Okay, it’s actually more like $80. I believe that’s what they pay. But the question was there, hanging in front of me, as to whether I could write a story and keep the word count under 1000. It was a challenge.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, my stories have grown rather large, with word counts coming in at 8,000 or more. It used to be that the average count was 2,000 to 5,000 words, which is pretty normal. Things had definitely gotten out of hand, sort of. What I mean to say is that the stories have just become more involved, with more detail. And yes, I can get rather “wordy.” You know this if you’ve read my posts.
I was beginning to wonder–could I do it? Would I be able to keep the story under 1000 words?
I had been thinking about submitting stories lately, something I don’t often do. But hey, getting published in magazines develops “street cred” for a writer. I could keep publishing my own stuff with no problem. Some people like my stories, and some people don’t. Either way, I could still keep pumping them out. No sweat. But I figured I’d give it a try.
The only problem with submitting to magazines is that there are restrictions and guidelines. The magazines will only accept word counts within a certain range. And if you are talking about short-shorts, or flash fiction (which is what they call it these days), then that almost definitely means under 1000 words. My problem (though I guess it’s a good one to have) is that once I get rolling there’s no telling where I’ll end up. The story just keeps flowing until it stops. It all usually depends on the characters and what they are up to. As I’ve said many times, I just follow along, recording it all.
So anyway, a week or so ago, I read Three Bedrooms in Manhattan, by Georges Simenon. I was in awe the whole way through the book, marveling at the beauty of Simenon’s clipped and rhythmic style. I had read the Maigret novels, and was familiar with the style in general, but this was something on a whole different level. The story itself was taut, emotionally and viscerally stunning, and dark. But the beautiful thing was, Simenon had crisp sentences that evoked strong visuals packed with rippling (the only word that fits) emotional punch. I loved it.
The “clipped” sentences, which a reviewer mentioned, sort of stuck with me, and put me in mind of Hemingway, which led me to read the book I talked about in the last post. That book just happened to be the only Hemingway work I had within reach. I’m glad I read it. I do want to go in depth, comparing the two styles. But that will be another post.
So, finishing up the Simenon book, I reread the first chapter to get a feel for things and then sat down to write. I was sort of just playing around at first. But as usual, once I typed the first sentence or two, I was off and running. And then I thought, hey, if I can keep the sentences short and impactful, maybe I can keep the story under 1000 words and submit it to flash fiction online.
It took some concentration, but I managed to end the story at 1,014 words on the first run. I then read it through to see where I could trim things. I found a couple of sentences that sort of said the same thing, repeating things with different words. I turned the two sentences into one sentence that was a little better. I knocked out a few adjectives here and there, and eventually got the story down to 1,004 words. And then I just kept bouncing back and forth. I had it down to 989 at one point, and then it jumped back up as I corrected things to 1,002, and then 996, etc. And things just kept going like this. Finally, after swinging up and down for a while, I ended at 993 and had a pretty good, solidly written story. I submitted it. I was proud of myself. I wish I could share it here, but I can’t while it is under consideration. If they accept it, then who knows when I’ll be able to share it? After a year? I can’t remember how long they will hold the first rights. However, if they reject the story, I can do whatever I want. Then I’ll share.
Anyway, since I can’t share that story, and I still have the urge to share something, I’m going to share a story that I wrote a year or so ago and put in my book titled The Scarecrow (Vol. 4 of the Civil War Dark Tales series). The story is titled “River Rendezvous.” As a matter of fact, I mentioned this story in the last post (the Hotchner, Hemingway post), when I talked about the woman underwater and the “billowing hair,” etc. Anyway, after reading the story over today, I see I was wrong. That image isn’t in this story, not exactly. Maybe the image just got evoked in my imagination as I wrote and I just didn’t spell it out. One thing I do remember about this story is that I was shocked when I came to the end and the story was only 800 plus words. I had just stopped, dead in my tracks. I was suddenly at the end and very puzzled. How could that be? Did I get everything in? Is it an actual story or just the sketch of a story? I’m still not sure. At the time, I read it over and thought, well, I got in the final scene . . . I mean, it’s there, the main visual that I wanted in the story. I went ahead and put it in the book. It’s published.
I could still do more with the story, of course. Reading it over today, I found a couple of minor errors that I corrected. There are more, I’m sure. And I could beef up the final scene, and add more in other places. And I could tighten things up. I’ll do all of the above at some point. There are stupid, minor things, like in the first paragraph or so where Rebecca thinks, did he really ask that? Technically, the soldier had just made a statement. I wanted to put in the word, again, following up the he said, which would indicate that perhaps he had initially asked the question and then followed it with the more definite, declarative statement. I did change where I, for whatever reason, had quotation marks around Rebecca’s question about whether the soldier had actually asked the question. I realized that she was only thinking this, not asking it aloud. There are a few other places where I would be scratching my head and wondering about this little error or that one. Keep in mind that I need to go over the story. I know, I know, I published it. Why? Anyway, everything seems to be a work in progress, even the published stuff. Hopefully, soon, I’ll sit down and read over the whole book, making corrections, improving things. But, for now, I’ll let you decide whether the story is an actual story or just a sketch of one.
In any case, as it stands, even at only 833 words, it’s a bit long to include with what I’ve written here, so I’ll put it in the next post. All by itself. Well, of course there will be some commentary. You know me.