7 Benefits I Gained from Shelving My Novel for a Year and Focusing on Short Stories
In 2023, I made a resolution for myself to write 12 short stories in a year. I decided on this goal for two reasons: (1) I plan on applying for MFA programs in 2024, and part of the application is to submit a piece (generally between 10 to 30 pages in length) for consideration, so this challenge gave me a jump start on that part of the application; and (2) I wanted to challenge myself with a different medium of writing.
Over 12 months, I wrote 2 flash fictions (1,000 words or under), 2 short films (roughly 45 pages each), 2 nonfiction essays (around 5,000 words), and 6 fiction works (anywhere between 3,000 and 13,000 words). The other part of this challenge was that I had to submit each story to a journal or competition. One piece, one place—every story went out for judgment, no matter what. So far, I’ve received 8 nays on 8 pieces. Four are still out for consideration.
After reflecting on my challenge, I realized how much this helped me grow: I was forced to see new angles faster, edit myself numerous times on a deadline, and be razor-sharp in my language because there’s no fudging a word count when places have a hard cap on story length. These benefits have turned into practices, and they will do me wonders as I stay committed to writing both short stories and my novel in 2024.
1. Being Accountable to Your Deadlines
Set the goal and make your timeline. For me, a year to write twelve equated to one short story a month. Pretty simple math, an easy-to-follow schedule—I even charted what story I would write for each month to give myself a head start. While I didn’t follow that system precisely (inspiration came, calling me to a new story), it was very helpful in a pinch when I needed a prompt or an idea to get the ball rolling.
But the experience wasn’t as smooth sailing as I thought it would be. I messed up my timeline early on—in February, to be precise. I started a story, but I didn’t finish it, and I had to play catch-up the entire year. I finished my eleventh piece on December 28 and my last piece the morning of December 31, both of them looking like alphabet soup to me by the end.
Did I complete the goal? Yes. Do I think I should’ve used that month and paced myself better? Absolutely.
Take you, and your deadlines, seriously. The minute you miss one, it becomes okay for you to miss another, then another. Soon, you’re a writer that’s thinking more about writing than actually writing. Becoming an author means learning to create, and create oftenn—more than likely on a deadline.
Be serious about you, and be serious about your writing. Stick to the goals you set for yourself. Your future self will thank you for the discipline you formed.
2. Taking Chances on Ideas
I’d often push away ideas because I couldn’t make them fill a whole novel, but I kept them in my idea notebook because I still liked them. Some were obscure; others were more mundane. During the challenge, a few got to see the light of day. One of my fiction pieces, “Invasive Species,” came out of a question my sister and I used to ask each another all the time when fake shopping for houses: what do people do with twenty bathrooms in a house that only has eight bedrooms? That idea stuck with me, and though I knew I couldn’t make a full novel out of it, I was confident I could make a short story about it. And I did! It turned out to be one of my favorite pieces.
Short stories are great to explore those smaller questions and ideas we have every day. It’s also a space where writers can play with form. I’ve done braided narrative nonfiction, and it’s been really cathartic for me. One of my fiction pieces is a second-person narrative, something I would never touch for a novel, personally. A short film I wrote came from seeing a person metal detecting on a beach, and I used that concept to be become a story device that would send my characters into a flashback. In the short form, I felt free to write well without thinking if the work would be a bestseller or not because short stories, unless in an anthology, are hard to reach bestseller status. I took a chance, said what I wanted to say in a way that felt true to my style, and do so to the best of my ability. I wrote for quality and for love and for growth, and there’s no better feeling than that.
3. Understanding My Writing Style More
It can be hard to see your writing style in a novel more so than a short piece. A novel is much longer, and there’s more to go through. In a short story, I’m able to track and remember almost every sentence I wrote, especially after rounds of revisions, and I was able to find the quirky parts of my writing that make it, definitively, mine. A few of them are series of threes, using action around dialogue to set my speaker’s tone and liven the image, and trying to vary my sentence starts as much as I can so I don’t have sentences all starting with the same word. These a very personal styles, and I’ve read books that don’t do any of these, yet they still captivate me in both their story and their language.
No writer’s style is gospel and guarantees success. What makes a successful writer is they know their style, and their story, well enough to use one to elevate the other. I’d recommend for you to write out a story (don’t edit yourself during, just write!) and see if you can pinpoint what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and—most importantly—if you like it. Maybe you like to start sentences with conjunctions, you’re adverb heavy, or you’re super careful about how you vary your sentences’ structures. Are those styles something you like, or don’t? Let yourself be your guide to tell you what your styles are.
4. Increased Focus and Energy
While I was doing this challenge, I was a full-time editor at a publishing house. This year, I’ve made the leap to be a freelance editor so while I don’t have project on my plate, I can focus more on my writing. But I’m going to speak to focus and energy from my time as a full-time editor, since that was my day-to-day life when I was completing this challenge.
In Joyce Carol Oates’s MasterClass, she encourages getting the first draft out as quickly as possible. I followed this advice, and while I would have a few moments of Writer versus Blank Page, I pushed myself to finish the first draft in the one sitting I had, even if it took me a few hours to do. Eventually, I’d churn out a line that would turn into a paragraph, which would turn into a page. Before I knew it, the words kept coming until I hit the final point. I would feel it in my bones that I had reached the end. My brain would be humming, excited for this piece.
Granted, the stories didn’t have fully developed characters or a shored-up plot; they were really just vibes and ideas, but at least I had a draft to work with and revise. I held my focus on what was important—getting the draft done—and harnessed my energy to keep my fingers moving. Speed and commitment kept me from self-editing and second-guessing, and as with those old standardized tests, isn’t it when we start to second-guess that we start making mistakes? So the moral of this story: When inspiration strikes, write. Keep writing to make the inspiration keep striking until you feel the story has reached its first end, then take some time away from it before starting Draft 2.
However, there were many times that I did not feel inspired. And I mean really, really didn’t. It’s draining to edit (and work, in general) eight hours a day and then try to be creative in your own writing. Often, I’d write on my one-hour break so my brain wasn’t entirely tapped out before five o’clock hit. On my break, I’d go to a different part of the office, set up my space—water, laptop, phone put away in my work bag and on DND—and I’d get to work. While I didn’t do this every day, one hour makes a load of difference, and the time constraint forced me to make the most of it.
By the end of the year, I told myself that at a minimum I had to give ten minutes a day to my writing to train myself to focus on command, keep the energy of whatever I’m working on moving, and truly be committed to the act of writing. The more I honor this habit, the easier it’s become to focus and pour good, quality writing into my pieces right from the start. Form your writing discipline (see point 1), and you’ll build up a focus that allows you, even in the shortest of times, to have energy-filled writing.
5. Building a Self-Editing Style
“There is only rewriting,” is a line from a book that I’m in love with called Wired for Story by Lisa Cron. Every writer needs to develop the ability to be their own first editor, but not the only editor they have. The writer is also the closest person to their own work, so while they can’t point out every problem as well as a fresh set of eyes or a professional editor can, it’s good to go through and ensure that everything that is exactly as you want it while not being such a perfectionist you take the energy out of the piece and miss your deadline.
To help me with my deadlines and ensure that I did, in fact, submit each piece to a journal, I created a five-draft rule for myself: Draft 1 is the info dump, Draft 2 gets honed, Draft 3 is a rework after feedback from one person, Draft 4 is another round of changes after feedback from another person, and Draft 5 is a quick look over for spelling, grammar, and punctuation. This standard helped me in a lot of ways. I never got sick of my story and moved on (no bright-and-shy-idea-syndrome here!); it forced me to show my story to people, even if I was scared and it wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be; and it kept me accountable to my stipulation to submit to a contest or literary journal (see point 6). Writing is an art that is super malleable, and until that story is out of your hands for review, words are always on the chopping block. But a writer needs to know when they’ve edited enough to take a chance on the piece and let it go.
6. Bravery to Send the Piece Away
We write our drafts, and then we go back and read them. We rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite some more before we get them just right, but this can lead to burnout. That’s why I loved my five-draft system so much: I spent a good amount of time on the work and then would put it in the metaphorical bottle (known as Submittable or FilmFreeway) to go out into the ocean of literary journals and writing competitions. If it came back to me, my thought was, “Great! By then I’ll have enough separation to see what the issues are, have the energy to rework, and gain a renewed love for the piece.” If it was accepted, then I’d be ecstatic and happy that I didn’t overwork the piece.
My submission process was slow: one story, one submission. I’d often wait months for a response. Sometimes I’d be scratching at the keys, wanting to revise the piece and submit it to these other places that I was missing deadlines for, but I’d remind myself that patience, in writing, is good. If I submitted the piece out to another place and more places rejected it, I wouldn’t be able to send that piece to them again, even with extensive revisions. Not wanting to “burn” bridges, I submitted to one and went to work on the next piece, putting my focus and energy where I could utilize it, not waste it.
Personally, I’m trying a 1-3-5 submission method. The first version I like goes out to one, and only one, journal. If it comes back, I rework, send it to three, and then see. If it comes back again from those three, I’ll work on it again, have a writer friend give me some feedback, and get it to a version I’m happy with again before sending it out to five. After that . . . we’ll see how this go.
Sending out to even one place gets the ball rolling on your goal of being published. If you never let go of your story, it’ll never get published. That’s just the reality. It’s like a sales person waiting for someone to call them; they’re the ones that need to be selling. You’re the writer; you need to be submitting, even at the expense of rejection.
7. Getting Comfortable with Rejection
This is, by far, the most humbling part of the process, and also the best gift. Remember what I talked about with meeting deadlines and accountability? Rejection gives you the other half of what every writer needs: humility, tenacity, and a growth mindset.
As I wrote the first draft of this blog post, I received three rejections on three different stories in the span of twenty-four hours. Even though I received some compliments from the readers that they liked my writing style but the piece didn’t work for them, it still hurt.
Rejection isn’t fun for anyone in any part of life, especially when it’s your work that’s getting it. But dealing with rejection is a skill you need to develop. Honestly, I can give you all the encouragement in the world to keep slugging through the muck of publishing and stay committed to your craft or story, but I can’t make you get comfortable with rejection. You are the only person who can build your armor until it’s strong enough that you can face rejection and not feel like the rug is being pulled out from underneath you. There’s humility and perspective in each rejection, and those are good, but not putting yourself out there because of the fear, that’s not.
If your story does come back to you, that doesn’t mean you’re never going to make it or that the journal didn’t “understand’’ what you were trying to say. Writers, readers, editors—these are all smart people, you included. Remind yourself that was only one journal and one opinion. There’s a lot of opinions out there, and not everyone is going to like what you write, so it’s important to stand by your piece. At the same time, use this rejection to your advantage and make your story better. Give it a solid, honest look and revise. Make your theme clearer, your prose stronger, your story tighter, and then send it out again. This is all about striking the balance between confidence, commitment, and humility.
Short stories are a great way to get over this fear of rejection and build up your armor faster than writing and submitting a novel. You’ll finish a short story quicker, and there’s tons of lit journals to submit to. Hence, lots of opportunities to get rejected. And they’re usually very good about responding to every submission, even if it’s to say they’re going to pass on the piece. Rejection, I can tell you, doesn’t get any easier, but the idea of putting your writing out into the world does. The more you do, the faster you’ll learn how to bounce back from rejection and see your mistakes before you send out the next story. Ultimately, this will line you up to produce higher quality works from the get go.
Writing twelve short stories in a year is an experience I can proudly say that I really put my all on the line for and grew a lot from. So for those writers out there trying to get through their first novel but have never written before, and those new writers too, my advice to you is to start with short stories. You don’t need to write twelve like I did, but try writing at least one. Set your schedule, focus your energy, find your writing and editing style, take a chance on something new, and when you’re happy with it, let it go. Learn to deal with the rejection that’s so prominent in the arts. It’s not just talent that helps people succeed, it’s tenacity, and this challenge helped me realize that faster than anything else.
Write on,
Sterling MZ
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