Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Transition from novel writing to short stories

This past week I decided to start working on a new short story. I hadn’t written one in a long time, since I was occupied solely with my novel The Darkening. If I remember correctly, the last short story I wrote was right before I started working on the novel, so it was late May or first couple of days of June; a bit less than 6 months. I figured I’d be slightly out of shape for a short story, since there’s more space to explain things in a novel, but boy was I out of shape!

Not only did I start adding more and more details about my main character’s life, not only did I expand on his thoughts and feelings but I almost ended up writing a completely different story than the simple idea I had in mind. Even though I used the 7 point story system and the story made sense as I outlined it, I reached a critical point when I started writing a scene where things couldn’t get contained in 500 words the scene was supposed to have. I reached 5000 words in no time and I still wasn’t anywhere near resolving the story. If anything, I had opened two more arcs! 😛 If I didn’t stop, what started as a short story would have ended up as a novella and that was not what I wanted. So I had to delete more than half, rewrite about 60%, make a note to cut down on a dialogue that stretched too long, cut down on emotions and thoughts shared by the main character and figure out all sorts of ways to get my point through indirectly and in ways that conveyed more than one thing. Basically, I tried to make use of the rule “less is more.”

Around the same time, I read my first Alan Poe’s work, a short story called Tell-Tale Heart. In that story, Poe uses no more than 5-6 pages to convey a full story with an arc, full characterisation and so many more that I failed to notice, (since I’m a newbie). When I finished it I was in awe. Somehow I had to find a way to convey my story (which at the time was apparent it was going to end up being a novella, and not a short story) in a such a way that it would make sense.

My current draft (the new, rewritten one) sits at 3160 words, which is good. My only concern is now whether or not the story is coherent and if it flows smoothly without too many holes. Once that’s done, I’ll start editing and then see what else needs to be done.

This is the first time I used the 7 point story system and I had no experience with it. It makes sense and I’d like to work with it again in the future for short stories until I get to master it. Perhaps next week I’ll talk about the system a bit more. I’m also thinking of adding a new section with prompts using images. Would you like something like that?

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 1 Comment

Third short story titled “The Darkening” now published

Just a quick reminder to let you know that my third short story The Darkening is now published by Voluted Tales. The story appears in their special issue called “Darkness Internal” Issue 3. You can find it at http://volutedtales.com/issue/darkness-internal-3/article/the-darkening

It’s a post apocalyptic horror story and it’s considerably shorter than the previous one, barely exceeding 2100 words, so if you choose to pay for the magazine and read it you should be able to finish it in one sitting.

The story deals with John, one of the few survivors from The Darkening, an event that brought each person’s shadow into life and eradicated the majority of the human race. Ever since then, John had to make some tough choices about life and death, particularly that of other people. In near isolation, he struggles hard to maintain some sort of humanity but his self-preservation instinct often kicks in.

I hope you enjoy it. It’s the one that inspired me to write the novel I’m working on and it should be enough to get you into the setting and mood of living in darkness.

 

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Second short story now available

My short story titled When Hades Felt is now available for everyone to read. It’s a story where a wife’s death triggers events in her husband’s life, after a woman dressed in black shows up at his doorstep, claiming to be able to do the impossible (this sentence was actually the pitch/hook I used in my cover letter, by the way). You can find it at http://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/autumn-equinox-2014/when-hades-felt/ but please, have a look at the stories, poems and essays the other authors have contributed or read some of the other stuff the magazine has to offer from past issues. I should also warn you that the story is just over 5000 words long, so it may be time-consuming. I should also point out that I write dark-ish fantasy, perhaps borderline with horror (though I’m not experienced with the Horror genre), so since the editor’s description of the story in their main page is “dark and disturbing”, this story may not be your cup of tea. I just hope that by ‘disturbing’ the editor meant ‘depressing’ rather than ‘annoying’, lol 😛

Also, it’s one of the toughest stories I ever tackled and the only one so far that I had to re-write entire sections (namely, the whole last scene). And by rewriting I mean deleting and never looking back at thousands upon thousands of words; if I remember correctly, I rewrote it more than 5 times. Even now that I read the published story, I still frown at a few points. You’ll be the judge of whether the story is good or not. All I know is that even though it’s only been 7  months since I wrote it, my style has changed considerably since then.

This is also sort of a milestone for me, as this is the first story I got paid for and although it’s only a token payment, it’s still the first one. Hopefully, others will follow as well.

Other than that, in a month or two I expect my other short story, the one that inspired me to write the novel I’m currently working on, to be published by Voluted Tales, an Australian literary magazine.

I had to withdraw my fourth story from the magazine I had sent it for review, since they never responded to my follow-up emails. I think the magazine may have stopped operating. So, off to make some more edits to that story and find a new home for it.

If you have any comments about it, please don’t hesitate to post them below in the comment section.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 4 Comments

Published for the third time

It’s a fact: Eternal Haunted Summer has honoured me by accepting my short story titled When Hades Felt to feature in their autumn issue. I expect it to be made public around September 21st or about that time. The magazine’s editor accepted the revisions I made to the story and I got to learn some stuff on how magazine editors pick stories and how they review them.
It’s been a few months since I’ve been trying to get it published and now I’m more convinced than ever that Eternal Haunted Summer is the right place for that story. As you can understand, I’m very excited about it. Especially when the editor’s email of acceptance ended by asking me to submit more of my work to them. Is there really anything better for an aspiring writer / storyteller to spell “job well done” other than reading an acceptance letter / email and a request for more work?

So, now I’m left with just one more short story that is still unpublished, going from editor to editor and that will be the hardest story to place to a market. The reason is that I’m not really sure what kind of story it is, so I don’t know which magazines to pursue. There are dark elements (most of my work has those), there is a fantasy / horror element but there’s also a drama element. I wish I knew how to classify it. Currently, I’m waiting for an answer by a British magazine that is somewhat delayed. I should probably send a follow up email around Tuesday and hope for the best.

I will post links for the stories once they are published and update the ‘publications’ page accordingly then.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Updates

As I had mentioned in a previous post, I was expecting some revisions and corrections from another magazine’s editor. It was about a story that had troubled me a lot when I wrote it, but this magazine seems to be the right place for it.
The editor made several corrections, suggestions and changes. Looking at some of those in retrospect, I’m surprised at how many things I missed and how many more the people at scribophile, that had a go at it, failed to spot. It made me not only wonder at how lenient that magazine’s editor was with my story (every page had at least 2 points marked in red – and I stress the “at least” part) but also how important an editor’s job really is. In one of my rare moments of optimism (I’m not the most optimistic person in the world), I couldn’t help but think that the editor saw something in that story that was worth her time and effort, despite the many mistakes she spotted. I think it takes a very knowledgeable person to be able to do that, even when a story lacks a certain something.
I can tell you one thing for sure: the more I write and the more I submit stuff in magazines, the more respect I give to the editors for the work they do and I tip my hat to them.
So, I resubmitted the story with the corrections and the new paragraphs that (hopefully) answered the many questions the editor had. I’m waiting once again to see if the things I added are to her liking and if she will still be willing to publish it.
The progression of the novel has slowed down a bit but so far I’m almost at 60k words (it was 48k words two weeks ago). I had to work on that short story and I had some family from Italy coming over for a short visit. On top of that, I have no access to the computer since a small short circuit has caused a problem. Hopefully, the problem will have either damaged the ups battery (I hope not) or it will have fried the resistance in the multiple outlet extension cord. Preliminary tests show the latter to be the case but I will know for sure tomorrow.

Hopefully I may be able to announce my third publication by next week. Once again, cross your fingers for me please.