Turning a novel chapter into a short story

Tburger · Apr 12, 2008

Question:

I've read that one way to build up publishing credits and increase your chances of selling a novel is to have a self-contained chapter published in one of the magazines. Thoughts? What implications are there for publishing a novel, for which the serial rights (is that the right phrase?)have been sold for one of its chapters?

Gillhoughly · Apr 16, 2008

This is nothing new. In the old pulp magazines guys like Raymond Chandler would sell a mystery story, then recycle it into a novel.

Chandler's "Killer in the Rain" eventually became The Big Sleep.

I did that as well. Twice I've sold stories that became the first chapters to 100K word novels that sold. I told the editors up front that the first chapters were originally short stories in anthologies. No one raised so much as an eyebrow.

Publishers and agents have no problems with you doing the same, so long as you've got a finished novel to show and your first chapter logically leads to the second.

Good luck!

maxmordon · Apr 16, 2008

Gillhoughly said:
This is nothing new. In the old pulp magazines guys like Raymond Chandler would sell a mystery story, then recycle it into a novel.

Chandler's "Killer in the Rain" eventually became The Big Sleep.

I did that as well. Twice I've sold stories that became the first chapters to 100K word novels that sold. I told the editors up front that the first chapters were originally short stories in anthologies. No one raised so much as an eyebrow.

Publishers and agents have no problems with you doing the same, so long as you've got a finished novel to show and your first chapter logically leads to the second.

Good luck!

Chandler called this process "Cannibalizing" and used it quite often. Even mixing three and four stories to make a novel

Turning a novel chapter into a short story

Tburger

Wahoowa

Gillhoughly

Grumpy writer and editor

maxmordon

Penúltimo