I write Lit Fic and have had a short story published by a fairly revered magazine in the UK. I haven't submitted for a while after getting quite a few rejections from other magazines saying my writing was "not a good fit".
I have trouble understanding what different literary magazines want. All of them use 'fluffy' words like "modern", "quality", "fresh". But when I read stories from different magazines, I find the stories don't fit what I was expecting at all having read the submission guidelines. I've found only a few magazines have stories which are clearly THAT magazine's 'type of story'. (e.g. Granta, Conjunctions, Bare Fiction, Guernica, Neon).
But others don't seem to give submitters very useful information.
For example, I'd like to know, whether they want:
- Stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end (Guernica states this explicitly and you can see it from the work they publish) or more nebulous pieces.
- Realism in the conventional sense vs the unconventional sense (ie. Does this have to be "believable" or does it only have to form a coherent arc within the weird world you've created)
- Stylised vs simple (I'd describe Raymond Carver and JD Salinger as literary, but simple writers, whereas David Mitchell is highly stylised)
- How much do readers have to "work" on the story?
Some of my work is less "literary", but are stories which don't fit into any genre (like Saki is genreless) Where to submit these?
I haven't yet found a tool or a website list that narrows Lit Fic magazines down like this.
Please don't tell me to read the work literary magazines publish - I do! And sometimes this just leaves me more confused.
Anyone else having this trouble? Any advice to help? I'd like to get a couple of pieces published this year (or decade)! Thanks
I have trouble understanding what different literary magazines want. All of them use 'fluffy' words like "modern", "quality", "fresh". But when I read stories from different magazines, I find the stories don't fit what I was expecting at all having read the submission guidelines. I've found only a few magazines have stories which are clearly THAT magazine's 'type of story'. (e.g. Granta, Conjunctions, Bare Fiction, Guernica, Neon).
But others don't seem to give submitters very useful information.
For example, I'd like to know, whether they want:
- Stories with a clear beginning, middle, and end (Guernica states this explicitly and you can see it from the work they publish) or more nebulous pieces.
- Realism in the conventional sense vs the unconventional sense (ie. Does this have to be "believable" or does it only have to form a coherent arc within the weird world you've created)
- Stylised vs simple (I'd describe Raymond Carver and JD Salinger as literary, but simple writers, whereas David Mitchell is highly stylised)
- How much do readers have to "work" on the story?
Some of my work is less "literary", but are stories which don't fit into any genre (like Saki is genreless) Where to submit these?
I haven't yet found a tool or a website list that narrows Lit Fic magazines down like this.
Please don't tell me to read the work literary magazines publish - I do! And sometimes this just leaves me more confused.
Anyone else having this trouble? Any advice to help? I'd like to get a couple of pieces published this year (or decade)! Thanks