Chris writes:
Dear Mr. Kirtley, I am a high school freshman who is aspiring to be a writer of fantasy and science fiction. I discovered your website and read your stories “Save Me Plz” and “Pomegranate Heart.” I really enjoyed them, especially the one you published in Merlyn’s Pen. I saw from your website that you were extremely active writing as a high school student, and I was wondering how you started out writing in high school. What were your writing habits as a student? Did you strive to write a certain amount of words each day? What kind of publishers did you send to? I was also interested in your opinions on plotting. All of your plots and ideas seem to be very well developed. Are you a person who believes in plotting out an entire story extensively, or do you start with an ending in mind and develop the plot as you write? Also, do you have a way of knowing if an idea is good or what its chances are of being accepted by an editor as you first begin to write a story. I have trouble judging the originality, appeal, and creativity of my work as I first begin to write, and sometimes abandon works after a page or two to start something new. Thank you so much for reading my email! I really admire your work.
Hi Chris. Thanks for writing. I’m glad you enjoyed the stories.
I wasn’t a particularly disciplined writer in high school, so I don’t know if you’d necessarily want to emulate my habits from back then. In those days, writing was just something I did for fun, and I had a lot of other interests too, and often I only submitting things after being prodded by my parents and teachers. I mean, I liked writing a lot, and always had, so by the time I was in high school I’d produced dozens and dozens of stories, but I didn’t have a regimen or anything. If you want to hear about my current writing habits, which would probably be more helpful, I talk about that in this blog post over here, though keep in mind that every writer is different and you really just have to experiment and figure out what works for you.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any reliable way of gauging how good a story is or how likely it is to be published. I tend to bounce back and forth between thinking something I’m writing/have written is sheer brilliance and thinking it’s not worth showing to anyone, and this cycle of overweening confidence/crushing insecurity tends to never go away, even after the story is published, though at least if a story gets picked for a book or magazine, or prompts a lot of fan mail, that tends to blunt your doubts about it somewhat. I also write a lot of stories that I’m sure will never be published because they’re just too odd or uncommercial, and ironically I tend to have better luck getting these ones published than the ones that I’m sure everyone will love, so who knows? Also, I always finish every short story that I start. Often projects that seem like a disaster when you’re stuck in the middle end up looking a whole lot better once you’re done. And if not, well, you learn a lot more from writing a whole crappy story than from writing the first few pages of a crappy story.
As far as sending your work out, I’d be thinking about the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards (which has a fantasy/science fiction category) and the Dell Magazines Award (though you have to be an undergrad for this one). You also might consider applying to Alpha, a weeklong summer workshop for aspiring sf writers ages 14-19. (I’ve helped out with this workshop for several years now.) Former Alpha students have sold fiction to Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, Cicada, Clarkesworld, Fantasy Magazine, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, so those are a few markets that I know are publishing younger writers. I also have a Resources for Teen Writers page, though it hasn’t been updated for a while. I hope that helps.
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