I've been trying my hand at poetry. Now I'm not a poet. I write cute little rhyming poems. Nothing major or deep thinking about them, but one of the poems I have started writing, has challenged me to turn it into a children's picture book, along with my own illustrations (I'm not an illustrator either) But for me it's a challenge.
Anyway...I write romance novels and started thinking of short romance stories to submit to magazines. So I googled "submitting stories to magazines" and I found a few different sites that list magazines that take unsolicited submissions.
Here's one list for the UK http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/short-stories/magazines/
And then there is this one US http://www.everywritersresource.com/topliterarymagazines.html
And this one http://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-tips-and-writing-advice/short-story-magazines.php#ShortStoryMagsUSA
Now what I've found, is that quite a few of the magazines say they only accept "No Genre Fiction"
Now I must not be the brightest person, because I had to google to find out what they meant by "No Genre Fiction"
I guess I should have paid more attention in my English 101 Story Composition class in college, But at that time I had never thought about writing and two weeks into the class my brother passed away unexpectedly and for a minute there, I almost dropped all of my classes, but I knew my brother would want me to finish. It was the last semester I needed to graduate. So I ended up writing all my stories for the class, about my brother as a dedication to him. In fact one of those stories is published in Patti Roberts book titled
"I Believe" (My story is titled "Do you believe") And you can pick up "I Believe" for free here on Amazon
So what exactly is "No Genre Fiction" Well my understanding of it is, it is a fictional story with NO romance, mystery, zombies, ghosts, no paranormal, no sci-fi, no...What! How do you write a "No Genre Fiction?" Better yet what do you write about? And some of them even say they accept stories with up to 10,000 words!
I might be able to come up with a paragraph or two, maybe even a page, but 10,000 words? Yikes! Your stories have to be things that happen in everyday occurrences. Things that could actually happen and yet they must be fiction.
Well, I've come up with a few ideas that might work with those guidelines.
How about;
Shopping for a new dress.
Or
My son's baseball game.
Or maybe
Working in the yard on a beautiful day.
These are just some off the top of my head.
What kind of ideas can you come up with, that you think would work great with, "No Genre Fiction?"
Have you ever written "No Genre Fiction?"
Could you challenge yourself to do so?
You can read some "No Genre Fiction" stories for free at Carve Magazine.
Just click on the link http://carvezine.com/fiction/#.UcBs7-e-2uI
I'd love to hear your thoughts! Leave me a comment!
