Recently, I had a short story published in the Baltimore Review. I tweeted out my good news, and another writer responded, asking me about writing short stories. He finished his question with “Do you think it’s worth it?”
That stopped my fingers mid-tweet. “It depends on how you define worth,” I finally replied.
There are a lot of really good reasons to write a short story.
The bad news: None of them involve money.
If you define an activity’s worth by its financial return, you’d be better off setting up a lemonade stand with the neighbor’s kid than writing short stories.
To produce a short story, you’ll likely spend 10 to 30 hours writing, revising, agonizing over, and polishing the story, plus more hours to find the right publishers and submit to them. You may get lucky on the first submission, but chances are good it will take quite a few submissions before a publisher says that magic “Yes.” Or you may have to write a lot of stories before one gets published. There’s a ton of competition in this industry, as we all know.
What do short-story publishers pay? A few of the more established literary magazines or anthologies may pay you a small fee (usually $50 or less), but most publishers of short stories (primarily websites and literary magazines) don’t pay anything. If they produce print issues, they may send you a copy of the issue in which your story appears, but most have moved to online formats, so you may not even get that. When it comes to cash… well, the only people who make less money than writers are publishers of small lit mags.
Quick math: If you spend 30 hours writing and submitting a story and you receive $50 for it, that works out to the enviable wage of … $1.76/hour.
Some short story contests offer attractive cash awards. But your story will compete with 1,000-10,000 other submissions to win that prize. Sure, it might happen, but the odds of getting published are better if you submit to a small non-paying lit mag instead.
That lemonade stand is looking pretty good right now, isn’t it?
The good news: Money is a terrible way to define “worth.”
In fact, there are many other ways to define worth. And all of them have great value for writers. Here are some of the ways writing short stories can benefit you as a writer:
- Stretch your writing skills – Any physical trainer will tell you it’s a bad idea to focus all your workouts on a single muscle group. To maintain your best physical health, you need to alternate between cardio, strength, and weight training, work on all your muscle groups, etc. Changing up your routine is as beneficial for your writing as it is for your body. Short stories let you depart from your routine, stretch some new muscles, and bring those experiences back to your novel-writing.
- Sharpen a particular technique – Tempted to try something new, like a new genre, point of view, or dialogue style? A short story gives you the opportunity to explore something new without feeling overwhelmed by the thought of committing to it for an entire novel.
- Clear out the cobwebs – Bogged down in the murky middle of your novel? Set it aside for a few days and write a short story instead. The short respite and breath of fresh creative air may be just the thing you need to reset your brain without completely derailing you from your current novel-in-progress.
- Gain some new writing cred – If your short story gets published, that’s a new publishing credit to add to your query letter (and to your social media feed or family holiday newsletter, if that’s your thing).
- Focus on focusing – Tackling a short story will help you focus on scene-building, character development, and conflict under tighter constraints than you’re used to. A short story has built-in boundaries, such as short timeframe, minimal scene changes, and limited plot points. Where the luxurious length of a novel may tempt your ideas and language to wander, a short story will force you to rein in your creative beast, which will make your language and ideas sparkle.
- Boost your ego – Face it, we’re our own worst enemies, and we spend a lot of time wallowing in self-doubt. Getting a short story published is an ego boost, which can help remind us that we’re not imposters. We are truly writers.
- Free your inner child – If you’re a novel writer, tackling a short story can feel like playtime. There’s no deadline, no pressure, no need to submit it anywhere if you don’t want to. You can use a short story as a break to remind yourself that you write because you love words. Roll around in those words. Bounce them off the walls like plastic primary-colored balls in a kid’s ball pit. Stretch them. Slash them. Paste them together in totally unexpected ways. In short (ha! pun intended), have a ball!
These are just a few ways that writers can find “worth” in writing short stories. If you think of more benefits of short-story writing, share them in the Comments below.
Happy (short) writing!
[Photo by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay]
Agreed…..agreed. Very well said.
Excellent response. It’s a good question for any kind of writing considering the odds against getting published. But hey–we seem to do it anyway. At least there’s not all the overhead expense of lemons, sugar, and cups.
LOL! Way to look on the bright side!
Interesting ideas, Kelley.A friend of mine wanted to write adult fiction. She got into VCFA and her mentor
had her write short stories before they got her revising her novel. I suspect it was for the same reasons you suggest: tightening up and not wandering.
I bet you’re right. Sounds like a savvy mentor.
So much truth here. I also find writing short stories prevents me from falling into the trap of believing EVERY idea warrants novel-length exploration. Sometimes I just need to get those character voices on the page fast, let them say their piece, so I can get back to focusing on a lengthier project.
Congrats on your published story (lucrative or otherwise).
Oh Rachel, I like that! “Not EVERY idea warrants novel-length exploration.” Perhaps we should have t-shirts made! And thank you.
Hi Kelley!
Great advice!
I recently self published a novel that I categorized as YA. However, it has adult themes and is a dark coming of age novel.
My question is, do you ever read books, for a fee of course, and offer your opinion on how to market that book?
Thank you in advance.
Ruth Sharp
Hi Ruth! Sadly, I don’t have any spare hours to take on any new projects, and I don’t consider myself an expert on marketing self-published books. I know marketing is often harder than writing the book itself, so I feel your pain! There are tons of great resources on marketing out there — books, websites, YouTube videos, conferences and workshops, etc. Good luck!
Excellent! I routinely participate in short story contests (most require a small fee, so there goes the possible $1.76/hour!) because I love the challenge of stretching those “other genre” muscles. I particularly love the nycmidnight.com contests (thousands submit) because regardless of how you place, you get feedback from 3 readers on what they liked and what they thought could be improved on your submission. The tight deadlines also appeal to me, and I think most would agree that completing a project–even short story length–feels great. I’ve published my own collection of short stories, and most are from those contest entries. From my perspective, writing short stories is absolutely “worth it”!
Laurel, that is a great perspective! And thank you so much for the tip about nycmidnight.com. That’s an excellent opportunity.
The main reason to write short stories is simply because you enjoy reading them and writing them. Just as one would with poetry or essays or any other form of writing. Not everyone writes for money, though prolific, really good short story writers can squeeze out some decent income. Hell, some lucky short story writers have had their stories made into movies and TV series. Frankly, writing novels is financially rewarding for a relative few. Personally, I prefer writing novels over short stories, though I’ve written a few in the last 3 years and published 2. The income was negligible, but I found myself enjoying writing the stories, and I do feel, as Kelley ably spells out above, that writing short stories contributes to your writing skills overall.
Definitely, I should have led with “because you love it.” Thank you!! ?