Twenty Things to Do before Submitting Your Story to a Lit Mag: Part 2

Founder of Submitit offers a second round of revision advice

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers and editors around the world.

---

In Part 1, I covered a number of tasks that I think will help bring your writing up a level or two. For lack of a better word, these tasks were somewhat “pedestrian” in nature. Now, let’s run!

The following tasks are more focused on craft and style, covering aspects of writing I see again and again in the best literary fiction and creative nonfiction.

(As mentioned in Part 1, in the examples below I will occasionally refer to stories in The Best American Short Stories of the Century (hereon: BASSC) (ed. John Updike).)

1.      Vary your sentences by structure and length.

Writers often write the same kinds of sentences (usually ones of medium length). I recommend varying your sentence structures. Short sentences. Complex sentences (with dependent and independent clauses). Compound sentences (two independent clauses). Maybe some fragments (as I’m using now). Flowing, comma-less sentences. Choppy, comma-filled sentences. Etc. Varying your sentence structures and lengths will make your writing more rhythmically interesting. Readers won’t necessarily know you’re doing this, but they’ll subconsciously “hear” it.

If you have the time and wherewithal, try the following exercise: Line up your sentences (so that each starts on a new line), and analyze for type and length. You should be able to literally see the rhythm of your sentences. If most of them are similar, consider some rewriting. Of course, you won’t do this for every story you write, but it’s a good exercise to try now and then.

Most of the greats naturally vary their sentences—my favorite writers are making music, are composing textual symphonies—but for some exceptional examples in BASSC, check out William Saroyan’s “Resurrection of a Life,” Robert Penn Warren’s “Christmas Gift,” James Alan McPherson’s “Gold Coast” (especially check out the third and fourth paragraphs on p. 485), Harold Brodkey’s “Verona: A Young Woman Speaks,” Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl,” and Carolyn Ferrell’s “Proper Library” (you could really just read this one story—it touches all the bases).

2.      Give your work a “details edit.” Nothing but details.

I talk about details a lot when I edit. They are an important part of most literary fiction and creative nonfiction, and they often separate good writing from great. Here’s a little gem from Nabokov:

The sky was a chaos of black and flesh-colored clouds with an ugly sunburst beyond a hooded hill, and the dead man was lying on his back under a dusty plane tree.

—Vladimir Nabokov, “That in Aleppo Once . . . ,” in BASSC, 243

Our job as writers—not always, but often—is to paint pictures, to construct images for our readers. And we usually do this with details. Your sensibility as a writer should tell you when enough is enough, but when it comes to details, more is often more.

So try reading through your story and do nothing but add details. Go crazy. You can always delete later. Of course, writing details is a skill that takes practice and time. This is not just a box to check. And you should watch for unintended repetition. But doing a details edit is a great way to practice. Stories almost always improve.

I’ll mention several stories from BASSC below (although, in truth, it’s hard (but not impossible (see Kafka, for example)) to find a great story that’s not overflowing with details). While you read these, try focusing entirely on details (perhaps do this on second reads): Jean Toomer’s “Blood-Burning Moon,” Vladimir Nabokov’s (brilliant) “That in Aleppo Once . . . ,” Jean Stafford’s “The Interior Castle,” Alice Munro’s (spectacular) “Meneseteung,” and Gish Jen’s “Birthmates.”

3.      Check your first sentence and first paragraph(s).

Great short stories usually have great first sentences:

Up from the skeleton stone walls, up from the rotting floor boards and the solid hand-hewn beams of oak of the pre-war cotton factory, dusk came.

—Jean Toomer, “Blood-Burning Moon,” in BASSC, 60

Enough said. Make your first sentence sing.

Beyond the first sentence, I think it’s important to zoom out a bit and make sure the first paragraph is also riveting (or the first few paragraphs if they’re short). I’ve read some great first sentences, only to be disappointed by the end of the paragraph. Also, a great first paragraph takes some pressure off your first sentence.

There are definitely many exceptions to this. Sometimes a story wants to ease the reader in. Sometimes subtlety is the goal. But usually, especially in the world of lit mag submissions, if the first paragraph or two aren’t great, if they don’t grab like a fish hook, the story’s probably in trouble.

4.      Check your ending.

Most great short stories have something in common: endings are a bit enigmatic. Sometimes they feel strangely abrupt (most of them have this quality). Sometimes they seem digressive. Sometimes they swerve. Sometimes they twist. In nearly all of them, they jolt the reader in some way. It is the very end of a whip that stings. Make your endings sting a bit.

Many writers try to end their stories by neatly tying things up, particularly in a way that takes the reader outside of the story: no dialogue, no details, no scene—just explanation. This is almost always a mistake.

The solution often involves (1) cutting (cutting is the solution to so many problems) and (2) adding interesting and preferably relevant details. Cut the explanation. Talk about some clouds. You’ll be surprised how well simply cutting explanation and adding details can work.

Below is my favorite from BASSC:

“My sweet little blue-eyed girl,” he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with [Connie’s] brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him, so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.

—Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” in BASSC, 465

That gives me the shivers (and the creeps) every time. Just flip through endings in BASSC and be inspired.

5.      Give your work a “figurative language edit.” Nothing but figurative language.

Figurative language (metaphors, similes) is an important part of much literary fiction and creative nonfiction. This is clearly an art, and not something to rush (hackneyed or clumsy figurative language is much worse that no figurative language). But it’s something most writers should try working into their writing.

As we did with details, go through and only add figurative language. When you get to a description or action, look for the perfect metaphor. Perhaps you have someone entering a strange room. Have her enter the room as if entering a dream. Perhaps you have clouds moving across a sky. Have the clouds move like unruly children across the sky. Or maybe like medusas across a sea of sky. Perhaps someone accepts a gift. Have him accept it as the poor accept their alms. And so on. (I’m just improvising here—which, by the way, is the idea. It’s good practice. You can always cut later.)

Keep in mind, you should be picky with your metaphors. A writer (I think it was David Mitchell) said you should rank all of your metaphors on a scale of one to five, and then kill your ones, twos, and threes. I think this is good advice. But get them down, if you can. You can delete them later.

Following are some especially good examples of figurative language: Tennessee Williams’s “The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin” (one could write a thesis on the figurative language in this classic, especially his use of extended metaphors), Rosellen Brown’s “How to Win,” and Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl.”

6.      Sprinkle in some interesting vocabulary.

Many writers might skip this one, but if you have a list of favorite words (yes, I have a list, actually many lists, of favorite words), or if you just feel like spicing up your prose a bit, you might try adding some interesting vocabulary.

I suggest you use a thesaurus. I’m not sure why, but some writers feel guilty about this. I understand that it might slow you down if you’re on a writing roll, but I think a thesaurus is a hugely important tool. I use onelook.com/reverse-dictionary; as the URL says, it’s more of a reverse dictionary than a thesaurus, but (for this reason, perhaps) it often gives me words I didn’t even know I was looking for. I also occasionally use thesaurus.com; no bells or whistles, but it comes in handy.

There are also books dedicated to interesting words. For example, I frequently turn to one called Descriptionary: A Thematic Dictionary. Why have a cloud scratch across a sky when I can have a noctilucent cloud scratch across the sky (page 108)? Why a cat lover when I could have an ailurophile (one who loves cats, page 3)? Why shortness of breath when I could have dyspnea (page 212). (Yes, I’m just turning to random pages.)

Some—perhaps most—writers will be content with an everyday—I almost wrote milquetoast—vocabulary. But you might try spicing up (or macerating (page 160)) your vocabulary before putting a toothpick (to continue the baking metaphor) in your work. Just make sure you’re using the words correctly and appropriately for the style and tone of your writing.

7.      Give your work five “sense edits,” one for each sense.

Consider this an addition to (or continuation of) the details edit I mentioned above. Chances are that most of the details you added during your details edit had to do with sight. But consider the other four senses (touch, smell, sound, taste). Of course, do a sense edit with sight, but you’ll probably get more out of exploring the other senses, ones most writers seem to ignore.

Let’s say you’re walking through a grassy field. Don’t just describe the appearance of the waving grasses (naming these grasses would be cool (see specificity below). Tell me about the way the bristles get stuck in your socks and itch your ankles (touch), the way the smell reminds you of the wind-swept fields of your uncle’s farm (smell), the way the grasses’ murmur is like the whispering of lost lovers (sound). You might even be able to somehow taste the grass’s sharpness in the air.

In BASSC, check out Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (note how she describes sound and touch), Alice Adams’s “Roses, Rhododendron,” and Pam Durban’s “Soon” (sound, touch, and smell).

8.      Give your work a “specificity edit.”

This is similar to a details edit; in fact, you could probably do a specificity edit and a details edit at the same time. Specificity is a special kind of detail that focuses on proper nouns and specific types. Don’t tell me someone drove a car down the street, tell me he drove a ’79 Pontiac Firebird (maybe with a missing headlight and a primer-colored door) down Continental Ave. Don’t tell me someone ate at a burger joint, tell me they ate a One-Pound Special with all the fixins at Mac’s Burgers on Fifth, across from Adams Park. Don’t tell me Adams Park is full of trees, tell me it’s full of maples, elms, oaks, willows, lindens, etc.

As with details, you can take this as far as you’d like. Have a character sit in a Louis XV marquise chair with an upholstered tapestry of Titian’s The Rape of Europa on the seat and back. That’s specificity.   

Most of the “detailists” are also “specificists,” so read my details examples above. But you could do much worse than simply reading Nabokov, any Nabokov (e.g., “That in Aleppo Once . . .”); he is the master with this stuff.

9.      Read for inspiration . . . and then edit.

When I was a professional drummer (a lifetime ago, it seems), I learned that listening to the right music on my way to a gig would inspire me (consciously, but more importantly also unconsciously) to play in a certain way. For many of us, I think the same is true for our writing. When I need a little inspiration in terms of the sound of my prose, I read some Dillard or Doerr or Bass or McCarthy (Cormac) or Woolf. When I need to inject playfulness into my writing, I’ll pull some Nabokov or Pynchon or Joyce or Barth off my shelf. If I want to tone down my “sound” and “play” and focus more on the story, Carver always works. Or just get it all over with and read Borges.

It’s amazing to me how doing this can really color my day’s writing. I suppose that over time, as we continue to develop and concretize our own styles, these readings will influence us less and less (they’ll already be baked in). But it’s still something worth trying before you revise your work.

10.  Find a great editor.

As everyone knows, editing your own work can be difficult. So finding a great editor is often a good idea, especially one who can help with submissions to lit mags. I know at least one. :)

---