That's an interesting perspective. I would say both yes and no to that. Yes - you're telling a story in shorter time and more compact form than you would for a movie; it needs to work as a stand-alone story so that a casual viewer can follow along. But there will also probably be on-going story arcs for the show or show's current season that need to be incorporated, so it's not a completely independent piece of work. Maybe more like a chapter of a novel than a short story? The short story genre doesn't get enough respect - they can sometimes be harder to write than a novel, because there's no room for excess; every word and detail needs to be meaningful and carefully considered.
Big disagree. Stories are just a sliver of time within a universe. They can stand on their own. An episode of television, even for a sitcom needs to convey a greater universe. It needs to establish characters, relationships, and a greater situation that can serve as the basis for the entire show. It's not even remotely the same.
Format the story (or whatever you are sending) according to the requirements of the magazine/contest/publishing house. It is literally the easiest thing to do, a couple of clicks for spacing, font, quotation marks and the rest. If a magazine gets dozens or hundreds of submissions, excluding the ones that did not bother to even adhere to the layout requirements is the easiest thing they can do to save time on reading.
Could you please add more interviews of novel or short story writers. I’m not looking to be a screenwriter, but am writing books. Still love all your vids and the screenwriters you’ve interviewed have provided an incredible amount of knowledge. Thank you regardless and I’ll be forever in your debt 🙏🏼
There was a lot of short story publication at the time of the pulps, which existed as a way to sell advertising, in magazines, that enjoyed special postage rates, because they contained material of literary merit. Some more than others :-) The Internet Archive maintains a vast library of examples, from Astounding Science Fiction to Black Mask et al
Thank you for your channel and excellent interviewing style - I watch a lot of Film Courage videos. I'm an editor of an independent literary magazine (Here Comes Everyone) and I'm also a writer myself, including short stories. Something very few writers bother to do is buy at least one issue of a magazine (or check it out for free from a library) before sending in submissions, to see if it is a good match for their work. Do you like the aesthetic? Is the mag edgy enough for you? Do they publish your genre? Do they publish plenty of new writers or mostly go after the big names? Overall: would you be proud to see your work printed on these pages? Too many writers also don't do basic research like check the submission guidelines (e.g. Is it OK to send unsolicited work to the editors via email? Usual answer - no!) - which is a good way to get on an editor's bad side really fast, because you're creating more work for us...and most editors of unfunded magazines are working in their spare time for free. There are various good resources out there for finding publications (or competitions) that accept short story submissions. Some of these allow users to filter for places that pay the contributors. Some examples: 'Shortstops' website and social media (mainly for UK and Ireland). ChillSubs is a new platform that seems to be popular with younger writers and offers lots of useful filter categories. Angela T. Carr regularly publishes a list of writers' competitions that are open to submissions on her website.
@@filmcourage That's the one! Our homepage is a little out-of-date due to technical issues, but there's plenty of writer interviews and book reviews to read on the blog if anyone is interested, and the e-mag downloads (of physical print mags that have sold out) are only £1. :)
If it takes more than an hour to read, it is longer than a short story. Aim for between 8 - 12 thousand words. In principle, as per research by John Gallishaw, between no less than 2 thousand words and no longer than 8 thousand words is the range for to have a satisfactorily developed short story and one that does not tax the patience of the average reader.
Does he not know magazines buy hundreds of short stories a month? It doesn't have to be a collection of short stories. The genre magazines are still around.
Hi. Can you name any of the magazines buying hundreds of short stories a month? I see a few quarterly lit mags around that offer a small fee to the writers they publish, but they'll be publishing maybe six stories per issue and seem to fold after only a few issues. (Finding a wide, consistent readership to support this business model is difficult.) Generally, publication itself and a free copy of the magazine is regarded as payment enough, but publishing credits from mags and journals = credibility in the eyes of editors at publishing houses. Like Jonathan says: writers would love to be paid, editors would love to be able to pay, but the money to do so just rarely exists in the literary journal world. Thanks.
Getting paid per word is not something of the past at all. This is nonsense. Go look at anthologies seeking submissions, professional rate is 8 cents US a word. Sure there are a lot more places paying less than professional rates down to as little as 1 cent a word (or even half cents) but there are hundreds of mags and anthos that still pay.
@@RaefonB I tend to write for one off themed anthologies. Usually anything that has an interesting theme. I'm thinking about submitting to The Off-Season which will be a collection of new weird fiction in coastal settings. Another few that finish the end of this month are 'Why Didn't You Just Leave' an antho of hauntings which address the socio economic (and other) reasons for characters not leaving horrific situations, and 'Escalators to Hell' horror and new weird set in shopping malls.
@@matthewhockey3473 I wonder if this is a U.S./UK difference... The States have a better history of respecting the short story form, it's very cool. I've been published in several anthologies but generally, over here in Britain, it's the same situation as being published in a magazine: you might get a free/discounted copy of the book, or not even that. No fee. The achievement of a publication credit on your writer's resume is expected to be payment enough. (Most of our indie publishers are really struggling.) Congratulations to you for the paid stories, and thanks for the tips. :) However, I'm currently editing an anthology of short stories and there IS a commission fee for each writer who gets selected, so that's a positive. (It's for Comma Press, who have a series of themed anthologies - the stories are all set in the same city and have to be written by people who live in/have strong connections to that city.)
When you write a script for an episode of a not more than 1-hour TV show, you are, in principle, writing a short story.
That's an interesting perspective. I would say both yes and no to that. Yes - you're telling a story in shorter time and more compact form than you would for a movie; it needs to work as a stand-alone story so that a casual viewer can follow along. But there will also probably be on-going story arcs for the show or show's current season that need to be incorporated, so it's not a completely independent piece of work. Maybe more like a chapter of a novel than a short story? The short story genre doesn't get enough respect - they can sometimes be harder to write than a novel, because there's no room for excess; every word and detail needs to be meaningful and carefully considered.
Big disagree. Stories are just a sliver of time within a universe. They can stand on their own. An episode of television, even for a sitcom needs to convey a greater universe. It needs to establish characters, relationships, and a greater situation that can serve as the basis for the entire show. It's not even remotely the same.
Format the story (or whatever you are sending) according to the requirements of the magazine/contest/publishing house. It is literally the easiest thing to do, a couple of clicks for spacing, font, quotation marks and the rest. If a magazine gets dozens or hundreds of submissions, excluding the ones that did not bother to even adhere to the layout requirements is the easiest thing they can do to save time on reading.
100% agree.
Could you please add more interviews of novel or short story writers. I’m not looking to be a screenwriter, but am writing books. Still love all your vids and the screenwriters you’ve interviewed have provided an incredible amount of knowledge. Thank you regardless and I’ll be forever in your debt 🙏🏼
Here are some of the authors we have interviewed - tinyurl.com/423s5sck And we do our best to add more when we can!
Do you have a channel called, "Book Courage?"
@@filmcourage wow, y’all are the best!
There was a lot of short story publication at the time of the pulps, which existed as a way to sell advertising, in magazines, that enjoyed special postage rates, because they contained material of literary merit. Some more than others :-) The Internet Archive maintains a vast library of examples, from Astounding Science Fiction to Black Mask et al
Thank you for everything you guys do to keep us informed. 🙏
I think this guy either misunderstood the question or didn't know an answer. It is WAAAAY easier to sell a short story to a publisher than a novel.
What experience can you add?
Thank you for your channel and excellent interviewing style - I watch a lot of Film Courage videos.
I'm an editor of an independent literary magazine (Here Comes Everyone) and I'm also a writer myself, including short stories. Something very few writers bother to do is buy at least one issue of a magazine (or check it out for free from a library) before sending in submissions, to see if it is a good match for their work. Do you like the aesthetic? Is the mag edgy enough for you? Do they publish your genre? Do they publish plenty of new writers or mostly go after the big names? Overall: would you be proud to see your work printed on these pages? Too many writers also don't do basic research like check the submission guidelines (e.g. Is it OK to send unsolicited work to the editors via email? Usual answer - no!) - which is a good way to get on an editor's bad side really fast, because you're creating more work for us...and most editors of unfunded magazines are working in their spare time for free.
There are various good resources out there for finding publications (or competitions) that accept short story submissions. Some of these allow users to filter for places that pay the contributors. Some examples: 'Shortstops' website and social media (mainly for UK and Ireland). ChillSubs is a new platform that seems to be popular with younger writers and offers lots of useful filter categories. Angela T. Carr regularly publishes a list of writers' competitions that are open to submissions on her website.
This is a great comment! Thank you for taking the time to post and share this information!
Is this your site? - hcemagazine.com
@@filmcourage That's the one! Our homepage is a little out-of-date due to technical issues, but there's plenty of writer interviews and book reviews to read on the blog if anyone is interested, and the e-mag downloads (of physical print mags that have sold out) are only £1. :)
(Thank you for sharing, much appreciated.)
Cheers!
If it takes more than an hour to read, it is longer than a short story. Aim for between 8 - 12 thousand words. In principle, as per research by John Gallishaw, between no less than 2 thousand words and no longer than 8 thousand words is the range for to have a satisfactorily developed short story and one that does not tax the patience of the average reader.
You like to say “ in principle “
I write short screenplays to hone my craft and hopefully give audiences an appetizer. Better than a let down feature 😂
Copyright all of your stories before you submit them to contest
How?
@@Dontfollowtreecopywrite.gov
My daughter in law has a friend whose story was stolen after a contest submission. I now pay the small fee to protect my work.
Does he not know magazines buy hundreds of short stories a month? It doesn't have to be a collection of short stories. The genre magazines are still around.
We talk about magazines in this video.
Thanks for posting!
Hi. Can you name any of the magazines buying hundreds of short stories a month? I see a few quarterly lit mags around that offer a small fee to the writers they publish, but they'll be publishing maybe six stories per issue and seem to fold after only a few issues. (Finding a wide, consistent readership to support this business model is difficult.) Generally, publication itself and a free copy of the magazine is regarded as payment enough, but publishing credits from mags and journals = credibility in the eyes of editors at publishing houses. Like Jonathan says: writers would love to be paid, editors would love to be able to pay, but the money to do so just rarely exists in the literary journal world. Thanks.
Felt like I could guess every answer
Getting paid per word is not something of the past at all. This is nonsense. Go look at anthologies seeking submissions, professional rate is 8 cents US a word. Sure there are a lot more places paying less than professional rates down to as little as 1 cent a word (or even half cents) but there are hundreds of mags and anthos that still pay.
That's good to know, can you name any of these anthologies that you think are particularly enjoyable to read/write for?
@@RaefonB I tend to write for one off themed anthologies. Usually anything that has an interesting theme. I'm thinking about submitting to The Off-Season which will be a collection of new weird fiction in coastal settings. Another few that finish the end of this month are 'Why Didn't You Just Leave' an antho of hauntings which address the socio economic (and other) reasons for characters not leaving horrific situations, and 'Escalators to Hell' horror and new weird set in shopping malls.
@@matthewhockey3473 I wonder if this is a U.S./UK difference... The States have a better history of respecting the short story form, it's very cool. I've been published in several anthologies but generally, over here in Britain, it's the same situation as being published in a magazine: you might get a free/discounted copy of the book, or not even that. No fee. The achievement of a publication credit on your writer's resume is expected to be payment enough. (Most of our indie publishers are really struggling.) Congratulations to you for the paid stories, and thanks for the tips. :)
However, I'm currently editing an anthology of short stories and there IS a commission fee for each writer who gets selected, so that's a positive. (It's for Comma Press, who have a series of themed anthologies - the stories are all set in the same city and have to be written by people who live in/have strong connections to that city.)
is there any money to be made in novels anyway? Isn't the artform dying from the obsession with bingeing Netflix?