For those who regularly get short stories published…

Think what you want, I didn’t come here to debate. We’re getting sidetracked from the point I was making, which is that in the year or so that I’ve had poetry published, I’ve learned a lot from my successes and my failures.

That, in turn, was a sidetrack from what I came here to ask about, which is that while my beta readers enjoy my short fiction, I haven’t had anywhere near as much success with that. Some are saying my results are par for the course, others are saying my short stories probably aren’t as good as my poetry, which they may very well not be.

Even if it’s the latter, I’m debating with myself whether to work to reach the level of prolific short story writers like 7 Crowns or to put that time and effort into poetry, where I already have that kind of success.

The part about “getting excited” is just how I deal with the fact that I’ve faced some very hostile criticism for the things I’ve written that I felt needed to be said. Georges Brassens, one of my influences as a poet, dealt with it the same way. I figure it beats crying and sulking every time some jerk calls me a name like those young “snowflakes” we hear about.

 

To answer the question of why you seem to be publishing more poetry than short stories, here's my two cents, in simple (perhaps over-simple) terms:

A. You might be a better poet than a writer. It could be as simple as that.

B.

Lower-level, non-paying markets are going to accept more submissions than those that pay.

Or C. Because of the nature of both poetry and fiction, and the nature of each's readers, one is more difficult than the other. Which one? That depends on the writer. I've been very lucky publishing fiction this year, but not published a scrap of poetry. And here, we loop back to A.

Write outstanding stories. That's the only thing you can do. Pay attention to what they want, and do it exceptionally well. Give them something original, or something done in an original way. Of course it's not as easy as all that, but that's essentially all there is to it nonetheless.

To address your original post... as for making a name for yourself, it sounds like you've done that with your poetry. You want to make a name for yourself in fiction, then to me - personally - it doesn't sound like you write enough of it to do so. If you've not enough material to publish a chapbook, as you say, then that isn't enough material to make a name for yourself in short fiction. Of course, this is again an over-simplification: one extremely outstanding piece of fiction could do more for a writer than a hundred good pieces for another. But you have to consider how many people are going to read it, and this means getting as much out there as possible. Considering the percentages mentioned, this means writing a lot. So if this is what you want to do, write more.

 

Piper, your answer has been helpful. That’s what I’ve come to suspect.

 

Update: I spoke with my friend over the weekend. He writes both poems and short stories. Like me, he’s had a lot of poems published, but he’s been writing stories for years and has had one novella, one novelette, and two short stories published. I thought I’d mention it here for anyone else in a similar situation.

He says short stories are definitely a harder task than poems, like symphonies compared with songs. He thinks my stories are good enough to publish, and that my writer’s block with stories is from worrying about the audience instead of writing for myself and writing fearlessly like I do my poems.

So, I’ll still write the short stories, but most likely, they’ll remain a sideshow. I don’t know how people such as Carly Berg write so many!

 

I finally got a short story published! My story “A Stitch in Time” is in the October 2023 issue of The Creativity Webzine.

 

Dude, congratulations.

 

Thank you!