Make Every Word Count (Building a Short Story Career)
Make Every Word Count (Building a Short Story Career)
By Julie Tollefson
Joseph S. Walker’s passion for crime fiction and skill as a short story writer have won him name recognition and nominations for some of the biggest awards in our field. This month, he shares five tips for writing short, writing well, and building a successful short story career.
1) Write and write some more — Joseph, who holds a doctorate in contemporary American literature and teaches online literature and composition courses for several schools, began writing seriously about 10 years ago.
“For an unfortunately long time, I thought ‘I’ll get to writing fiction at some point,’ and then I was writing maybe one or two stories a year,” he says.
But a couple of years ago, he decided to prioritize writing. Since then, he’s found that writing more equals greater success.
“I don’t want to say it gets easier, but the more you write, the more productive that time is,” he says.
Last year, he wrote 14 short stories. So far this year, he’s written 20 and is on track to meet his goal of 26, or one every other week, by the end of the year.
“I’m continually pushing myself to write more, to keep going,” he says.
2) Challenge yourself — In the spirit of continuing to push himself as a writer, beyond increasing the number of stories he produces every year, Joseph has challenged himself to write outside his comfort zone at the noir end of the crime fiction spectrum.
His fiction often explores themes of alienation and isolation that can lead to desperation.
“I think it’s an issue that underlies a lot of problems,” he says, “and that’s where crime happens.”
But in his recent work, he’s attempted more cozy stories and, in the process, has sharpened his writing skills. Cozies have taught him how to handle traditional story elements (clues, red herrings) and to craft more intricate plots.
Joseph’s approach has paid off in terms of more “Yeses” to submissions, and his stories are increasingly recognized for their excellence. In 2019, he won the Bill Crider Prize for Short Fiction and the Al Blanchard Award. This year saw his Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine story “Etta at the End of the World” nominated for both an Edgar and a Derringer (alongside a second story of his nominated in the same category) and selected for inclusion in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year, 2021, edited by Otto Penzler and Lee Child.
“I’m stunned by that, still,” he says. “I have no idea, zero idea, why that story has done all these things that the other stories I’ve published haven’t. If I knew, I’d write them all like that.”
3) Embrace revision — Joseph is drawn to a tight writing style where every word counts. Revision is where that happens.
“I’m focusing on creating the effect that I’m looking for in the fewest words possible,” he says. “I really think of it as tightening the screws.”
He examines every sentence for extra words, every paragraph for unnecessary sentences.
“It’s astonishing. I’ve been writing this way for a while, but I’ll go back to a paragraph I wrote and think ‘half of this can be cut.’”
4) Track the markets — Paying markets for short stories can be hard to find, but Joseph keeps a running list of calls for submissions open on his computer. When he hears about a new market, anthology, or special issue of a magazine, he adds the deadline and details to his list.
But how does he keep his finger on the pulse of the short story market?
“On a practical level, the very first thing is to join the Short Mystery Fiction Society. It’s a free, incredibly productive group. I learn about a lot of markets there,” he says.
Joseph also focuses on anthologies. Anthology themes can kick-start writers' creative processes, and writers know exactly where they’ll submit once the story’s finished.
“They’re not tremendously lucrative,” Joseph says of anthologies, “but if you’re writing hoping to get rich, you’ve been sadly misled by someone.”
That submissions file he keeps? It currently lists about 30 deadlines between now and the end of the year.
5) Be professional — Professionalism is the bedrock of a career as a short story writer. That means reading and following submission guidelines, making sure your story fits the theme when submitting to an anthology, and working with editors who request revisions.
“Generally, don’t make yourself a pain to work with,” Joseph says. “Then, when those editors are looking for a story, they’ll come back to you.”
Get to know those editors and your fellow writers through organizations such as the Short Mystery Fiction Society and through networking at conferences, either virtual or in person.
“In 2019, I went to Bouchercon for the first time in Dallas and then the week after that New England Crime Bake in Boston,” Joseph says. (He’s too modest to say he attended both because he’d won awards that were bestowed during those conferences.) “I’d never been to mystery conferences before, and I loved it.”