Passing for a short story?

popmuze · Oct 2, 2007

As per my agent's suggestion, I've got four excerpts from my as yet unpublished novel ready to go to literary magazines.

The question (which I asked here in May but got only one response to) is whether I should identify these pieces as excerpts from a novel in my cover letter. Or should I just pretend they're short stories.

They're supposed to stand alone, but I have no idea if any of them really do.

PeeDee · Oct 2, 2007

Can't hurt to identify it in the query letter. That way, they can put a blurb about your novel in the bio. It's common enough. As long as they read okay by themselves, then they sell as short stories.

I'm always keen on being honest and upfront with magazines and publishers. I'd just let 'em know.

Maryn · Oct 2, 2007

If the magazine(s) want to buy the excerpts, they'll be in touch with a contract and probably a request for a bio, right? If you're ill at ease about saying they're from a larger work up-front in the submission cover letter, you still have an opportunity to tell them upon purchase. Plus, you'll seem to be a modest fellow indeed!

Maryn, modest fellow-ette

Jamesaritchie · Oct 2, 2007

Story

popmuze said:
As per my agent's suggestion, I've got four excerpts from my as yet unpublished novel ready to go to literary magazines.

The question (which I asked here in May but got only one response to) is whether I should identify these pieces as excerpts from a novel in my cover letter. Or should I just pretend they're short stories.

They're supposed to stand alone, but I have no idea if any of them really do.

Call them an excerpt. The intent is to make readers want to read your novel, not more of your short stories.

blacbird · Oct 2, 2007

PeeDee said:
I'm always keen on being honest and upfront with magazines and publishers.

I agree. Wouldn't it be nice if they were always as keen in the reverse direction?

caw

Eyan Carrington · Oct 16, 2007

popmuze said:
They're supposed to stand alone, but I have no idea if any of them really do.

Your uncertainty worries me.

If you're not sure whether they stand alone or not, then you don't have a collection of short stories, you have a novel with related parts.

Go the novel route.

Penguin Queen · Oct 16, 2007

Eyan Carrington said:
If you're not sure whether they stand alone or not, then you don't have a collection of short stories, you have a novel with related parts.

Go the novel route.

I thought it was a novel.
Excerpts from novels can work perfectly well as stand-alone short stories - flashbacks, say, or part of a sub-plot.

I would do as Maryn says - send them in without comment, and then once the magazine gets back to you wanting to publish, reveal, as it were the whole truth.
Or even, of you're going the route of simultaneous submissions, send half of them identified as part of a novel, and the other half not; and see if there's a difference in reaction.

Good luck.

lostlore · Oct 16, 2007

I would definitely tell any editor who buys one that it's an excerpt, because you want it identified as such -- you want readers to know that you have a novel coming out. Especially if you're unagented.

But I wonder about the query stage and whether or not editors generally scrutinize stories labeled as excerpts any more than they do other stories. I'm trying to figure this out myself, and have both kinds of stories out right now. What does your agent say about this?

Rich · Oct 16, 2007

The excerpts you'll be sending out have to stand alone, and if you eventually reference any published stories in a book proposal, be sure there's an arc that spans the novel. I don't write novels, but when I ventured to plan one, I gotta lotta good info from editor and author friends.

popmuze · Oct 16, 2007

lostlore said:
I wonder about the query stage and whether or not editors generally scrutinize stories labeled as excerpts any more than they do other stories. I'm trying to figure this out myself, and have both kinds of stories out right now. What does your agent say about this?

My agent was the one who suggested this, either because he felt my novel lent itself to excerpts or because he felt it was necessary in today's marketplace to gain the status of having an excerpt published in a major literary magazine to sell the novel.

But I also wonder about how an editor reading something he knows is an excerpt would react as opposed to something he thinks is a short story. It could go either way.

I will say that the best rejection I've ever gotten came in the form of a personal full page letter from the New Yorker years ago in which the editor expressed total admiration for my writing, but didn't think any of the excerpts I'd sent in could stand alone as stories.

Jamesaritchie · Oct 16, 2007

popmuze said:
My agent was the one who suggested this, either because he felt my novel lent itself to excerpts or because he felt it was necessary in today's marketplace to gain the status of having an excerpt published in a major literary magazine to sell the novel.

But I also wonder about how an editor reading something he knows is an excerpt would react as opposed to something he thinks is a short story. It could go either way.

I will say that the best rejection I've ever gotten came in the form of a personal full page letter from the New Yorker years ago in which the editor expressed total admiration for my writing, but didn't think any of the excerpts I'd sent in could stand alone as stories.

Many magazines specifically ask for excerpts, and these are the ones you want to sell to. Editors at such magazines are on the lookout for excerpts, like them, and read them just as they do short stories.

At most such magazines, the excerpt must make a standalone point, but does not have to be a standalone story, if you understand the difference.

Passing for a short story?

popmuze

Last of a Dying Breed

PeeDee

Where's my tea, please...?

Maryn

Not Any More

Jamesaritchie

blacbird

Eyan Carrington

Penguin Queen

Break the rules.

lostlore

Rich

popmuze

Last of a Dying Breed

Jamesaritchie