Submitting First Chapter as Short Fiction

If the first chapter tells a complete story unto itself, why would you need the chapters that follow?

Doesn't a short story have to have a beginning, a middle and an end?

In a novel, you probably don't want an "end" at the end of a chapter, instead, you want a hook that makes the reader want to keep reading more.

I think selling the rights to the first chapter, and then later trying to sell the whole thing could come back to bite you. You want all the rights available when you try to sell the novel. And most publishers will want the ability to use the first chapter as the teaser (in places from Amazon to some magazines, depending on a variety of factors) and if you've already sold those rights to someone else...again I think that could bite you.

My advice would be write the whole book. You don't necessarily have to have short story publication creds before you can sell a novel.



Susan G.

I'm going to jibe against Susan and say that you MAY be starting your novel in the wrong place. If chapter one is its own story, and it can be safely chopped off of the novel (Meaning that your novel will still make sense) -- then you may want to consider re-finding the start of your novel.

I adapted my second chapter into a short story and it ran in a lit mag. My agent seemed to think it was a positive.

But it really has to stand alone as a short story.

Well having the first chapter published as a short story proves that your story is marketable. It'd help if anything, is my guess.

indiriverflow said:

WendyNYC--that's you. Thank you for sharing your experience. It was the second chapter? Was it first rights only? Do you think I should pursue this, or not? I think my first chapter stands alone, but means something different out of context. There's a whole lot more to the story, but since it is the opening, it doesn't depend on anything prior.

Click to expand...

Yes, it was first rights only. Mine was the second chapter--but it was the first time meeting a minor character in the novel, so it was her story, not the MC's, if that makes any sense. The chapter had it's own story arc, but I did have to adapt it (change the ending so there is more resolution, take out details/characters that were important to the novel, but not the short, etc.)

I'd pursue it, but I LIKE writing shorts. I read a lot of literary magazines and wanted to publish in them, novel or no novel.

Let me offer another slant. My short story THE TREASURE has provided tremendous than promotional value to my full scale novels. My shorts are sold on Fictionwise and elsewhere for <a buck and when people get into my style/voice, that search out my website for other things I've written.

I've tracked full novel sales each time a short comes out, and they go up. SO, releasing a chap as a short I think is a good thing. I'm about to do the same thing with a full novel. I've taken two chaps and formed into a short called RIMFIRE that will be available in a few months and I expect positives, not negatives. Hope that helps.

Selling a first chapter as a self-contained short story is almost always a completely positive thing. It shows agents and publishers that other people thought your writing was good enough and your characters interesting enough. It also gives you a leg up on finding your audience.

Also, every chapter should function like a small story arc, so don't buy into the "chapters are supposed to make you keep reading." Having every chapter end on a cliff hanger is a gimmick, and not all short stories "resolve" in the strictest sense. For example, one of my all-time favorite short stories, A & P, does not resolve. The reader is left wondering what happens after the narrator walks out on his job. Updike could have easily gone on to write an entire novel for which that story was only the springboard.

The only negative is if you're careless about where you sell the short story and what kind of contract you sell it under. Your contract should make clear what rights the publisher will be claiming and under what conditions those rights revert back to you. I've worked for two big name literary magazines and both of them offer contracts in which the rights to published stories revert to the author on publication. That is, the magazine only holds the rights for the time required to actually print the story. After that first print run, the magazine returns the rights to the writer. That's what you want. You don't want to sign a contract that gives the publisher the rights to electronic publication in perpetuity or the rights to publish the piece in anthology.

I've dealt with numerous rights reversion situations, when writers whose work was published in the mags I worked for later sought rights reversion acknowledgments so that they could include the short stories we'd published in their novels or later collections of their works. It's straightforward, as long as you know the magazine's policy before you sign the contract.