The Journey of a Story

In yesterday’s post, I talked about how each story goes through several stages of being ‘handed over’ to different people. The more I thought about it, the more stages I realised there are, and the more resilience required to keep going.

Here’s an example. In 2019, I wrote a story called ‘She Went There for the Weekend’ as an assignment for my Creative Writing MA, which will be included in my short story collection, Something Very Human. These were all the times I handed it over:

• I wrote the story. Yes, writing something down counts as handing it over; one moment it’s all in your head and the next it’s staring back at you from the page, exposed and exposing.

• I gave it to Mum, my first editor. I was nervous about this story because it was experimental, stream-of-consciousness, and potentially difficult to decode at first.

• I shared it on the university forums to get feedback. This was the worst one. It divided my fellow students completely and was thematically and stylistically controversial. None of the men understood what it was about; all the women did. Interesting.

• I submitted it to my tutor’s scrutiny. Thankfully, he did understand it and gave it a high mark. He had a few useful suggestions.

• I sent it to…at least twenty competitions. It made it onto one longlist but was otherwise rejected outright, until this year. Even though I knew it was a ‘marmite’ piece, I was still disappointed. All sorts of weird and wonderful stories achieve competition success, so I’d been quite hopeful, especially after making some improvements.

• A few months ago, I completely rewrote the ending, which had never fully ‘landed’, and ran it past my editor/mentor/friend, Debz. She gave me some very useful feedback.

• On a whim, I submitted it to the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize and was delighted to come second! It was published in their anthology.

• Now, the story has been sent to Bridge House Publishing with the rest of my collection. It will be edited a couple of times and proofread at least once. 

• After it’s published, it’ll be in the hands of readers/reviewers…

So, ‘She Went There for the Weekend’ has been ‘handed over’ numerous times over a period of almost five years. That’s quite the journey for a 2000-word story! I’m glad I persisted with her.