Linda McHenry

Category: Writing

  • Do You Write Short Stories?

    Once upon a time, if you wrote short stories, you could make some serious money doing so. Nowadays, writing short stories isn’t so lucrative. At least not if you measure success in the form of money.

    Four years ago, I entered the first short story I ever wrote to the 16th annual Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Competition. I loved that story but sadly, it didn’t place in the top 25–which it needed to do to receive honorable mention and publication in the compilation edition.

    I was really surprised that the story didn’t receive mention, so I decided to conduct some more research into the required elements of a short story. I should have done that in the first place. No matter how much we think we know about writing, or publishing, or the market–things are constantly changing and there’s stuff we simply don’t know. For a smart person, I do some pretty dumb things sometimes…

    After conducting my research and taking months upon months for inspiration to strike so I could put that newly learned knowledge to work, I submitted my second short story to the 17th annual WD competition. Mama ranked 15th of more than 4,000 entries. (In reality, it ranked 16th and was fortunate enough to be booted up a place when one of the first 15 entrants withdrew his/her entry because it sold!) It was published in the compilation and has received some excellent reviews.

    During the past couple of years, I’ve found writing short stories to be a gold mine in terms of cultivating idea, honing my craft, and … well … telling stories. I’ve taken the first couple of chapters of a book that never got past the first act and turned them into a short story. I’ve taken ideas that simply don’t support an entire novel, and turned them into short stories. Right now, I’m taking a personal issue I’ve had for some time and, I hope, am in the process writing a short story as a form of catharsis.

    Will I actually publish it? Who knows? But I need to write every day and since writing these shorts seems to be helping me professionally, I’m fine with that. FYI, I revised that first short story and submitted it to a different competition earlier this year. I should know by the end of the month if it won.

    Here are a few tidbits I came up with when research the writing of short stories, followed by some short story markets that interest me. Disclaimer: This is information that appeals to me–it may not appeal to you. Feel free to share resources and info that appeals to you. Other people will likely share your perspective:

    • Word count for short stories is typically between 1,500 and 7,500 words. Having said that, some markets routinely accept stories up to 10,000 words.
    • Flash fiction, or short short stories, are between 500 and 1,500 words. Micro flash fiction can be even fewer than 500 words.
    • Writer’s Digest and Crazyhorse hold annual short story (and other ) competitions, in addition to publishing/buying them.
    • Other markets that publish/buy short stories include Story, The Sun, Fireside, and VQR.
    • The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog is a great resource, you should check it out.

    What challenges have you faced writing, marketing, and/or selling short stories? Want to share your own resources? We inquiring minds want to know…

     

     

  • Get it Write December 2019 is now available

    You can get a sneak preview of my newsletter, Get it Write, by clicking this link: https://mailchi.mp/534090fb3342/linda-mchenrys-get-it-write-december-2019

    If you ever miss a copy of either of my newsletters, just visit the Newsletters link in the link bar at the top of any page in the website.

     

     

  • My Take on the BEST Writing Tool

    I attended the New England Crime Bake last month for the second year in a row. Once again, I came home with the BEST advice and innumerable insights that have helped me immeasurably with my writing.

    This year, one of the panelists at a workshop I attended, a multi-published author, mentioned that she uses Scrivener to write her books and wouldn’t consider writing a book using any other tools/software. I checked the software out, was impressed, and downloaded the free trial.

    What appealed to me about the software was its claims that I could not only write my book in the software, I could also keep all my research notes, photos, resources, resource URLs, etc. in the same program AND refer to them while I was writing. Here’s why this appealed to me, and why I didn’t hesitate to spend the very reasonable $49 fee for a license to the product (which I can download on multiple devices):

    • I’d been writing my books (and all my works in progress) in Microsoft Word
    • I’d been keeping all my story notes, research, resources, images, URLs, etc. in Microsoft OneNote
    • I had to keep 2 programs open all the time when I was writing (or plotting, or researching), and switch back and forth between them (when traveling, or working on my laptop, this proved to be a difficult task–especially with respect to way saved my files in the cloud and had my syncing between devices set up)

    There was a little learning curve once I started using Scrivener, but that was shortened immensely by the fact that I read the entire manual while I had the program open before I began doing anything with it. (I didn’t bother reading the fourth section of the manual Final Phases, until after I’d been using the software for a while.)

    I absolutely ADORE Scrivener. One of my favorite things about it is I can write each scene separately. Sure, if I want to write each chapter with all its scenes intact, I can do that, too. But if something comes to me and I just want to write, I have that flexibility. All the scenes, chapters, folders, etc. are kept in a Binder that shows in a navigation pane. I can move anything around by simply clicking and dragging.

    For those of you who HAVE to outline and write in order, Scrivener lets you do that. For those of you who write organically, you can just write scenes and then stitch them together later. And for those of you like me, who outline AND write organically depending upon the moment … and the characters it’s wonderful.

    You can use Scrivener with Microsoft and Mac, and you can easily export the files of your choice into any of the following formats: DOC, DOCX, PDF, RTF, TXT, ODT, HTML, XHTML, PS, EPUB, MOBI, MMD, FODT, OPML, and TEX.

    Do any of you use it? If so, tell me what you do and don’t like about it? If you don’t use it, check it out!

    Here’s the link for Scriveners for Windows, and here’s the link for Scrivener for Mac OS, and here’s the link for Scrivener for iOS.

     

     

  • I am Back!


    Just a quick post to let you know I have not fallen off the face of the earth. The month of April brought that horrible stomach flu to my household and had us all laying low for nearly two weeks.

    Fortunately, the bug released its grip in time for us to head out to Florida on vacation, as planned, and for me to enjoy my birthday and Easter.

    I’ll be releasing my April Insurance Tidbits newsletter before the end of the month, along with my quarterly writing newsletter, Get it Write.In addition, my May webinar schedule will be posted tomorrow!

  • February newsletter

    If you’d like to read the February issue of Get it Write, it’s now available online.

    The spotlighted author this month is Michael J. Malone.