Apples and Pears - Markets for Short Stories

When I started writing I wrote short stories, and it became very clear that there were two sorts of short stories: those that won short story competitions and those that were published in the women's magazines.  

They were not the same thing at all, as different as apples and pears.

When I started teaching I had a student who was determined to crack the women's magazine market because it was the only one that paid.  This is true.  He'd come to my class because he was getting rejected. He suspected a female conspiracy against him because he was a man.  Not true.  A good story is a good story, regardless of the sex of the writer.  

What became clear was that his inclinations were to write literary short stories, apples, if you like.  But the women's magazine market wants pears.  It makes no difference if you've got a juicy Braeburn, a crisp Cox's Orange Pippin, or a woolly Granny Smith - they're not pears.  

He refused to accept this, and stomped off in a huff. 

The same is true the other way round - if you're writing pears, they won't get placed in a literary short story competition.  Another student was having great success with the womags - hardly a week went by when she didn't report another sale - but yearned to win a short story competition.  It didn't happen for her, although she worked very hard at her writing.  

If you want to write short stories then you need to know your market.  How? Easy - read. Read, read, then read some more.  Apples?  Or pears?  Work it out, then apply to your own work. 

Short Stories for the Womag markets

One lunch time about a month ago my publicist rang me up: Woman's Own were urgently looking for a short story - could I provide one that day? I gaily said yes, despite not having one to hand. Say yes now, panic later, that's my motto. Luckily last year I'd been on a great course run by Joanna Barnden on how to write short stories for the women's magazine market aka womags.

Jo has had great success with this market herself and has worked out - well, I don't want to say formula as that sounds disparaging but essentially that's what it is, for writing womag short stories. It's quite straightforward and could apply to almost any form of writing: define the character's main problem and concentrate on how they solve it. With a novel the characters will have many problems to solve, some of which may never get resolved, but there is usually one central problem that has to be dealt with.

There's more to the day with Jo than just that as she takes you through all the elements that make up a successful short story. I'd half written one on the day, which she'd given me some feedback on which of course, I hadn't done anything about until my publicist called....but four hours later, armed with Jo's advice, I finished and sent off the story. You can see it in the current Woman's Own Summer Special - The Last Fairy on the Right. (It was supposed to be called The Last Pixie on the Right, but no pixie pix, they'd only got fairies hence the title change.)

So, many thanks to Jo. She's doing an Advanced Short Story course in Cornwall in August which I'm going to go on, but does others all round the country. I love going on writing courses but I wouldn't recommend many of the ones I've been on. I would this one; Jo's a good teacher, the course is well-organised and hey, I wrote a story and got it published!

Come to the launch party for Kissing Mr Wrong, 6.30pm on 20th May at Waterstones, Milsom Street, Bath. All welcome, but please ring 01225 448515 to let them have an idea of numbers.