more accurately, not getting published in The New Yorker).  It seems a lot of people want to know what the odds are of this particular magazine actually accepting a short story or poem for publication from a writer who can not be recognized just by their last name (i.e. Wolff, Updike, etc.)  So I thought I’d do some digging.

On the wonderful Duotrope’s Digest website, they have a robust list of various statistics on every imaginable literary publication, and The New Yorker is, of course, one of them.  Various stats include genres accepted, length, payscale, response time, and the types of responses (acceptions, rejections, non-responses).  Since we’re interested in the acceptance rate, we’ll skip to that.

As of today, Duotrope has 289 responses in the last year from people who have submitted to The New Yorker.  Here’s the data (courtesy, of course, of Duotrope’s):

Responses: (80.97 %)
Acceptances: 0.00 % (No publication has a 0% acceptance rate. This data is based on response reports sent to Duotrope’s Digest, and we have not received reports of any acceptances yet. If one acceptance were reported, the acceptance rate would be 0.34 %.)
Rejections: 80.62 % (65.8 avg. days per rejection) | 14.59 % personal, 66.09 % form, 19.31 % unspecified
Rewrite Requests: 0.35 % (50 avg. days per rewrite request)
Non-Responses (19.03 %)
Lost / Never Responded: 15.22 % (287.9 avg. days before reporting submissions as lost or never responded)
Author Withdrawals: 3.81 % (125.1 avg. days per withdrawal by author)

I know, I know.  It doesn’t look good.  A 0.00% acceptance rate sure gives the impression that getting a short story or poem accepted by The New Yorker is literally impossible.  We know, however, that this is not the case, since they publish over fifty short stories a year, and even more poems.  It is worth noting that Duotrope’s lists The New Yorker as both an “Extremely Challenging Fiction Market” and an “Extremely Challenging Poetry Market.”  But I’m sure we could’ve guessed that, right?

So where does The New Yorker get it’s fiction and poetry from to fill its fifty plus issues a year?  Ginny Wiehardt over at the Fiction Writing section of About.com writes, “The New Yorker publishes only one story per issue (devoting one issue per year to new fiction), and it’s safe to say that pretty much every ambitious American writer tries them at some point or other. And while The New Yorker does take chances on new writers, it tends to draw from a stable of established writers, like Munro and Murakami.”

So being an established writer helps.  From personal experience, I have an author friend who, after having a story published in Glimmer Train, was able to land a literary agent, who in turn said that they would push to get one of this author’s stories published in The New Yorker in order to help promote a new short story collection by this author.  So having an agent might help (though in this case, in fact,  it did not help, since they were unable to get a story published in The New Yorker, despite the fighting powers of the agent).

Over at The Stranger, they have an interview with Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at The New Yorker, in which she talks about the review process that the fiction staff at The New Yorker follows when deciding which stories to publish.  Also, she talks about why they select the stories they do.  She admits that people complain that The New Yorker publishes a lot of stories by the same writers (Munro, Murakami, Saunders), but she also makes a good point, that those writers are really good writers, and they are writing at the top of their powers.

Then, there’s an interesting an funny online diary of how one merry band of poets was able to get something published in The New Yorker, though it involved infiltrating the magazine’s actual New York office….

So basically you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle with this one.  I think the key to getting published in The New Yorker is the same as the key to getting published anywhere.  They want established writers, so make yourself established.  You don’t have to win the World Series the first time you pick up a bat.  Just be glad to bat .301 in little league, and you’re on your way.  Work your way up by starting with smaller, lesser known publications, and give it time.  You don’t need to be in The New Yorker today, or this year, or even in the next ten years.  It might take longer than that, and you need to be patient.

It’s also worth noting that The New Yorker is looking for literary fiction.  Your awesome short story or poem about a bodice-ripping druid is likely not going to be accepted (no matter how good it is) due to the subject matter.

Follow the guidelines I put forth in a previous post, and use those to get yourself some publishing credits.  Maybe someday in the future, The New Yorker will give you a call and offer you a bajillion dollars for your non-bodice-ripping-druid story.  Well, maybe more like $3000.00, but still.

Narrative Puzzler, T.C. Boyle, ePublishing, and War and Peace…whew!Posted by John Woodington on December 2nd, 2009

So there’s a new Puzzler challenge this week from Narrative Magazine, and it’s one in which you have to answer six questions about memoirs.  I think that calling this sort of challenge a “Puzzler” is misleading and inaccurate–it should be called a “Test Your Googling Skills” challenge.  Or something like that.  I knew none of the answers to the six questions.  Then I went onto Google.  Now I know all the answers.  And I sent them in.  We’ll see.

I mentioned I’ve been accepted to write  fiction on the Fictionaut website.  It was nice to see that T.C. Boyle is on there as well.  Everyone is contributing high-quality work, which makes me happy.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the pros and cons of ePublishing lately.  Here’s one of many places where this topic is discussed.  I want to read up on it some more before I discuss it in length here, but I’m sure I’ll rant about it soon.

Finally, I’ve got a hundred pages left to read in War and Peace.  This thing is a beast, but it’s nearly conquered.  Then I’ll read some critical analysis on it, and transition over to my newest copy of the Missouri Review, which has been sitting on my shelf with plaintive eyes, patiently waiting for me to pick it up and read it through.