Publication Update
A love letter to revisions
Dear Reader,
I started Heartfelt Fiction earlier this year to bring my stories out into the open and let them breathe. Substack is a home for my words and though I love sharing here, I’m also dipping my toe in the publication waters of literary magazines and websites. I’ve had a bit of luck here and there.
That good luck continues. My story, “Imagine a Way Out” was featured on Flash Fiction Magazine over the weekend. I would be honored if you read it there. Below, I’m giving a little insight to the writing process, you’re interested in that sort of thing.
Thank you for following along,
Everyone needs an editor.
It’s a creative truth I hold dear and one that was validated with the process of bringing “Imagine a Way Out” to life.
This story started as a submission to a contest I didn’t win. I was short-listed instead. My prize was editor feedback. The notes were so wonderful that they prompted me to revisit everything from word choice to character development. After polishing it, I loved the story so much I wanted to see if it could work in another publication.
It turns out, even my edited story wasn’t quite right. I got rejected over and over again. But lucky for me, one of those 20+ rejections came with pointed notes about why the story didn’t work. I was thrilled.
That may be a strange reaction, but remember, I adore edits. Getting them means (to my mind anyway) that the person believes in your story enough to want you to get it right.
I polished the story again. Then I sent it out for another round of submissions. This time, in a sea of no I got a maybe.
The editor at Flash Fiction said they liked the story but it needed some work. If I was willing to revise based on their notes, they’d publish.
It was a no-brainer. I said yes immediately.
The notes weren’t small grammar changes. They were bigger asks, like deeper context and more robust descriptions. It took me a while to get the story to a good place, but I did.
The whole process — from that first submission to the eventual publication — took seven months. Seven months and three rounds of overhaul-level revisions for a 1,000 word story. That’s why “Imagine a Way Out” symbolizes for me the importance of editing.
The story you’ll read on Flash Fiction isn’t the story I first wrote. The ideas and feedback of many helped shape the final product. I don’t know a writer out there who can’t say the same thing for their published work. What we do is so often regarded as solitary, but I find that the more people who help me, the better my work becomes.
So, thank you to all my many editors; the people who make me better by reading and critiquing my work. This story is for you.