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Suzy sits down this week with short fiction anthology editor Shannon Allen to talk all things short story! They discuss how short stories are different from writing a novel, and how to use short fiction to focus and sharpen the skills you use to write a novel in a short format. Shannon gives a peek behind the scenes when she talks about what she is looking for in short story submissions. If you’ve ever thought that you might want to try your hand at short fiction, or if you’ve already got stories in slush piles, you don’t want to miss this episode!
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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.
Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn. On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing Today on the podcast, we have Shannan Allen, one of our own from the [00:01:00] Inspired Writing team.
I have had the privilege of working with Shannan for many, many years. She is such a bright light and addition to our program, to our communities, where she helps writers with her deep knowledge and expertise of science fiction, short story, novel writing, you name it, Shannan’s done it. She is actually the Aurora Award-winning editor of three science fiction speculative anthologies; By the Light of Camelot, The Astronaut Always Rings [00:01:30] Twice, and Starship Librarians.
She’s a science fiction and speculative noir writer, editor, and book coach. She lives in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains, which is really close to me, and so we often drive to spend time together. We recorded this episode in person, which was an absolute joy. She’s a past member of the Canadian Science Fiction Association.
She’s a speaker, an Aurora winner, who loves to talk to readers and writers at all stages of their journey. Short story is her first [00:02:00] love, and she can’t wait to edit more anthologies. We’re in for a treat today. Shannan Allen on the podcast. Welcome to the show, Shannan. It is amazing to have you here in person at my home- Yeah
because we had a meeting later today that was gonna be here.
Shannon Allen: It’s awesome. I l- love getting out of the house and driving somewhere new and talking all things story.
Suzy Vadori: I think it’s funny because people don’t really understand how awesome it can be to work from home. [00:02:30] I have a pool, so it is summer when we’re recording this, and I just sit outside.
And people say to me, “Do you get use out of the pool?” I’m like, “Yes, I do every day.” Yeah. And that’s why we’re meeting here today.
Shannon Allen: That’s why we’re meeting here, and I agree working from home is the best thing ’cause I don’t have a pool, but I have a backyard that backs onto a forest. You
Suzy Vadori: have a beautiful backyard.
Shannon Allen: And so we get deer, and at the moment we are getting fawns, like brand new- Oh … speckly fawns. So- Cute … what’s better? Nothing. You know, there’s nothing better.
Suzy Vadori: Nothing better. Okay.
Shannon Allen: Nothing [00:03:00] better.
Suzy Vadori: Well, we’re inside right now and recording this. We’re talking about short story. Shannan, I wanted to have you on here ’cause you just know so, so much about short story, and your experience here is unparalleled.
So if anybody out there, the listeners, are considering writing short stories, this is your episode. So I’m gonna start by saying this, Shannan, because short story, what are we talking about? What is it?
Shannon Allen: Short story is, for a lot of people, an enigma. [00:03:30] They don’t really understand what short story is It can go anywhere from your flash fiction, which is under 100 words, up to something that is like 9,999 words.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: So it goes everything in between. The biggest different with short story is the content that you address within the story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: So you’re not having multiple adventures. You’re not having multiple quests. You’re usually dealing with [00:04:00] one main point, misbelief, challenge that takes you from point A to point B.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. We’re gonna get into that. As an editor who has reviewed probably thousands, can I say thousands-
Shannon Allen: Yeah, at this point,
Suzy Vadori: yeah … of, of submissions, of short stories, I told you she has so much experience. What are your personal thoughts on word count? Does it matter in a short story?
Shannon Allen: I think the only time it wor- matters is have you told the story?
Are [00:04:30] you cramming a story into a 5,000-word count because that’s all you wanna write, and it’s, feels incomplete? Then word count is a problem. Tell your story. If you’re focused on the plot and your characters, their misbelief, and what they need to achieve, you’ll hit a perfect word count every time.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
And so when you’re, when you’re doing short story, I’ll say this on word count, a lot of contests, a lot of submission guidelines do have limits. I know for a fact the reason I asked Shannon [00:05:00] that was ’cause I know that they are okay if you go a little over, if it makes sense.
Shannon Allen: If it makes sense. Some submission calls for short stories will cut you off at three words over, and they’ll go, “Nope, you’re over.
You didn’t listen to the guidelines,” and off you go. Other submission calls, like the ones I put out, we don’t list a word count because we want a complete story. Yeah. We don’t want a rushed story.
Suzy Vadori: But what, what constitutes too long? Obviously, you know, you’re getting into 30,000, you’re into a [00:05:30] novella.
You’re getting into 50,000, you’re into a novel.
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Suzy Vadori: So when’s your cutoff, or is there one?
Shannon Allen: By, by definition, short story has to be under 10,000 words.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. So somewhere under 10,000- Under 10,000 … is that sweet spot. Yeah. Okay.
Shannon Allen: The, the big sweet spot for most people is the 7,500 to 8,000.
Suzy Vadori: Amazing. Okay. So for our listeners out here who are, like, frustrated, maybe you’ve been writing your novel for 10 years and it’s, like, blowing your [00:06:00] brains, and you’re not sure, and you’re like, “Well, somebody suggested this short story gig,” and you’re sitting down to write it, what are the advantages, or why would a writer consider writing short stories versus the full-length novel?
Shannon Allen: You can sharpen so many skills in a short story. Pick something you want to explore, be it voice, dialogue, setting, and take it to the max within the context of a story, and you can practice getting that spot on so that you [00:06:30] pull your readers in, and then that skill will transfer to the novel when you sit down to write it.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s, that’s just it, is if you view it as a practice, and you can write more of them, and it’s like- Mm-hmm … sort of sound bites, right? Yeah. Or, like, smaller chunks that you can work on at once and get your ideas out there. And I mean, if you’re wondering, “Okay, I have this amazing idea for a novel,” dig deep.
I’m sure you have other ideas out there. Ideas is not usually the problem-
Shannon Allen: No …
Suzy Vadori: uh, for most [00:07:00] writers. In fact, most of us who go to a cocktail party and tell people, “I write,” and then somebody will give you their amazing idea and they want you to go write it for them, and you- Mm-hmm … kind of look at them like, “I don’t need your idea.
I have a million.” Mm-hmm. Right.
Shannon Allen: Every, every writer has caseloads of ideas- Yeah … that they want to explore. It’s just the context in which you want to showcase them. Will determine if you do short or long. And short story can lead to long stories. It did for Stephen King, for [00:07:30] Ben Nova, for Rogers Lalsney, for a lot of those writers out there.
They started in short story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, and there’s many, many writers who do that.
Shannon Allen: Many, many writers.
Suzy Vadori: Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood, yeah. There’s lots of, lots of writers who do that. If you feel the need to write or if you need a break from your novel, now’s the time. Go try a short story. Yeah. Okay. So what, we t- we touched on this a bit in the opening, but what is different about short stories besides length?
I’ve got a bunch of [00:08:00] categories here, so I’m gonna throw them out there and we’re gonna talk about-
Shannon Allen: Sounds great.
Suzy Vadori: What about setting?
Shannon Allen: Setting is important, but it’s limited. You generally are not going to have multiple worlds if you’re writing in science fiction. You’re not going to have multiple settings if you’re writing in historical fiction.
You may have one or two settings, but you’re pretty much staying within the context of one setting in a short story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, so would you say, you know, a lot of times writers bring to me a really complex [00:08:30] world or a very complex structure for their book when they’re trying to write a novel. They’ve got multi-point of view and they’ve got, um, you know, four point of view characters, and they’ve got dual timeline, and they’ve got all these things.
Can you do that in a short story?
Shannon Allen: It’s really hard, and I would advise not to. If you come, if somebody came to you with that, I would advise them to pick a point within all of that and write that scene in such a way that it could read as a short story. [00:09:00] So have your main character inherit a castle. Now, they don’t know that it’s a gateway to some other realm Write that short story about them finding out about that, and then you can wrap it up by saying, “I look forward to more adventures to come.”
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Your setting is still within that one setting. It’s one POV, and it’s at a limited timeframe within the story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I mean, that’s great advice even for novels, to be [00:09:30] honest. Even for novels. Especially if it’s your first book out there. I talk about this a lot. Um, I, I think I have got an episode coming on this one, book structure, but when people come to me, especially if it’s your first book and you have a really complex structure because you’ve just read Gone Girl or something, just know that it, it is much more difficult than you think it’s going to be to do it well, and there’s not always a payoff.
Shannon Allen: There’s not always a payoff, and in short story, you have to have that payoff real [00:10:00] fast.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Yeah, within your 10,000 words.
Shannon Allen: Within your 10,000 words.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Subplots. We kind of touched on this. How many subplots? Do you get subplots?
Shannon Allen: No.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, right? No. Like, these are tough, tough questions, but-
Shannon Allen: They- …
Suzy Vadori: I’m asking
Shannon Allen: subplot, unless it is a, what I would call a surface subplot, which I mean by that is- Okay, what do you mean by that? Yeah … yeah. What I mean by that is you have your point-of-view character, and we’ll use the same one. They’ve [00:10:30] inherited the castle.
Suzy Vadori: I love that. I, I think it, uh, can I tell you, I’ve actually watched several Hallmark movies with that premise.
Shannon Allen: Oh, is
Suzy Vadori: that so? They’re, they’re not, they’re not, uh, they’re not paranormal or realm movies- Yeah … um, or science fiction, but they just inherit the castle, and then, you know, somebody from the Midwest- The- … in the US inherits a castle and has to go and explore their roots, and of course, they fall in love with the prince or whatever.
Shannon Allen: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you can bring- I love it … a little bit of a subplot in, let’s [00:11:00] say our, our main character here, she’s fallen in love, or they’ve fallen in love with the prince, the princess, whoever. A little bit of skullduggery by the person that they’ve come in contact with can have their own agenda, but it can’t be real complex, like they’re off to save the planet, or the family Christendom jewels, or anything like that.
Could be like, “Oh, if I get rid of you-” Then I inherit
Suzy Vadori: Right.
Shannon Allen: Right? So [00:11:30] it’s, it’s a surface subplot- Mm … but even that subplot will affect your main character.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, so I mean, when we talk about, um, and there’s different ways to talk about this theme or the point of your story, or I, I like to call it the takeaway, what’s your reader’s takeaway, it needs to be pretty focused.
‘Cause if you’re doing, you know, climate action and also grief, overcoming grief, and also, like, all these things, you can actually explore a lot of those things in a book or a novel. I [00:12:00] still, you know, I still coach people to pick one, but in a short story, you’re picking one.
Shannon Allen: You are picking one. Yeah. You do not have, you don’t have the word vault to draw on to explore everything.
Suzy Vadori: To do it well.
Shannon Allen: To, and to do it well. And if you are not doing it well within your first I’d say 900 words to 1,000 words, you’re gonna lose your reader. Yeah. And they’re gonna put that story down, and then they may be hesitant to pick up the next thing that you write.
Suzy Vadori: [00:12:30] Yeah. Or your editor, right? Or
Shannon Allen: your editor.
Suzy Vadori: If you’re submitting. I mean- Your editor … uh, we’re gonna get into that in a minute. Um- Yeah … when you read thousands of stories, I don’t know if you read them all the way through. I’m gonna ask you in a minute.
Shannon Allen: Okay.
Suzy Vadori: Let’s keep going on what’s different about short stories besides length. What about the overall story arc?
Do we still have rising action, climax, falling action, all the, all the story-
Shannon Allen: Yes, you do- Yeah … just on a smaller scale.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Okay. Yeah. You have to have a point to your story. Regardless of length, there needs to be a point. [00:13:00] There needs to be stumbling blocks. There needs to be that shift from misbelief to belief.
Yeah. If you don’t have that shift, your story is very flat, and there are very, very few writers out there that can write that type of story without that prime shift and still make it interesting. So my advice is have them do the shift.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And so, okay, so a couple of things, and I’ll just break it down in language that we use on the podcast because that’s what they’re used to hearing.
So what Shanna’s talking about here is that [00:13:30] shift, I call it from X to Y. So where are the, where’s your character at the beginning of the story? Where are they at the end? She’s also referencing my fa- all-time favorite craft book, Story Genius-
Shannon Allen: Yes …
Suzy Vadori: which is by Lisa Cron, which talks about what does your character misbelieve about the world, and what is the moment, like, what do they think is true that they have to confront maybe isn’t true?
Shannon Allen: Mm-hmm.
Suzy Vadori: Um, and, and so that misbelief to belief, [00:14:00] where, where does it come from, and what is that? It’s a great way to look at short story. Um, uh, we use it in novels as well. Yeah. But those points, those plot points or the, that story arc needs to be crystal clear.
Shannon Allen: It needs to be very crystal clear in short story ’cause you-
Suzy Vadori: And for one character.
Shannon Allen: And for one character.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Short story needs to be confined to the point of view of one character.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Can you use two point of views though, literally?
Shannon Allen: You can use two point of views.
Suzy Vadori: Like, like we’re using different things. Okay. Yeah. [00:14:30] So, so just like a novel, every book is only one person’s story. Every short story is only- Is only one
one person’s story. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have other point of view characters, although in short story you should limit that. But it does mean that absolutely everything that you include from other characters’ points of view should be related to your character.
Shannon Allen: They should be related to your character and drive e- their misbelief or their transition towards belief, and no more than two or three extra characters.[00:15:00]
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Like, you can’t have a cast of thousands. You can’t have 10. You may reference a group of people, but then that would be a s- considered a character, and it may be because like, “Oh, the group at the coffee shop just didn’t believe I inherited the castle.” Right? It’s a collective type of viewpoint, and you may have a little bit of conversation going, “Oh, no way.
They’re pulling your leg,” those types of things. But maximum three characters even if you’re bringing in other [00:15:30] viewpoints
Suzy Vadori: or groups
Shannon Allen: of story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I think that’s just really good advice, and it dep- you know, in, in novels that’s always good advice as well in novels. I mean, depends on your genre. If you’re writing epic fantasy you can have a pretty big- You can have a big cast
or like space opera you can have a big cast. Typically, if you’re writing … Well, especially if you’re writing YA, young adult, or middle grade, you’re gonna lose your reader with a lot of characters, so maximum, you know, sort of two or three main characters. And what I’m hearing you say is in a short story [00:16:00] it’s even more pared down where two or three characters, period- Yeah
that we’re following other than sort of like a, um, a group or a stock character profile.
Shannon Allen: Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You, you only have a short time to intrigue your, your reader and pull them along through the story, and you want them to stay. You can’t cloud it with having lots of people in there.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. World building.
Shannon Allen: World building, I think this is where you’re gonna slightly differ from a novel You have to [00:16:30] use highly descriptive words. You need to pull your reader out of that white room syndrome. You need to anchor them in what you’re having them read, but you don’t have pages to describe the beauty of a meadow or the s- the gothic structure of the castle.
Suzy Vadori: Now, to be fair, I would argue that in novels we don’t have pages to do that either. No. Not to say that people don’t do that in their first drafts, they do, but the- a lot of the techniques that we teach in novels have to be even [00:17:00] sharper, such as, right? Yeah. Such as if you’re going to give me setting, interact with the setting at the same time, therefore you’re doing more work.
Every word that you include in a short story has to do its job. It has to do double, triple, quadruple- Double … duty all the time.
Shannon Allen: Every word carries the weight of every other word in the story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And I love that you said use very descriptive word, was that it? Descriptive words like- Yeah …
Shannon Allen: and emotional based words really help too.
Invoking
Suzy Vadori: imagery.
Shannon Allen: [00:17:30] Yeah. Like if you mentioned that, again, I’ll go back to the castle. As she walked in through the ca- through the front door she could hear her footsteps echo for minutes. That gives you how this room is massive, right? Without me telling you it’s massive.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Short story, a lot of people tend to lean on tell, not show.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: But you need to show us in a very short expanse of time. So two, three words can do a lot of heavy lifting [00:18:00] if you’re picking the right two or three words.
Suzy Vadori: Absolutely, and you can’t get… I mean, I don’t agree that you can get away with that in novels either, but people do. Yeah. And, and please don’t comment below, “I see telling in novels all the time.”
It, it, it does belong. There are places, and then sure, is there a place for telling in short story? There must be.
Shannon Allen: There is a place in, in short story for telling. Maybe a little bit more so than novels because you have a shorter time to-
Suzy Vadori: You have to summarize and
Shannon Allen: get- You have to summarize and you got to get people up to [00:18:30] speed.
If there’s something that they need to know, do that telling, but phrase it in at part of dialogue and inner thought going, “Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize that this castle was built with these gothic structures, which were revolutionary for the time that was built.”
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Right? That will cause your reader to go, “Ooh, side note, need to look up Gothic structure.”
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Right?
Suzy Vadori: Absolutely.
Shannon Allen: So there is the room for telling, [00:19:00] but there again, your words do the weightlifting. Right, and- So pick them appropriately. And
Suzy Vadori: zoom your lens in on what’s important- Important … in the short story, right? Exactly. So for the showing pieces, we want to do, you know, a little bit of world building, a little bit of character building, all of those things.
And I’m hearing word choice is king. Spend time making each word count. Each word
Shannon Allen: count.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Yep, it is. ‘Cause we need to be able, as a reader, to inhabit the world that’s within the story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: And you [00:19:30] need something to anchor to.
Suzy Vadori: Amazing. Okay, genres. Which ones are thriving? I mean-
Shannon Allen: Oh … I know
Suzy Vadori: what you focus on.
Shannon Allen: Yeah. What I focus on is, is coming under a bit of a shift right now. Cozy sci-fi is slowly creeping into the mainstream.
Suzy Vadori: Okay.
Shannon Allen: Which people go, “What do you mean cozy sci-fi?” Like-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, what do you mean by cozy sci-fi?
Shannon Allen: It has a lot of the hallmarks that your cozy mysteries do. [00:20:00] You have a quest that- Is simple, that it’s happening to the common person.
But cozy sci-fi, not a lot happens even though it’s science-based. So it’s more near future, so not today, but maybe 10 years in the future. There’s not the doom and gloom and world apo- apocalypse and those types of things. It’s a softer way of looking the, the world through the lens of sci-fi.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. ‘Cause I mean, cozy mystery, the [00:20:30] hallmarks of cozy mystery are that something happens and an ordinary, like usually a murder or a crime, and an ordinary pr- and there’s a closed set or closed group of people that could have committed this crime.
Think Clue, right? And then somebody who is an ordinary human, not a detective, not a, uh, police or anybody with any particular authority, steps up as the cozy sleuth or the amateur sleuth to solve this mystery. [00:21:00] Then they go around and they have, you know, there’s, there’s beats that have to happen in a cozy mystery where they go around and do interviews, and they gather information, and then, you know, there’s red herrings, which are to throw us off the trail, and all those things.
Do any of those things apply?- Mm … or is it just the fact that it’s a big event happening to a closed group of ordinary people?
Shannon Allen: More or less, but the caveat to that is that closed group of people, whatever’s going on in there, the key to solving [00:21:30] it, the key to moving that to a conclusion could be from a person that is with- is outside their scope of people that would normally do those types of things.
So you might have a scullery person figuring out the royal lineage because they sneak into the library at night and read the books.
Suzy Vadori: Right. Okay.
Shannon Allen: Right? So it’s usually solved or moved forward or represented by somebody outside of the [00:22:00] normal people that would solve those problems.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. So in speculative fiction, science fiction and fantasy, short story has been tradition for a long time.
It’s, it’s very much horror, I would say, too, you know?- Yep … anything spec. And there are lots of literary short stories as well. Are there other genres that you’re aware of that this happens? Do we have, like, short stories in romance, for example?
Shannon Allen: I have seen romance short stories. I have seen [00:22:30] historical short stories.
I have s- seen what we would call women’s fiction short stories, and women’s fiction is usually directed more at women readership. It’s not exclusive to women readership, but it’s cons- Yeah … that’s the main focus. I have seen short story mashups, that they take two genres and squish them together and create something fabulously new.
So short story, I don’t think is defined [00:23:00] exclusively for one genre or another. Yes, it was the bread and butter of science fiction and fantasy. It’s how it got its foothold in the, in common readership. In mainstream. In mainstream. And it was how a lot of authors got started because publishers didn’t want to publish their stories, so they were out to the magazines.
Yeah. Like Asimov’s and-
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Well, this is my next question- Yeah … actually, is, okay, so our listenership is like, “Okay, well I’m gonna go write a short [00:23:30] story. It shouldn’t take me that long.” What do you do with them? Are th- You know, there’s collections, there’s … Can they publish them or sell them by themselves?
There’s anthologies. What, what, what can they do with them?
Shannon Allen: There’s a lot of avenues for short stories, and in this day of AI and computerization and tech, we’re finding that there’s even a few more avenues. A lot of libraries are now running submission calls for short stories, and depending on the library, they have [00:24:00] their word counts and/or guidelines for what they’re looking for, you know, no gore, no foul language, those types of things, or a particular theme.
And people put in a little bit of money, and it prints out a short story, and libraries are buying those now. You have your magazine markets, your traditional magazine markets. You have submission calls of publishers and editors that are looking to put together an anthology. An anthology is different than a [00:24:30] collection.
An anthology is a bunch of stories within a book that are multiple authors. A collection are multiple stories from a single author.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And you work primarily on anthologies.
Shannon Allen: Uh, primary on anthologies, yes. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. I just got to clarify something, Shannon- Yeah … because something you said at the beginning of this is because of AI.
Now that doesn’t mean go and generate an AI story- No … I’m assuming. What do you mean by because of AI?
Shannon Allen: Because of AI, [00:25:00] you’re finding that short story is coming under tighter scrutiny. A lot of your submission calls are saying, “In no way can AI have touched this story.”
Suzy Vadori: Not even for editing.
Shannon Allen: Not even for editing.
Suzy Vadori: And ed- by … When I say that, I mean you can run it through spell check, but if you say, “Hey, Claude, please tidy up this or make it sound better,” guess what they do, by the way? It will go and actually grab something from my book or one of Shannon’s books or something that it illegally pirated and insert that, and all of a sudden you have a plagiarized [00:25:30] story, and you didn’t mean to, but you do.
So you gotta be really careful.
Shannon Allen: You have to be really careful, and unfortunately, that AI bug, as I call it, is out on submission calls too. Like, there are some magazines that use AI to do their submission calls, and they’re not a real submission call. So you have to be careful. The ones that you answer, make sure they’re reputable.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. You mean because they’re charging money for you to, to submit?
Shannon Allen: If they, if they charge money for you to submit-
Suzy Vadori: Be [00:26:00] careful …
Shannon Allen: then be careful. If you’re entering a contest, sometimes there is an entry fee, but usually that entry fee is converted to a subscription to whatever magazine that is doing the contest.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: If you’re willing to pay that fee for the magazine, and submitting your story to the contest is a bonus-
Suzy Vadori: I mean, to be fair- … then- … if you’re submitting to a magazine and you’re not reading it or subscribing to it, what are you- You
Shannon Allen: shouldn’t be submitting
Suzy Vadori: What are you doing, right?
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Okay, okay.
So that’s, that’s good. And, and I [00:26:30] think the other thing about AI and the reason that it’s important when we talk about short stories is that because people can generate it, people like Shaohin on the other end- Mm-hmm … are getting crushed.
Shannon Allen: We are getting crushed. Um-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, with submissions.
Shannon Allen: Yeah. The last submission call out that I did with my co-editor, out of the 173 submissions we received, three we knew were outright AI-generated.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Two we had our suspicions of, [00:27:00] and one made it almost all the way through before we went, “Hang on.”
Suzy Vadori: And that call was about 18 months ago. I bet it would be-
Shannon Allen: Yes, it was- … drastically
Suzy Vadori: different-
Shannon Allen: Yeah, it was … today. That was 18 months ago.
Suzy Vadori: I don’t, I’m-
Shannon Allen: Al- no, almost two years ago now … mostly, yeah, I’m- Almost two years ago.
So AI has caught up a lot more since then.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: But we were able to catch them just- Well, I mean- … except for the one.
Suzy Vadori: And yeah, and it’s not tells, so if you’re wondering how the heck can they ever find it, it’s not just tells. I mean, people talk about there’s em dashes or [00:27:30] semicolons or whatever. Yes, they, it puts in weird punctuation that nobody actually knows how to read it anymore.
Correct. However- It- … it’s also that you kind of, I don’t know if you find this, but I know it’s AI when I’m going through and there’s nothing to correct ’cause it’s perfect, but I’m bored to tears. Because all it’s done is stripped out your voice, right? It can’t create anything. All it can do is look backward.
It’s a reflection of the past. Yep. It can steal from other people’s work. It can, you know, pick a common phrase. It can give you cliches. It can do all of [00:28:00] that- Mm-hmm … but it can’t do the cool work, which is to actually create. And it’s the reason why, and I say this, I mean, there’s, there’s tons of uses for AI that I think are super useful, not in your writing.
And when I, when I say that- You know, I might get some blowback. It’s the reason why when somebody writes to me, ’cause I get this- Mm-hmm … and they say, “Hey, I generated a story, a science fiction story that’s 175,000 words. Would you, like, edit it and help me cut it to [00:28:30] 100,000?” And I say, “You mean you want me to write the story for you?”
Yeah. Because all I could possibly do is insert new details, because that 175,000 words won’t have anything unique in it.
Shannon Allen: No. It will be full of filler-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah …
Shannon Allen: words, like, and your filter words. Yeah. It’ll be stripped of emotion, and it will use three, four, five adjectives to describe something.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So okay, so that’s our feelings on it
Shannon Allen: today.
That’s our feelings, yep.
Suzy Vadori: That’s our [00:29:00] feelings. But yeah, you review hundreds of submissions. Okay. Yeah. Here’s what we all wanna know.
Shannon Allen: Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: What are you looking for?
Shannon Allen: I am looking for something that’s going to catch my attention, my interest, within the first three paragraphs.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Um-
Suzy Vadori: Listen to that. Yeah. And probably in the first paragraph.
Shannon Allen: You have to intrigue me in the first paragraph, bring it to the front door in the second paragraph, and through the front door in the third.
Suzy Vadori: Amazing. Yeah. I mean, this is, this is straight from Shannon’s mouth. [00:29:30] Reviewing thousands, and probably doesn’t get to the end of it if it doesn’t do that, right? You ca- you don’t have time to read everything.
Shannon Allen: I don’t have time. If I’m working on a deadline for an anthology, and I have 173 submissions that I need to read in a four-week period-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah … ‘
Shannon Allen: cause our deadlines are quite tight on the editorial side, you’ve got that first couple of paragraphs. If I’m somewhat intrigued, I might keep going.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. [00:30:00] It’s amazing.
And I won’t- I spend a lot of time at conferences where there’s often agents, and, and recently this month actually, I was at a conference where there was a panel with five agents, and they shared, like, we all think that, that the work is being read and evaluated and all these things, and that’s a nice sentiment.
However- Mm-hmm … it’s not true, right? And, and it just isn’t true. Right now, people in publishing are overworked, and if you don’t get there fast enough, th- it is their prerogative to not finish your book or your story. The agents [00:30:30] that shared with us, you know, they often review queries, which is when you are trying to get an agent, you send them a letter and you send them some pages.
They’ll look at the pages, but they might do that sort of work late at night when you’d normally be reading for pleasure, and they’re tired, and they’re looking at it in bed on their iPad, and they go, “Nope. Nope. Nope. Oh, this one’s good. I’ll read this one before bed,” right? Yep. And so y- y- you don’t kind of
Like, it’s a neat way to flip it, because I don’t think that writers often understand [00:31:00] the kind of pressure that you’re under as an editor, and the way that you- Yep … choose it is not what you might think.
Shannon Allen: No, it isn’t, and unfortunately, I would love to read every single submission I get when I’m doing a submission call.
I just can’t.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Just because of the timelines.
Suzy Vadori: What makes a story stand out?
Shannon Allen: Unique in its vision or premise or character
Suzy Vadori: Those strong words.
Shannon Allen: Deep- Those strong … A story [00:31:30] that says never, and please, please never start your story with a character waking up. Please. Yeah. Please, please.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. But, but let’s, let’s just stop for a second- Mm-hmm
because- Yeah … because when we hear this advice, and whether or not you’ve heard this advice, you may not understand why, and so you can dismiss it and say, “Well, I’m different.” The thing is, for Shannon, who’s read thousands of short stories, a character waking up is the easiest way to start a scene, and therefore, for untrained writers, it [00:32:00] is the first thing that comes to your mind.
Shannon Allen: Mm-hmm.
Suzy Vadori: And you might feel that it’s unique and nobody … It, it’s okay. There’s no shame in it if you didn’t know, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, Suzy, I have that in my book,” you probably do, and the reason is nobody told you, and you don’t see it in other published books because we’ve not allowed those to be published that way- Right
or they were rejected before. And so yeah, it’s, it’s one of those things that if you know, you know that that is the simplest way, the way that the brain [00:32:30] first figures it out, and I’m gonna challenge you to do better and to do something more creative because it’s not gonna fly. You’re hearing it from Shannon.
Yeah. It doesn’t fly.
Shannon Allen: It doesn’t fly, and chances are what happens directly after they wake up is where your story really needs to start.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I mean, you can even start it with them awake in bed stretching, and we’re probably gonna be less angry than-
Shannon Allen: Yeah …
Suzy Vadori: her eyes flew open with a start, right?
Shannon Allen: You know?
Yeah, or, “The child on my chest pulling my eyeballs awake was not very comfortable.” [00:33:00] Huh. Right?
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Okay.
Shannon Allen: Now, you’re having the person- That’s interesting. Odd premise. Well,
Suzy Vadori: I’m intrigued by that one. I have talked to editors, just so you know out there, writers out there, I have talked to editors who say, yeah, it’s not an automatic rejection, but they don’t give them very long to tell me why they did that and if they could keep it fresh.
Shannon Allen: Exactly. Now-
Suzy Vadori: About waking up.
Shannon Allen: The example was because my granddaughter is notorious for coming in in the morning and popping my eyes open, going, “Are you awake? [00:33:30] ‘Cause I am.”
Suzy Vadori: Oh, gosh. I- Yeah … I think, I think if my grandkids do that, they will not have sleepovers here very often. I don’t think I would react very well to that.
Shannon Allen: But there again, if you have a f- a first line of, “Are you awake yet?” And I have felt my eyelids being popped open, I’m going to be intrigued ’cause, like, who in the heck is popping your eyeballs open at God knows what time in the morning?
Suzy Vadori: I hope, I hope it’s your eyelids, not your eyeballs.
Shannon Allen: Oh, yes, your eyelids.
It needs to be interesting and unique and grab my attention quickly.
Suzy Vadori: What are the [00:34:00] biggest mistakes that you see?
Shannon Allen: Biggest mistakes that I see. Long, meandering, run-on sentences.
Suzy Vadori: Okay?
Shannon Allen: People think that because they’re short story and they need to pull in all of these concepts, that they need long sentences to do it You don’t.
You need to vary your sentences. You need to vary the length of those sentences, and the tone and pace of all of those sentences. So the big, [00:34:30] long, drawn out sentences- ‘
Suzy Vadori: Cause you’re cramming it all
Shannon Allen: in … they’re, they’re cramming it all in- Yeah … is a, is something that kind of go- goes, hmm, maybe not. Poorly thought out plots, flat characters.
Suzy Vadori: Who don’t want anything.
Shannon Allen: Who don’t want anything, do, who don’t do anything, who don’t-
Suzy Vadori: Who are just watching from the sidelines …
Shannon Allen: sidelines. Yeah. Life is happening to them, they are not happening within life. They
Suzy Vadori: need agency.
Shannon Allen: They need agency. So if there’s no agency, then [00:35:00] that’s kind of, you know, a no-go for me.
Suzy Vadori: All right, what’s overdone? What do you see all the time that you’re sick of and you hope you never see again?
Shannon Allen: Oh. Within science fiction, which is predominantly where most of my reading is, the chosen one-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah …
Shannon Allen: is o- it, it, there’s a lot of it. And I-
Suzy Vadori: So, so somebody who, i- has powers just because they have been chosen and they haven’t earned them on their own, which is how to make the chosen one fresh, by the way.[00:35:30]
Have them earn it.
Shannon Allen: Have them earn it. And within the sci-fi community, fantasy is part of that. And so that’s-
Suzy Vadori: Well, it’s fantasy, especially YA fantasy is-
Shannon Allen: Especially YA fantasy. Yeah. So, uh, the chosen one is, yeah, there’s a lot of that. Okay. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: I mean, if you’re sick of that, let’s just leave it there.
Shannon Allen: Just leave it there, yeah.
Suzy Vadori: All right. We’re to the quick-fire portion- Okay … of this. This has been so valuable. How long from [00:36:00] the time that you had your first anthology idea and, you know, you were approached by the publisher to when it was published, how long did it take?
Shannon Allen: Two and a half years.
Suzy Vadori: Two and a half years. Okay, good answer.
What was your first big break where you were like, “This is my jam”?
Shannon Allen: Oh, that’s kind of g- gonna be really, really old school.
Suzy Vadori: Let’s hear it.
Shannon Allen: Was my first story that got published in a school anthology.
Suzy Vadori: A school [00:36:30] anthology, like high school?
Shannon Allen: Elementary.
Suzy Vadori: Elementary school? All right. Your f- first big break. My, yep.
And you’ve, you’ve been able to, like, springboard off of that and turn it into the career that you have now.
Shannon Allen: Yep. That’s amazing. It, it opened the door to, this is something I can do, and then probably the more professional big break-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah …
Shannon Allen: would, would’ve been, uh, contributing to some anthologies that were put out by the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association.
Suzy Vadori: So being [00:37:00] selected out of- Being
Shannon Allen: selected …
Suzy Vadori: out of this process that you now govern for the anthologies that you’re an editor for- Yep … you
Shannon Allen: were first a
Suzy Vadori: writer submitting to those. I love that.
Shannon Allen: I was, and then the, the, uh, submitting and exposure through those anthologies made it possible to approach a small press publisher.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And say, “Hey, let’s do this.”
Shannon Allen: And hey, let’s do this, and they said, sure, which was like-
Suzy Vadori: That is a deal. Da-da-da.
Shannon Allen: Yeah. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. You know, but I wouldn’t discount the [00:37:30] what that you shared from elementary school, and the, the reason is it’s really important to encourage people. And so for the listeners, I’d love to hear your stories, because I hear from people all the time that they always loved to write, but maybe that grade, fourth-grade teacher told you that you sucked at it or whatever.
Mm-hmm. And we carry those wounds, so encouraging and the fact that you won a contest as a kid-
Shannon Allen: Yeah …
Suzy Vadori: that’s awesome. Yeah. We need to keep having those things.
Shannon Allen: And it was- A very pivotal [00:38:00] moment for me as a kid with dyslexia-
Suzy Vadori: Mm …
Shannon Allen: to have published work out there.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, we haven’t even touched on that.
Shannon Allen: Yeah.
That’s a whole other ballgame.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Another day. Well, and
Suzy Vadori: I think, like, if I remember the story correctly, you didn’t know exactly what it was when you were younger. Did you know?
Shannon Allen: No. Yeah. Uh, elementary, had no idea. Thought I was just not bright enough to get it.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Dyslexia was not determined until, uh, grade eight.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. But to be encouraged and to be like, “All right-
Shannon Allen: Yeah …
Suzy Vadori: there’s something [00:38:30] here.”
Shannon Allen: My, my dad was always good to encourage the stories. The school system, unfortunately not so much back then, but my dad was a great encourager- Ah … which was awesome.
Suzy Vadori: I love that. Okay. What’s your best advice for those listeners who wanna get off this podcast because they can’t wait to write a short story right now?
Shannon Allen: Right now? Go write it. Let your brain just dump onto the paper and sort it out later.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Great advice. Okay. Where can we find you and your work, [00:39:00] and watch for your next submission opportunity?
Shannon Allen: Okay, great question. I can be found at shannonallen.ca. That is my book coaching site, but you can contact me through that, and I will get back to you for any questions that you have.
For any work that you wanna read, can look for any of my anthologies through Tyche Books or Edge Publishing.
Suzy Vadori: All right. We’ll leave the, we’ll leave the buy links there for you- Yep … all the links in the show notes. Thank you so [00:39:30] much today, Shannon. You’re welcome. This has been amazing. I think we need to go outside and pour a cold drink and enjoy the sunshine.
Shannon Allen: I think so. That sounds like a great day.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Thanks for coming on the show.
Shannon Allen: Thanks a lot.
Suzy Vadori: Thanks for tuning in to the Show, Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori. It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or the book that you’re planning to write. [00:40:00] Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us. You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening to show how much you enjoy the show.
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