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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 youâve ever thought that you might want to try your hand at short fiction, or if youâve already got stories in slush piles, you donât want to miss this episode!
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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
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Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show Donât 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 canât 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, Shannanâs 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.
Sheâs 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. Sheâs a past member of the Canadian Science Fiction Association.
Sheâs 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 canât wait to edit more anthologies. Weâre 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: Itâs awesome. I l- love getting out of the house and driving somewhere new and talking all things story.
Suzy Vadori: I think itâs funny because people donât really understand how awesome it can be to work from home. [00:02:30] I have a pool, so it is summer when weâre recording this, and I just sit outside.
And people say to me, âDo you get use out of the pool?â Iâm like, âYes, I do every day.â Yeah. And thatâs why weâre meeting here today.
Shannon Allen: Thatâs why weâre meeting here, and I agree working from home is the best thing âcause I donât 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 ⌠whatâs better? Nothing. You know, thereâs nothing better.
Suzy Vadori: Nothing better. Okay.
Shannon Allen: Nothing [00:03:00] better.
Suzy Vadori: Well, weâre inside right now and recording this. Weâre talking about short story. Shannan, I wanted to have you on here âcause 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 Iâm 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 donât 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 youâre not having multiple adventures. Youâre not having multiple quests. Youâre usually dealing with [00:04:00] one main point, misbelief, challenge that takes you from point A to point B.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Weâre 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 thatâs all you wanna write, and itâs, feels incomplete? Then word count is a problem. Tell your story. If youâre focused on the plot and your characters, their misbelief, and what they need to achieve, youâll hit a perfect word count every time.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
And so when youâre, when youâre doing short story, Iâll 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 âcause 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 theyâll go, âNope, youâre over.
You didnât listen to the guidelines,â and off you go. Other submission calls, like the ones I put out, we donât list a word count because we want a complete story. Yeah. We donât want a rushed story.
Suzy Vadori: But what, what constitutes too long? Obviously, you know, youâre getting into 30,000, youâre into a [00:05:30] novella.
Youâre getting into 50,000, youâre into a novel.
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Suzy Vadori: So whenâs 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 youâve been writing your novel for 10 years and itâs, like, blowing your [00:06:00] brains, and youâre not sure, and youâre like, âWell, somebody suggested this short story gig,â and youâre 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 thatâs, thatâs just it, is if you view it as a practice, and you can write more of them, and itâs 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 youâre wondering, âOkay, I have this amazing idea for a novel,â dig deep.
Iâm sure you have other ideas out there. Ideas is not usually the problem-
Shannon Allen: No âŚ
Suzy Vadori: uh, for most [00:07:00] writers. In fact, most of us who go to a cocktail party and tell people, âI write,â 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, âI donât need your idea.
I have a million.â Mm-hmm. Right.
Shannon Allen: Every, every writer has caseloads of ideas- Yeah ⌠that they want to explore. Itâs 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 thereâs many, many writers who do that.
Shannon Allen: Many, many writers.
Suzy Vadori: Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood, yeah. Thereâs lots of, lots of writers who do that. If you feel the need to write or if you need a break from your novel, nowâs 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?
Iâve got a bunch of [00:08:00] categories here, so Iâm gonna throw them out there and weâre gonna talk about-
Shannon Allen: Sounds great.
Suzy Vadori: What about setting?
Shannon Allen: Setting is important, but itâs limited. You generally are not going to have multiple worlds if youâre writing in science fiction. Youâre not going to have multiple settings if youâre writing in historical fiction.
You may have one or two settings, but youâre 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 theyâre trying to write a novel. Theyâve got multi-point of view and theyâve got, um, you know, four point of view characters, and theyâve got dual timeline, and theyâve got all these things.
Can you do that in a short story?
Shannon Allen: Itâs 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 donât know that itâs 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, âI look forward to more adventures to come.â
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Your setting is still within that one setting. Itâs one POV, and itâs at a limited timeframe within the story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I mean, thatâs great advice even for novels, to be [00:09:30] honest. Even for novels. Especially if itâs 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 itâs your first book and you have a really complex structure because youâve just read Gone Girl or something, just know that it, it is much more difficult than you think itâs going to be to do it well, and thereâs not always a payoff.
Shannon Allen: Thereâs 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- âŚ
Suzy Vadori: Iâm 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 weâll use the same one. Theyâve [00:10:30] inherited the castle.
Suzy Vadori: I love that. I, I think it, uh, can I tell you, Iâve actually watched several Hallmark movies with that premise.
Shannon Allen: Oh, is
Suzy Vadori: that so? Theyâre, theyâre not, theyâre not, uh, theyâre 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, letâs [00:11:00] say our, our main character here, sheâs fallen in love, or theyâve fallen in love with the prince, the princess, whoever. A little bit of skullduggery by the person that theyâve come in contact with can have their own agenda, but it canât be real complex, like theyâre off to save the planet, or the family Christendom jewels, or anything like that.
Could be like, âOh, if I get rid of you-â Then I inherit
Suzy Vadori: Right.
Shannon Allen: Right? So [00:11:30] itâs, itâs 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 thereâs different ways to talk about this theme or the point of your story, or I, I like to call it the takeaway, whatâs your readerâs takeaway, it needs to be pretty focused.
âCause if youâre 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, youâre picking one.
Shannon Allen: You are picking one. Yeah. You do not have, you donât 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 Iâd say 900 words to 1,000 words, youâre gonna lose your reader. Yeah. And theyâre 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 youâre submitting. I mean- Your editor ⌠uh, weâre gonna get into that in a minute. Um- Yeah ⌠when you read thousands of stories, I donât know if you read them all the way through. Iâm gonna ask you in a minute.
Shannon Allen: Okay.
Suzy Vadori: Letâs keep going on whatâs 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 donât 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 Iâll just break it down in language that we use on the podcast because thatâs what theyâre used to hearing.
So what Shannaâs talking about here is that [00:13:30] shift, I call it from X to Y. So where are the, whereâs your character at the beginning of the story? Where are they at the end? Sheâs also referencing my fa- all-time favorite craft book, Story Genius-
Shannon Allen: Yes âŚ
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 isnât 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? Itâs 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 âcause 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 weâre using different things. Okay. Yeah. [00:14:30] So, so just like a novel, every book is only one personâs story. Every short story is only- Is only one
one personâs story. That doesnât mean that you canât 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 charactersâ 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 canât have a cast of thousands. You canât 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, âOh, the group at the coffee shop just didnât believe I inherited the castle.â Right? Itâs a collective type of viewpoint, and you may have a little bit of conversation going, âOh, no way.
Theyâre pulling your leg,â those types of things. But maximum three characters even if youâre bringing in other [00:15:30] viewpoints
Suzy Vadori: or groups
Shannon Allen: of story.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, I think thatâs just really good advice, and it dep- you know, in, in novels thatâs always good advice as well in novels. I mean, depends on your genre. If youâre 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 youâre writing ⌠Well, especially if youâre writing YA, young adult, or middle grade, youâre gonna lose your reader with a lot of characters, so maximum, you know, sort of two or three main characters. And what Iâm hearing you say is in a short story [00:16:00] itâs even more pared down where two or three characters, period- Yeah
that weâre 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 canât cloud it with having lots of people in there.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. World building.
Shannon Allen: World building, I think this is where youâre 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 youâre having them read, but you donât 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 donât have pages to do that either. No. Not to say that people donât 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 youâre going to give me setting, interact with the setting at the same time, therefore youâre 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 âŚ
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, Iâll 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 itâs 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 youâre picking the right two or three words.
Suzy Vadori: Absolutely, and you canât get⌠I mean, I donât agree that you can get away with that in novels either, but people do. Yeah. And, and please donât comment below, âI see telling in novels all the time.â
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 thereâs something that they need to know, do that telling, but phrase it in at part of dialogue and inner thought going, âOh my gosh, I didnât realize that this castle was built with these gothic structures, which were revolutionary for the time that was built.â
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Right? That will cause your reader to go, âOoh, side note, need to look up Gothic structure.â
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 whatâs 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 Iâm hearing word choice is king. Spend time making each word count. Each word
Shannon Allen: count.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Shannon Allen: Yep, it is. âCause we need to be able, as a reader, to inhabit the world thatâs 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, âWhat do you mean cozy sci-fi?â 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 itâs happening to the common person.
But cozy sci-fi, not a lot happens even though itâs science-based. So itâs more near future, so not today, but maybe 10 years in the future. Thereâs not the doom and gloom and world apo- apocalypse and those types of things. Itâs a softer way of looking the, the world through the lens of sci-fi.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. âCause 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 thereâs 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, thereâs, thereâs beats that have to happen in a cozy mystery where they go around and do interviews, and they gather information, and then, you know, thereâs 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 itâs 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, whateverâs 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 itâs 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.
Itâs, itâs 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 youâre 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 womenâs fiction short stories, and womenâs fiction is usually directed more at women readership. Itâs not exclusive to women readership, but itâs cons- Yeah ⌠thatâs 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 donât think is defined [00:23:00] exclusively for one genre or another. Yes, it was the bread and butter of science fiction and fantasy. Itâs 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 didnât want to publish their stories, so they were out to the magazines.
Yeah. Like Asimovâs and-
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Well, this is my next question- Yeah ⌠actually, is, okay, so our listenership is like, âOkay, well Iâm gonna go write a short [00:23:30] story. It shouldnât take me that long.â What do you do with them? Are th- You know, thereâs collections, thereâs ⌠Can they publish them or sell them by themselves?
Thereâs anthologies. What, what, what can they do with them?
Shannon Allen: Thereâs a lot of avenues for short stories, and in this day of AI and computerization and tech, weâre finding that thereâs 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 theyâre 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 doesnât mean go and generate an AI story- No ⌠Iâm assuming. What do you mean by because of AI?
Shannon Allen: Because of AI, [00:25:00] youâre finding that short story is coming under tighter scrutiny. A lot of your submission calls are saying, âIn no way can AI have touched this story.â
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, âHey, Claude, please tidy up this or make it sound better,â guess what they do, by the way? It will go and actually grab something from my book or one of Shannonâs 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 didnât 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 theyâre not a real submission call. So you have to be careful. The ones that you answer, make sure theyâre reputable.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. You mean because theyâre 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 âŚ
Shannon Allen: then be careful. If youâre 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 youâre 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 youâre submitting to a magazine and youâre not reading it or subscribing to it, what are you- You
Shannon Allen: shouldnât be submitting
Suzy Vadori: What are you doing, right?
Shannon Allen: Exactly.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Okay, okay.
So thatâs, thatâs good. And, and I [00:26:30] think the other thing about AI and the reason that itâs 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, âHang on.â
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 donât, Iâm-
Shannon Allen: Al- no, almost two years ago now ⌠mostly, yeah, Iâm- 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 itâs not tells, so if youâre wondering how the heck can they ever find it, itâs not just tells. I mean, people talk about thereâs 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- ⌠itâs also that you kind of, I donât know if you find this, but I know itâs AI when Iâm going through and thereâs nothing to correct âcause itâs perfect, but Iâm bored to tears. Because all itâs done is stripped out your voice, right? It canât create anything. All it can do is look backward.
Itâs a reflection of the past. Yep. It can steal from other peopleâs 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 canât do the cool work, which is to actually create. And itâs the reason why, and I say this, I mean, thereâs, thereâs 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. Itâs the reason why when somebody writes to me, âcause I get this- Mm-hmm ⌠and they say, âHey, I generated a story, a science fiction story thatâs 175,000 words. Would you, like, edit it and help me cut it to [00:28:30] 100,000?â And I say, âYou mean you want me to write the story for you?â
Yeah. Because all I could possibly do is insert new details, because that 175,000 words wonât have anything unique in it.
Shannon Allen: No. It will be full of filler-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah âŚ
Shannon Allen: words, like, and your filter words. Yeah. Itâll be stripped of emotion, and it will use three, four, five adjectives to describe something.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. So okay, so thatâs our feelings on it
Shannon Allen: today.
Thatâs our feelings, yep.
Suzy Vadori: Thatâs our [00:29:00] feelings. But yeah, you review hundreds of submissions. Okay. Yeah. Hereâs what we all wanna know.
Shannon Allen: Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: What are you looking for?
Shannon Allen: I am looking for something thatâs 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 Shannonâs mouth. [00:29:30] Reviewing thousands, and probably doesnât get to the end of it if it doesnât do that, right? You ca- you donât have time to read everything.
Shannon Allen: I donât have time. If Iâm 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 ⌠â
Shannon Allen: cause our deadlines are quite tight on the editorial side, youâve got that first couple of paragraphs. If Iâm somewhat intrigued, I might keep going.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. [00:30:00] Itâs amazing.
And I wonât- I spend a lot of time at conferences where thereâs 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 thatâs a nice sentiment.
However- Mm-hmm ⌠itâs not true, right? And, and it just isnât true. Right now, people in publishing are overworked, and if you donât 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.
Theyâll look at the pages, but they might do that sort of work late at night when youâd normally be reading for pleasure, and theyâre tired, and theyâre looking at it in bed on their iPad, and they go, âNope. Nope. Nope. Oh, this oneâs good. Iâll read this one before bed,â right? Yep. And so y- y- you donât kind of
Like, itâs a neat way to flip it, because I donât think that writers often understand [00:31:00] the kind of pressure that youâre under as an editor, and the way that you- Yep ⌠choose it is not what you might think.
Shannon Allen: No, it isnât, and unfortunately, I would love to read every single submission I get when Iâm doing a submission call.
I just canât.
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 letâs, letâs just stop for a second- Mm-hmm
because- Yeah ⌠because when we hear this advice, and whether or not youâve heard this advice, you may not understand why, and so you can dismiss it and say, âWell, Iâm different.â The thing is, for Shannon, whoâs 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 itâs unique and nobody ⌠It, itâs okay. Thereâs no shame in it if you didnât know, and youâre like, âOh my gosh, Suzy, I have that in my book,â you probably do, and the reason is nobody told you, and you donât see it in other published books because weâve not allowed those to be published that way- Right
or they were rejected before. And so yeah, itâs, itâs 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 Iâm gonna challenge you to do better and to do something more creative because itâs not gonna fly. Youâre hearing it from Shannon.
Yeah. It doesnât fly.
Shannon Allen: It doesnât 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 weâre probably gonna be less angry than-
Shannon Allen: Yeah âŚ
Suzy Vadori: her eyes flew open with a start, right?
Shannon Allen: You know?
Yeah, or, âThe child on my chest pulling my eyeballs awake was not very comfortable.â [00:33:00] Huh. Right?
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Okay.
Shannon Allen: Now, youâre having the person- Thatâs interesting. Odd premise. Well,
Suzy Vadori: Iâm 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, itâs not an automatic rejection, but they donât 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, âAre you awake? [00:33:30] âCause I am.â
Suzy Vadori: Oh, gosh. I- Yeah ⌠I think, I think if my grandkids do that, they will not have sleepovers here very often. I donât think I would react very well to that.
Shannon Allen: But there again, if you have a f- a first line of, âAre you awake yet?â And I have felt my eyelids being popped open, Iâm going to be intrigued âcause, like, who in the heck is popping your eyeballs open at God knows what time in the morning?
Suzy Vadori: I hope, I hope itâs 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 theyâre short story and they need to pull in all of these concepts, that they need long sentences to do it You donât.
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- â
Suzy Vadori: Cause youâre cramming it all
Shannon Allen: in ⌠theyâre, theyâre 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 donât want anything.
Shannon Allen: Who donât want anything, do, who donât do anything, who donât-
Suzy Vadori: Who are just watching from the sidelines âŚ
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 thereâs no agency, then [00:35:00] thatâs kind of, you know, a no-go for me.
Suzy Vadori: All right, whatâs overdone? What do you see all the time that youâre 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 âŚ
Shannon Allen: is o- it, it, thereâs a lot of it. And I-
Suzy Vadori: So, so somebody who, i- has powers just because they have been chosen and they havenât 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 thatâs-
Suzy Vadori: Well, itâs fantasy, especially YA fantasy is-
Shannon Allen: Especially YA fantasy. Yeah. So, uh, the chosen one is, yeah, thereâs a lot of that. Okay. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: I mean, if youâre sick of that, letâs just leave it there.
Shannon Allen: Just leave it there, yeah.
Suzy Vadori: All right. Weâre 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, âThis is my jamâ?
Shannon Allen: Oh, thatâs kind of g- gonna be really, really old school.
Suzy Vadori: Letâs 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 youâve, youâve been able to, like, springboard off of that and turn it into the career that you have now.
Shannon Allen: Yep. Thatâs amazing. It, it opened the door to, this is something I can do, and then probably the more professional big break-
Suzy Vadori: Yeah âŚ
Shannon Allen: would, wouldâve 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 âŚ
Suzy Vadori: out of this process that you now govern for the anthologies that youâre 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, âHey, letâs do this.â
Shannon Allen: And hey, letâs 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 wouldnât discount the [00:37:30] what that you shared from elementary school, and the, the reason is itâs really important to encourage people. And so for the listeners, Iâd 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 âŚ
Suzy Vadori: thatâs 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 âŚ
Shannon Allen: to have published work out there.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, we havenât even touched on that.
Shannon Allen: Yeah.
Thatâs 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 didnât 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, âAll right-
Shannon Allen: Yeah âŚ
Suzy Vadori: thereâs something [00:38:30] here.â
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. Whatâs your best advice for those listeners who wanna get off this podcast because they canât 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. Weâll leave the, weâll leave the buy links there for you- Yep ⌠all the links in the show notes. Thank you so [00:39:30] much today, Shannon. Youâre 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, Donât Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori. It is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book youâre writing or the book that youâre 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 youâre listening to show how much you enjoy the show.
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