Category Archives: -Karen Kittrell

One Part Genesis, One Part Darwin and One Part Machiavelli

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Although I might plan to relax or sleep, writing ideas germinate at the oddest times. I jot a note on Monday to write about one topic. Tuesday counters with a new subject or two. Wednesday offers three more choices. After the month passes, I have pages of new ideas for short stories, posts, and even novel worthy topics. The difficulty comes in choosing and debating the strength of each idea.

A genesis process begins before each project. An idea fragment initiates a chain reaction. In true Genesis fashion, here’s what happens to an idea for something as simple as a blog post.

The Paris Review tweets a 1980s interview with Raymond Carver which begat
rereading “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” which begat
watching Birdman and the use of Carver in the movie which begat
finding other films directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu which begat
studying Inarritu’s co-writers and the two years to write the script which begat
researching cinematography for a one-shot narrative which begat
discussing the similarities between Birdman and a play which begat
outlining theme connections between Carver’s story and the film which begat
finding examples of magical realism . . .

Now Darwin, the scientist whose name symbolizes survival of the fittest, comes into play. The possibilities for the Carver idea within what I call my “genesis stage” are numerous. I keep this idea, and who knows, it might be a post on this blog in the future. The subject interests me much more than one of my other ideas about the financial funding of literary magazines. Although valuation practices and financial topics are potential dinner conversation at my table, the rest of the world might be in REM sleep after appetizers. Unless a topic can evolve, the idea turns cold, extinct and not fit to survive in my black and white world of words.

As the deadline approaches, I enter the “Machiavellian stage” of decision making. In the example of this blog post, three ideas remain – the Carver Birdman Connection (CBC), Writing of Mom (MOM), and Genesis, Darwin and Machiavelli (GDM). Now, my brain wrestles with the competing ideas.

CBC: There’s research into my idea. But how will it hold together?
MOM: Remember mother’s birthday is on the post date.
GDM: There’s not much time. The MOM topic is a bit too sentimental.
MOM: What about “writing secrets” kept from mom?
CBC: That could be rich.
GDM: MOM is too fluffy for June. That’s an August topic.
CBC: I suppose it is between GDM and me. I have a wealth of material.
GDM: Carver-Birdman is too heavy for a June post.
CBC: My topic is fascinating. It could be more than a blog post.
GDM: You’re right, it’s too big for a blog post. Discussion over. Now write.

With the argument settled, the post topic practically writes itself. Tomorrow begins a new round of genesis, Darwinism and Machiavellian debate over which story to finish or whether it’s time to return to the manuscripts.

Help Wanted – First Sentence

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Look, my old friend, my opening sentence . . . things are not working out. The other sentences are having to work overtime to make up for you. You’re not doing your share of the work, and your fit with the rest of the story is not what I expected. I thought you were the one. But I’ve changed and you are . . . still the same bunch of words I wrote last year. I’m sorry, but you have to go. You’re deleted.

Help Wanted: New first sentence needed in short story. Must be a team player, innovative, hard working, and dependable. Preferred applicants will have experience in attention grabbing, mood creation, and innuendo. Relocation possible.

A first sentence creates curiosity. In a short story, the writer wastes no time and no words delivering the beginning of the story. The main character incurs conflict almost immediately and begins in the action or mood of the piece. First sentences can deceive to intrigue the reader. Others warn of impending troubles. Point of view and narrative distance add richness and texture to the story and the voice of the writer. The theme is almost tangible in the first paragraph if not the very first sentence.

When I need a new sentence, I reference my favorite openers. Why does the sentence work? What is the unanswered question? Do words like beautiful, murderous and homeless lure readers? Can a sparse statement say more than a long sentence? How does Wolfe or Faulkner paint broad brushstrokes of the scene’s details? The collection below of short and long sentences demonstrates the magic of a powerful opening line.

“It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from her house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these.” — Alice Walker, “Flowers”

“One day you have a home and the next you don’t, but I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it is my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks.” — Sherman Alexie, “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem”

“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” — John Updike, “A&P”

“Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper.” — Tobias Wolfe, “Bullet in the Brain”

“‘Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting,’ she said.” — Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

“Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple.” Raymond Carver, “Neighbors”

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” — Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

“They discovered the first one in a cupboard above the stove, beside an unopened bottle of malt vinegar.” — Jhumpa Lahiri, “This Blessed House”

“When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years.” — William Faulkner, “A Rose For Emily”

“Do not go outside.” — Ander Monson, “To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder”

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” — Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

“On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”

After reading successful first sentences, I interview several job applicants for my new first sentence. I try each one in the vacant space at the beginning of my story. The new sentences are so eager to please, changing to fit with the rest of the piece. Then, one sentence works harder than the rest.

Applying for the open position? Your application says you’re flexible with change. Good, my edits might move or change you. You might not even recognize yourself when I’m finished. Here’s where you will work. Sit down. Try it out. Think you can do the job?

 

Call Me Plankton, Not Ishmael

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Quality literary journals aim to publish works worthy of inclusion in anthologies such as Best American Short Stories (BASS) or the Pushcart Prize. With that very serious statement, I’m more of the mind to consider the acronym, BASS, and fall to the temptation of dreaming about fly fishing and lures named Woolly Bugger and Sneeky Pete Popper. Oh, I didn’t stop there. Videos on the Orvis How to Fly Fish Center show graceful casting and educate in short one minute segments. It occurs to me the pursuit of bass for sport and BASS (Best American Short Stories) for literature require some of the same techniques for casting and choosing lures.

In the great literary fish tank, the food chain dominates. As an emerging author, I am small, like plankton floating among the smallest of fish. Editors in journals or magazines prefer to publish as big a fish as possible. Often, submissions are skewed to published authors with novels on their resumes, and hence, no plankton need apply. Selective editors prefer certain lures with statements of “no simultaneous submissions” to avoid chum tossed overboard and a feeding frenzy.

For the sake of this article, let’s assume BASS is a large mouth bass, which swims in deeper and slower water. Like the aquatic fish, BASS wants only smaller fish that are published in American and Canadian national journals. These journals, the first publishers of a great short story, are baitfish for BASS. And from my research, BASS prefers certain fish more than others. Some might also argue that the editors of these journals work much harder to get selected by BASS.

John Fox, on Bookfox, ranks literary journals and magazines for the ability to publish stories which are eventually selected for the annual BASS anthology. He assigns points for both appearance and mentions. Every Writers’ Resource also ranks the journals using different criteria such as the number of years a journal has been in publication and a broader range of anthologies are considered. The favorite baitfish in these rankings are: The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Glimmer Train, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Georgia Review, New England Review, The Kenyon Review and Paris Review.

The Pushcart Prize is the best of the worlds’ small presses for poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or excerpts from novels. If in our example, Pushcart is a small mouth bass, then expect feeding on the surface in moving water, around rocks and ledges. According to the Orvis videos, a fisherman should observe the food sources in the water and emulate the food with the lure. Upon seeing baby crayfish, use the lure with the reddish-orange feathers and fur.  Clifford Garstang’s Pushcart Prize Rankings also list Tin House, Ploughshares and Paris Review as top ten favorites, but Pushcart draws heavily from Conjunctions, One Story, Southern Review, A Public Space, Zoetrope: All Story, Kenyon Review, and Three Penny.

As the apex predator, the reader, I want what is considered the best, but quite honestly, I enjoy reading everything. At bottom of the food chain, as the emerging writer, I learn and submit to places which might offer an opportunity. My goal is to create my own top ten list and submit them to death. However, I did submit to a February contest in the BASS top ten feeder journals. Although my probability of winning is low, actually infinitesimal, I receive a subscription to the review which makes it a win for plankton, apex readers and the journal’s overall readership.

Hungry for a Short Story

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WARNING: May cause cravings for Spanish tapas and short stories.

A meal of Spanish tapas is similar to the reading of short stories. Imagine different flavorful dishes served one after another – combinations of vegetables, fish, cheeses and more. Dinner guests suffice with a few bites of each dish. Add dates, sherry and marinated olives to the next round of tapas. Still hungry? Order again from the menus – hot or cold – with different ingredients, seasonings and sauces. Want more? Then turn the page for the next short story in an anthology because reading these tasty bites are just as delicious.

Like tapas, short stories come in many different forms and structures. Longer stories might be structured as miniature novels. The reader travels at warp speed through the character arch or hero’s journey. A short story, however, might give a glimpse into only one aspect of a longer story. In The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, one of the contributing writers, Nathan Leslie, categorizes flash fiction into five basic types: the monologue, the tale, the scene, the snapshot story, and the experiment. Leslie states the individual scene is the most common. The scene format worked for my first short story which I entered and placed in a contest. Since a novelist already thinks in scenes, this style is an easy transition to short stories. Likewise, in a tapas restaurant, an order might begin with the more familiar food items and progress to the more experimental.

The waiter brings the tapas and proudly says the name of the dish. We have ordered several tapas. Perhaps if the restaurant were not so loud, or our Spanish were better, or less of the sangria had found its way to our glasses, we would know what was in front of us. Nevertheless, part of the fun is guessing the dish. We sniff for the garlic and look for the pimento. And then, someone sees the olives and knows it is definitely the beef. A novel prolongs the guessing of who “done it” or “will do it.” Guessing games frequent literature, television shows and even childhood playtime such as Hide and Go Seek; Animal, Vegetable, Mineral; and Hangman. Short stories are guessing games on steroids. The form compresses the timeframe and eliminates unnecessary details or facts. The reader must parse through subtle gestures and implications to arrive at the theme and decipher hidden clues, meanings and flavors.

When I mention tapas, I also speak of menus, waiters and restaurants because it is far easier to eat tapas at a restaurant with a bevy of chefs, cooks and busboys. Similarly, short stories are a treasure to read and analyze yet very difficult to write. The challenge is to determine the most concise presentation of the theme and then the best way to reveal the story.

Now I have to decide which theme I want to write next. Which one of these will it resemble?

QUESO DE CABRA CON NUECES – goat cheese rolled in caramelized pecans, served with poached pear in red wine, grapes and toast points

CAZUELA DE PULPO – marinated octopus with sweet peppers and sherry vinaigrette

CAZUELA DE POLLO SALTEADO – casserole of sautéed chicken with garlic, chorizo, mushrooms and amontillado sauce

PINCHO DE SOLOMILLO A LA PIMIENTA – grilled beef brochette rolled in cracked pepper, served with caramelized onions and horseradish sauce

If you’re tempted by these tapas, stop at Emilio’s Tapas in Chicago for any of the menu items above. Take along an anthology of short stories by Spanish authors. Or practice your Spanish and read Colombian short story writer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Write This Not That

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Completing a 100,000 word manuscript is a daunting task. Craft elements can go rogue and crash a well-intended plot. Months, and yes, years pass in the process of writing and editing. Babies are born. Children graduate from school. And everyone grows older except for the fledgling characters in the story. For many, even writers disciplined enough to attend writers’ groups, workshops or conferences, the hurdle of a completed manuscript is too high, at least initially. If the goal is publication, then contests are an opportunity to build a writing resume.

Ah contests, I remember them well – working each entry until the last minute before the midnight deadline, correcting stupid (and stupider) mistakes and editing phrases or lines to finish with the right word count or page number. For the price of a contest entry fee, you get all this nail-biting and neurotic sort of fun.

Fortunately, contests also provide a test market for your work, a marking to market of your ability. In other words, how do I compare to a pool of equally aspiring writers? Sometimes, the winners, especially in literary magazines, are so amazing I’m tempted to abandon writing and begin any number of long neglected chores like taxes, continuing education or even cleaning. Other times, the winning entries bring a jaw dropping, head scratching, and audible “huh.” Writing is the quintessential Olympic ice dancing event as opposed to the timed or measured track and field sport.

You can slant the odds in your favor. Creative pursuits require sound project management grounded in probability. For example, is it possible that I might get my first-ever written manuscript published? Yes, but it’s not probable. Can I hone my skills and compete in contests with a possibility of publication? More probable. A combination of strategy, research, practice and numbers makes small wins lead to bigger wins.

Strategy begins with contest selection. Highly advertised contests receive more entries. If my odds of getting struck by lightning are higher than winning – all ego aside – I’m skipping the contest. Contests held by non-writing organizations draw a wider range of writing levels and are better for increasing the odds of placing at the top. Note – the uber literary MFA types are less likely to enter a short story contest sponsored by Ducks Unlimited. Competing against unpublished writers, defined differently by each contest, is another viable strategy. Additionally, research can enhance strategy. I read the publications hosting the contest or writing samples of the past winners. If the judge is announced, I research (i.e. internet literary stalk) the judge’s style, education, publications and demographic factors that might make an entry emotionally connect with him or her. Know the audience. My writing improves from the research alone (if I’m not driven to binge cleaning by the past years’ winners).

Compared to the first two steps, practice is the easy part of the process. This year, my practice area is short stories, and in the coming blog posts, I will share more about short stories, contests, and publications. Finally, the contest process depends on the law of averages – the numbers. The more contests a writer enters (assuming strategy, research and practice) determines the likelihood of success. With that in mind, here is my plan for the coming year, and perhaps, your plan also:

  1. Search for smaller, less publicized contests.
  2. Compile a contest spreadsheet sorted by deadline and word count lengths.
  3. Assess your current writing inventory available for contests.
  4. Look for opportunities to experiment with different lengths or genres.
  5. Identify specific contest deadlines within the next three months.
  6. Research the publication, contest winners, and judges.
  7. Write. Edit. Edit. Write.

Submit. Wait. Submit again.