Guest Blogger Desiree Villena on Lessons Learned from Reading Dozens of Short Stories Every Week

Desiree Villena is a writer with Reedsy, which connects authors with self-publishing resources and professionals. She also writes her own short stories.

 Please welcome Desiree Villenna.

 I’m more of a novel person at heart, but I read dozens of short stories every week. My consumption is varied, ranging from space operas set in Alpha Centauri to domestic realism confined to a tiny kitchen. Some of these stories are ideally suited to my interests, touching on the themes and tropes I tend to seek out in novels. Others, though, feel dropped into my lap like unexpected gifts — the kind you end up loving even though you’d never pick them out yourself.

Where do I find all these stories? I’m a judge for Reedsy’s writing contest. Every week, short story writers from around the world send 1000 to 3000 words of fiction in response to a set of prompts. That’s where judges like me come in. Together, we assess entries for everything from plot to prose, until the best story of the group emerges to take the crown.

Few of us judges are professional editors, but judging stories every week has honed our instincts when it comes to evaluating short fiction. I think I speak for all my fellow judges when I say this process has also sharpened our senses for craft, giving us all eagle eyes for what makes short stories work.

Here are five lessons I’ve taken from this experience.

1. The most important part of any story is the beginning. In literature, as in life, first impressions can be hard to shake. If you’re a short fiction writer, the onus is on you to dazzle readers right from that outset — you can’t rely on a mesmerizing cover design (or worse, have to overcome a possibly misleading image). And that means crafting a compelling opening.

 I’ve found that the best indicator of a stories overall quality isn’t its climax or conclusion — it’s the beginning. A strong start activates the reader’s instinct for narrative, exactly the way a mouthwatering aroma triggers the appetite. Those enticing opening lines say: Pay attention. You’re in for something good. 

2. Strong beginnings can sometimes save misshapen stories. Unfortunately, writers sometimes squander the potential of a gorgeous opening. But in my experience, that initial intrigue can buy them quite a bit of readerly goodwill, even if the story starts to unravel a bit. At its most extreme, the halo cast by a perfect beginning can blanch away all kinds of flaws, making unsatisfying endings seem sophisticated in their ambiguity and reframing rambling passages as nuanced and philosophical. 

Of course, you should strive to make your story uniformly strong. But if you want to pour a little more effort into one particular part of it, invest in the beginning. 

3. Style matters more in short fiction. When it comes to novels, I tend to be somewhat style-agnostic. As long as the writer’s voice doesn’t strain understanding, what they say is far more important to me than how they say it. Even flat, colorless prose can be an effective vehicle for a dazzling plot or an unforgettable protagonist. 

As a short fiction reader, I’ve grown more and more attuned to the importance of distinctive, aesthetically pleasing treatment of language. In a form as compressed as a thousand-word story, the boundaries between style and substance feel blurred — there’s no room for carelessness in the writer’s expression. 

4. But good style is genre-dependent. Know that “good” style doesn’t have to mean Nabokovian gorgeousness or Hemingway-esque minimalism. It just means that the prose conveying the writer’s ideas complements them in a way that seems thoughtful and intentional. Different types of stories naturally demand different treatments. 

A story aimed at young readers can be zippy and cute, full of short sentences, snappy dialogue, and delightful onomatopoeias. Meanwhile, a piece of mature historical fiction might be staid and restrained in its language, filigreed with period phrases that give it an air of authenticity. As different as they are, these are both examples of thoughtfully crafted, appropriate literary styles.  

5. Short form makes it easier (and more rewarding) to take stylistic risks. The formal restrictions imposed on short fiction writers might amplify stylistic problems, but they also make it easier to take big risks.  

Some of the strongest entries I’ve encountered as a judge make a point of flouting established writing guidelines. I’ve seen second-person stories, stories written entirely in future tense, and even stories that, on balance, do far more telling than showing. Somehow, they’ve all worked, and not just worked — they won.  

If you want to gamble on a controversial narrative choice, your next short story is the perfect chance. Even less adventurous readers will find unusual storytelling techniques more palatable in short form. Meanwhile, those with avant-garde sensibilities will applaud you for your daring. Even after all the stories I’ve read, there’s nothing I admire more than a stylistically ambitious story told with conviction and verve.

Visit Reedsy to learn more about their contests and other resources.

Images: Flickr/CreativeCommons - Stack of Papers, Philip Wong; Handwritten Pages, Julio Garciah.

The Short Answer when Writing a Long Essay

Occasionally, when I'm working on what is revealing itself to be a long and involved piece of nonfiction narrative on a complicated topic, I worry I may never finish it. I get lost in revisions and rewrites, buffeted by new thinking or memories, and wonder if all the tangents and digressions and bits of backstory really matter. Sometimes the meandering route to a long piece includes questioning why I am even writing it in the first place.

What helps at a time like that (besides dark chocolate, wine, and whining), is to move away from the developing piece, and to purposely write a much shorter version of the story, to pare away and get at the center, the heart of the piece. To figure out what's driving it in the first place.

Usually, I'll write a micro essay, sometimes in a very different form (second person, a list essay), or a poem. And sometimes I like what I've done in the abbreviated form enough that I work on it a little bit more, shine it up, and send it out.

That's what happened last fall with a 690 word essay, "Gray," which eventually garnered an honorable mention in the Our Past Loves 2015 contest. It's a small capsule, culled from the still-accumulating pages (and pages and pages) of what will someday be a long look at my teenage relationship with a boy of another race.

Here's a short excerpt from "Gray":

…I want to say Brant's color did not matter, but it did. I was drawn to different, trained on years of family travel where my father emphasized befriending people of different cultures, seizing local experiences, seeing not exactly past color, class, and religion, but rather seeing and not pretending not to see. Coming of age in hotels and exotic locales, my early experience of attraction was not just to to the opposite sex, but to opposites. Brown boys. Jewish. Poor. Black boys.

            Home, though, I was expected to date white, Catholic, Italian, middle- or upper-class boys…

If you'd like to read the rest, hop over to the Our Past Loves site, and scroll down.

Meanwhile, I'm curious, does anyone else ever take detours like this? Write the mini-version?

Image: Flickr/Creative Commons - grepsy

A Reading and Writing Gift, Courtesy of Contests Not Won and Journals Finally Opened

You don't enter a lot of writing contests, because you're frugal (okay, cheap) and entry fees deplete your meager annual marketing budget, and because you're not competitive by nature. (Perhaps you are convinced you used up your competitive mojo inside the horse show arena years ago, and that once winning a television and later a bicycle was the limit of your blind luck.)

When you do enter a writing contest, you're usually enticed by a theme you're already interested in writing something about (or have already started), or by the allure of publication in a journal or by a press you like. You try not to even consider the prize money (see above, re: not competitive/all luck expired).

Results from the recent Rose Metal Press CNF Chapbook Contest

Still, over the years (okay, decades), you've managed to rack up a few finishes in the tops three, and in competitions that whittle the field down first, occasionally been on finalist lists (most recently, in the Rose Metal Press Creative Nonfiction Chapbook contest). You've always tried, when awaiting contest results, to think of it as no more or less meaningful than a regular submission (okay, you lie to myself).

One of the "consolation prizes" of not winning a contest with an entry fee run by a print journal is often a complimentary subscription. So, you get rejected one way or another (alas, even a finalist finish is still a rejection...), and then at some point later on, an issue of the journal lands in your mailbox with a thud.

Do you read it immediately, eager to delve into the stories and poems and essays by writers who weren't as unlucky as you? Or do you let it sit on your desk or coffee table for days or weeks or months, avoiding the words of others who were luckier (okay, more skilled) than you?

You do both. Depending on mood, available reading time, the phase of the moon, the artwork on the journal cover. 

Then, on a blistering cold winter Sunday, when you really should be working upstairs in your home office, instead you build a roaring fire in the living room (okay, your husband builds it for you; it's Valentine's Day after all and he wants you to be comfy so he can sneak off to watch sports on TV), make yourself a big mug of coffee, cuddle under a quilt, and see what there is to read on the coffee table.

There is the winter issue of The Missouri Review. You open it, scan the table of contents for nonfiction pieces, find two, and read them, at first grudgingly, then with building interest, then hungrily. They are both so good. 

First, the one that intricately and seamlessly (and incongruously, but ingeniously) combines mistakes made in bird watching and the fallibility of eye witness testimony in criminal cases. 

Then, the one about the lousy family dog that keeps eating the children's pets, which seems like it would be a lousy idea for a piece of narrative nonfiction, but paragraph by paragraph convinces you once again that any subject, in the hands of a skilled and honest and witty writer, can become an excellent essay.

You finish your coffee, put the kettle on for tea, grab some cookies, stoke the fire and add more wood. Your husband is still in the family room watching a rerun of his beloved Giants winning the 2008 Super Bowl, but you interrupt, and wave your teenage son over and read them a terrifically funny line from the essay about the horrid dog, and the three of you laugh together.

Then you take your tea back to the living room and read the one about the bad dog all over again, and notice things, so many things. Then you read the one about birding and witnessing again and notice more things. And even though these are not the exact pieces that won the contest you entered many months ago, and instead of feeling as if these other writers are luckier than you, you simply are grateful for the chance to have read them.

And then you find one of those writers on Twitter, and tell her how much you enjoyed the one about her awful dog, and soon, the two of you are tweeting back and forth, and later she says that your praise of her writing has made her week. And suddently your day is made too.

Soon, you feel as if you didn't get a consolation prize at all (okay, maybe a little.) But you eventually go back upstairs to your office and for a brief moment you wish you had a horrible, no good, very bad dog to write about, but then you smile and pull out something you've been working on. And it all starts again. 

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- June 20, 2014 Edition

Image: Windell Oskay/Flickr, Creative Commons

> At Writer Unboxed, Juliet Marillier explains what goes on in her (judge's) mind when she's reading through entries in a short fiction contest.

> If you've read my blog for a while, you've come across the name Richard Hoffman -- poet, fiction writer, memoir and essay writer. His second memoir, Love & Fury, is just out, and on the Mass(achusetts) Poetry blog, he talks about how he compartmentalizes his work across three genres.

> Is it ever a good idea to respond to an editor who sent you a clear and final rejection? No. No. And, no no no.

> Love reading about (and looking at) the spaces writers work in? Check out the series at Allyson Latta's blog, beginning with the most recent account and pics from Catherine Gildiner.

>  I knew only a few of these 13 Google search tricks that can make research easier for writers.

>  Recently a student, who had already established that he was a visual learner, needed more guidance on structuring personal essays, and I remembered this terrific article -- and its illustrations: Picturing the Personal Essay: A Visual Guide, by Tim Bascom, in Creative Nonfiction magazine last summer.

> When a writing coaching client says she is too busy to write on a given day, I encourage setting a timer for 15 minutes, then doing whatever can be done in that time -- write three new sentences, revise a short paragraph, make notes for tomorrow's scene, re-read yesterdays page(s), play with chapter titles -- similar to this tip on procrastination, from Psychology Today.

> If you find that one of your articles, blog posts, or other work has been posted online without your permission, you may need some of the tools and resources listed in this ASJA post.

> Finally, two not-so-new, but definitely worth reading posts. First, wouldn't it be fabulous if David Sedaris touted your book during his massively popular reading/appearance tour?  Yes -- and in a way, no.  And then there's Roxane Gay with 25 things to do and not do, to be a (kickass) contemporary writer. I added the "kickass" because she is.

A Circle of Writing Mentors and Students and More

I love a circle. 

During my time in the Stonecoast MFA program, I was lucky to meet Meredith Hall, whose essays I had read in Creative Nonfiction. She gave a rousing guest lecture that stirred up strong feelings for many of us, about thinking bigger, about being generous with our stories, and bringing everything to the page, not holding back.  

Mostly what I remember is this advice:  Be audacious in what you go after -- and go after a lot. Age doesn't matter! Apply for grants! Seek residencies! Enter contests! Be bold! Why not you?

I went home, bought her memoir, Without A Map, read it in one afternoon. We exchanged friendly emails. I reread her book again slowly, and realized she'd grown up in the same New Hampshire town as my husband's cousin. A few quick emails confirmed that they were once good friends, and Meredith also remembered my sister-in-law, a frequent New Hampshire visitor during their childhoods. I was able to put them all back in touch, and that felt wonderful. 

It would be enough if the circle ended there.  But there's more.

After hearing Meredith at Stonecoast, I began submitting my work more often, and entered my first contest with an essay about visiting my father in the hospital in Las Vegas. It placed second in the Charles Simic Graduate Student Writing Contest, and with the honor came a bit of cash and publication in Barnstorm, the journal edited by the MFA program at University of New Hampshire.

Though energies and enthusiasm sometimes flag, I've kept entering, submitting, applying, and often while doing so, I think of Meredith. I interviewed her for my research thesis, and for an anthology of craft and publishing advice. 

The circle widens.

After I began teaching and coaching writers, I got an email from someone I would get to know as a lovely writer and delightful person. I remember Alyssa Martino's first email because at the moment it arrived, I was waiting for another flight in the Las Vegas airport, where I'd been visiting my ill mother. I was glad for a distraction from my sadness.

Alyssa signed up for an online classes, then to continue working on essays and memoir pieces, and finally to shape and polish her portfolio to accompany applications to MFA programs.

Where does she land but at University of New Hampshire, and in whose class does she find herself? Meredith Hall's. I've had such fun hearing from Alyssa periodically, about how much she's learned from Meredith, and the deep satisfaction she's experiencing developing her writing craft. Tell Meredith hello! I've often written back. Meredith says hi! she's replied.

When I send a newsletter about something I've accomplished, a reply invariably arrives from Meredith:  thinking of you...congratulations...delighted and not surprised...such lovely news. When I look back at craft notes taken during the MFA, she's there too.

Now, Alyssa is working toward graduation, building her own teaching skills, and working on the editorial staff of...Barnstorm. One of her responsibilities is to interview writers for a section called The Writer's Hot Seat. A few months ago, she asked to interview me. 

I'm so pleased the interview is now up at Barnstorm.

I'm tempted to say the circle now feels complete.  

But I know better.

The Trip from Pragmatic to Optimistic. And Back Again.

Writers, if you've ever been a finalist in any kind of contest, and felt optimistic (or not) about your chances, you may be interested in the story of my journey along that route earlier this spring -- and what came next. It's featured in my newsletter, which went out over the weekend. If you're not on the list, you can read it here. (And, there's a cool giveaway going on that you may like, too.)

Friday Fridge Clean-Out: Links for Writers -- May 31, 2013 Edition

I'm sneaking back to the blog a bit, beginning with a full Friday clean-out for you. Enjoy!

> From Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace, the incomparable Ann Hood's ten tips for "Writing a Kickass Essay," via Jason Landry.

> Want to use song lyrics in your essay, article, or book and not get into legal trouble?  Here's a helpful primer -- and boy do writers need one. Crossing a music publisher is no fun.

> Here's a podcast interview with Emily Rapp, about her memoir Still Point of the Turning World, which is on my teetering to-be-read pile.

> Some real numbers about the costs associated with self-publishing.

> Are you, like Ben Dolnick, addicted to author interviews, especially those that impart secrets, tricks, unusual routines and habits that find their way into your cluttered mental file marked "if it worked for them..."?  

> Christina Baker Kline, author of the recent New York Times bestselling novel Orphan Train, on how her mother kindled her childhood love of books -- and showed her at a very young age that she could write one.

> Scientific American (via Salon) debates whether e-readers inhibit comprehension.  (Is it only me or does anyone wonder why Salon uses a typeface for its posts that is one of the toughest-to-read on the web?)

> Okay, maybe we can't--like David Sedaris--fill theaters with hundreds of people and read aloud to them in order to gauge reaction to works-in-progress. But much of his reading-aloud process, detailed in a Fast Company article, can be duplicated on a real life scale.

> A journal editor offers these "eight structural aspects of a well-rounded (writing) contest".

> If you're as enamored of fashion as words, a literary contest sponsored by Prada might be of interest.  Prompt (seemingly inspired by its line of eye wear): "'What are the realities that our eyes give back to us? And how are these realities filtered through lenses?"

> Like long lists of blogs for writers?  Here's one with 150 on it.

> Finally, Mental Floss deconstructs a fake alarmist tweet on the briefly hijacked Associated Press Twitter feed. Journalism geeks will love this.