I'm tying to find ways to connect my short story collection so it can become marketable for agents to sell to publishers. I read that nowadays in order for authors to get short story collection or collection of short novels published by big publishers is to have the stories unified. I was wondering, what are ways to unify the short novels?
Plot arcs and characters are most common. You can also use a setting, though without something more that may not be enough. Selling a collection of short stories if you're not already a known author is not an easy thing to do.
I've come across some popular agents through twitter and tumblr who gave me the advice to unify the stories some how thats why i asked cuz i didnt know how to do that. It was one who said she'll have a look at it as it is but judging from research online, short story collection or novella collections are hard to sell to publishers thats why i would have a better chance at unifying the stories. But this the thing, my collection of short novels take place in the same setting, at the same time (dual POV), characters CONSTANTLY pops up in each other POV, characters have relationship/friendship/rival with each other, in the same class together etc etc lol BUT if i was to take out a character WHOLE entire POV, it can stand on its own as a short novel. Thats the only thing. Im confused
There are many ways to do this. Repeating characters. Using the same setting. Things like that can work. But the most cleverly put together short-story collection I ever read is called The News from Spain by Joan Whickersham. Every story in the collection is titled The News from Spain. It's really great. Another thing is to try and publish your short stories in literary journals and magazines. You will still be able to include them in your collection, and it will help agents take more notice if you manage to place some of these stories in well-known publications.
