GETTING EYEBALLS ON THE PAGE Dick Reynolds

GETTING EYEBALLS ON THE PAGE Dick Reynolds

When I retired and moved to Santa Fe in the summer of 1994, I hadn’t a clue as to how I would fill up my time.
Well, that’s not entirely true. The Sangre de Cristo mountains beckoned, one of the attractions that brought me here in the first place. Shortly after arriving, I joined an organization called Santa Fe Search and Rescue, a small group of volunteers who were available night and day to go out in all kinds of weather and search for lost hikers and hunters. I also took courses at the community college in such diverse subjects a Plants of the Southwest, Real Estate Appraisal and Drip Irrigation Systems. Interesting subjects all but none pointed to follow-up action or new careers. But when the college advertised a course titled Fiction Writing, I signed up for it. I’d spend the last thirty years of my professional life in the Marine Corps and with Hughes Aircraft writing military, technical and proposal documents. I’d always enjoyed writing, seeing my words on paper being appreciated and praised by both peers and seniors in the chain of command. This course would be a great opportunity to exercise my writing muscles and learn how to tell a story or two. How difficult could it be?
Pretty damned difficult, it turned out.
The teacher of the course was Jay Udall, a poet and editor of a small literary review. He is also the brother of Tom Udall, now one of our New Mexico senators. Jay is probably one of the few members of that illustrious family who is not an environmental activist or involved in politics.
The class was well attended, about twenty-five men and women of varying ages. Jay’s lectures focused on key elements of the short story: the introductory hook to make the reader read further, dialogue, development of characters with plot progression, and a dramatic high point near the end followed by a short segment of resolution. He assigned homework, sketches and short writing exercises of scenes with dialogue that he would mark up with critiques. He also called on students to read their work aloud in class.
I was shocked and disappointed when my he gave back my first assignment with red marks all over it. I went to see him after class, concerned about the possibility of my wasting time and money on this adventure, and we had a heart-to-heart conversation. He pointed out that writing fiction is totally different from the kind of writing I’d been doing before. He urged me to be patient, work hard and not to give up. This last exhortation was the most valuable bit of writing advice I ever received; never give up.
Near the end of the course, I turned in a humorous little story about a group of dogs holding a meeting and talking amongst themselves in a manner that could be understood by a human. Jay liked it and suggested that I expand it. “Go over the top,” he said, “and see if you can’t get it published somewhere.”
After some cursory research at the library, I found a publication called SATIRE, fired off a manuscript to its editor and promptly forgot about it. Until late July 1996, that is, when I received a hefty package in the mail from SATIRE; they wanted to publish my story. The editor kindly noted that I’d failed to provide a cover letter with the manuscript and he wanted to know just who Dick Reynolds was. (Lesson learned: always send a cover letter with a manuscript along with a self-addressed stamped envelope.) The next day, after my excitement had calmed down, I reviewed the galley proof and returned it to the editor along with some biographical notes.
Encouraged by this singular success, I decided to write more fiction but wasn’t sure what to write about. The old adage — write about what you know — seemed to be good advice so I combed my memory and picked a personal experience that I could embellish. Twenty years earlier I’d met a woman at a pub in London’s Heathrow Airport and we spent about two hours talking while we waited for our respective flights. I conjured up a fantasy tale and sent it to the Roswell Literary Review. The editor replied that my submission was actually a vignette and not a short story. Nevertheless, he was so taken by it that he decided to publish it. (Another lesson learned: If you’re lucky enough to get an editor’s comments on your submission, particularly if it’s a rejection, there’s much to be learned by careful study of them.)
I also wrote a longer story, one based on my short and recent experience with search and rescue missions. A young woman receives erroneous information about the results of a lab report and decides to end her life rather than suffer a long and painful death because of breast cancer. But before she does the deed, she hikes to the summit of the Sangres’ highest peak to see one last sunrise. She’s rescued by her boyfriend who also happens to be a search and rescue volunteer. This story was accepted by Beverly Clark, editor and publisher of Sweet Annie & Sweet Pea Review based in Baxter, Iowa, and was published in 1998. This fortuitous event established both a friendship and professional relationship with Ms. Clark. During the next several years she published three more of my short stories plus one nonfiction piece about a ten day Sierra Club service trip taken in Colorado's Snowmass Wilderness.
During the late 1990s, I took more classes and workshops devoted to writing. Miriam Sagan, a poet and dynamic teacher taught several courses at the community college which proved extremely useful. Ms. Terry Wilson also taught classes at the college but the workshops she held in her home at night were more valuable. Never more than ten workshop students at a time, we sat in a circle while she gave us speed writing drills followed by taking turns to read what came out of our pens. Over the next several years, I took eight workshops and classes from her and every single one yielded a published short story.
In early 1998 I happened on a newspaper article about a financial scam involving something called prime bank guarantees and learned that it was a sophisticated Ponzi scheme. Not exactly something that I’d had any experience with but I wanted to write about it. I concocted a tale about two out-of-work Wall Street stock brokers who discover the existence of such a scheme. With their insider knowledge, the duo manages to trick the crooks out of a large sum of money. This story was accepted by John M. (“Mike”) Freiermuth, editor and publisher of Words of Wisdom in Greensboro, NC. Mr. Freiermuth would eventually publish twelve of my stories in Words of Wisdom and his sister publication, Timber Creek Review. He didn’t always like what I sent him; in each of those few cases, he responded with a long and comprehensive critique, something rare in today’s literary world. Finding such a sympathetic editor is one of many gratifying things that can happen to a writer and such professional relationships should be cultivated and cherished. I’ve had the good fortune to find other such editors; Victoria Valentine of Skyline Publications and Eva Barrows of Imitation Fruit Literary Journal have each published three of my stories.
A beginning writer might wonder about the market for short stories; how does one find the magazines and literary reviews that publish them? I got my first clues when I found two volumes of prize-winning stories. One was titled Best Short Stories 1997 and the other contained the annual Pushcart Prizes. Great reading material in both but even more valuable was a listing at the back of each book of all the literary reviews where these excellent stories were first published. More checking confirmed how big this market is when I found a book in our library titled The International Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses and published by Dustbooks in Paradise, CA. It’s a hefty thing, some 770 pages with over 6,000 entries, and is updated every year. I decided early on to buy my own soft copy for $35.00 since I used it so often.
It’s a terribly tedious task going through this directory, checking each entry to see if the publication is a likely target for a short story. There is an index of subjects in the back of the directory, arranged alphabetically, that can help narrow your search. Once you go through the entries, however, you’ll have a list of publications for your data base that can be used over and over again. Most of the magazines and literary reviews list the general subject areas of fiction they are interested in reading and publishing, along with the editor’s name and address. Be sure to note if they stipulate a reading period. I’ve sometimes missed this item, only to discover much later that my manuscript had been discarded because I’d submitted it outside the reading period. You might have thought that they’d hold on to a manuscript until the next reading period but they won’t.
Another key consideration is whether your target publication considers simultaneous submissions. In the late 1990s, I usually sent a story to six different publications at the same time. I tried to be selective about the target editors because the expenses of copying and postage were considerable. On thing I didn’t do was buy a copy of the target publication or take out a subscription. Many publications in the directory suggested doing this. “Read a sample copy,” they said, “and see the kind of stories we like to read and publish.” If I followed their advice for every time that I’d read that, I would have gone broke fast and never had any time for my own writing.
One thing that should always be done before submitting anything is to Google the publication in question and read their submission guidelines. You’ll want to review their guidelines again and make sure that nothing has changed. Since there is also a high mortality rate among magazines and small literary reviews, it’s a good idea to make sure the publication is still in business before you send anything.
After using The International Directory for several years I stumbled across 2001 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market on Amazon.com and bought a copy. This book was just as heavy and, surprisingly, it listed many candidate publications for short stories that were not included in the former. The organization of this second book differs from the former; there are sections devoted just to listings of literary reviews, small circulation magazines, and online publications. Taken together, these two books are a must for the serious fiction writer who wants to be published and “get those eyeballs on the page.” I recently ordered 2012 Novel and Short Story Writer’s Market from Amazon.com for $18.25. This book has a newer section called Consumer Magazines, defined as a publication with a circulation over 10,000. In the front of the book, you’ll find some 250 pages dealing with writing craft and a listing of literary agents.
In 1999, I became part of a small writing group consisting of myself and three women, one of whom was located in Southern California and a longtime friend of another women in our group. We met sporadically at a local coffee shop, reading and critiquing each other’s work. The California woman’s participation was limited to the exchange of manuscripts and critiques by “snail mail” and e-mail. As a group, we lasted about a year but I did gain some benefits from our association. One advantage was getting the female perspective on my work. Also, since two of the three women were much younger, I quickly learned how important it is for a writer, no matter his or her age, to be current in the language and culture of youth.
In 2003, I joined another writing group, one that was larger and better organized. We met every other Friday at our community’s library. One of the first items of business was drafting a mission statement that detailed our method of work. We limited the group to a maximum of six members and agreed to provide each of the other members hard copies of our work, up to ten pages at a time, to be marked up and discussed at the next meeting two weeks later. At first there were five women and myself in the group, each of us published authors who wrote fiction, poetry and nonfiction such as memoirs and essays. Several years later, another man joined us to fill a vacancy and he was a most welcome addition.
During our meetings, discussions focused on the merits of each writer’s submission two weeks before, highlighting the good points and suggesting improvements for items that needed it. By unanimous agreement, we marked up manuscripts for typographical errors or grammatical mistakes but did not discuss them. Time was precious and we wanted to focus on the most important issues.
Having five others critique my work was greatly beneficial to the quality of my short stories. However, when I decided to share a novel-in-the-works with the group, some disadvantages soon became apparent. Because of our self-imposed page limit for a single submission, I found myself constructing chapters that were eight, nine or ten pages long. This was not a big deal but the overall length of the novel at about 360 manuscript pages presented a larger problem. At ten pages being critiqued every two weeks, we were looking at a total of seventy-two weeks (about 1.5 years) to go through my book from start to finish. My writing colleagues had great difficulty trying to recall the details of what had happened several chapters before the one being discussed because of the elapsed time. So I had to rely on my own best judgment to make sure that plot and character development were consistent throughout.
Another weakness of this group was our average age of about sixty-five when we started in 2003. We could have used at least two members who were under forty to give us a more “modern” appraisal of our work. However, most writers that age were probably holding down one or more day jobs and wouldn’t have been able to spare the time working with us. After about five years of working together, we had some discussion about the use of e-mail and the internet to streamline our work. We agreed to exchange information about interesting web sites, book signings, poetry readings, etc., but we’d continue to provide hard copies of our work to each other at the Friday meetings. We were all so comfortable with marking up paper manuscripts that going “all electronic” would probably be too much of a culture shock.
I dropped out of this group in 2010 because of my poor hearing. Even though I had modern hearing aids, it had become difficult taking part in the discussions because I couldn’t understand most of what was being said. I had also detected some creeping personal animosity pointed my way by one of the women, perhaps because of the subjects I’d chosen to write about or my critiques of her work. The group completely folded soon after I left but I’m not without a keen pair of eyes looking over my shoulder these days. My wife, Bernadette, gets to see the second draft of everything I write — nobody gets to see that awful first draft — and her thoughtful review always improves it substantially.
In the late 1990s when my production of short stories resulted in three or four at a time being circulated to editors, I had to come up with some kind of administrative scheme for keeping track of everything. The system I came up with is one that I still use today. I have a three-ring notebook with tabbed separators for each letter of the alphabet. Each short story sent out has a page of its own that lists the name of the destination magazine or literary review, the date sent, whether it was a simultaneous submission or not, and how I’d sent it, hard copy by “snail mail” or electronically. Some publications now use an electronic submission manager that requires your password; this is where I recorded it.
But the three-ring notebook is only half of the system. The other half is a spreadsheet on my computer that is sorted alphabetically according to the names of the publications to which I’ve submitted short stories. For each story submitted I include the story title, date sent, date rejected or accepted and some brief comments. I like to note the word limit imposed by a publication and whether or not they consider simultaneous submissions. Occasionally I must resort to the spreadsheet when an editor sends me a cryptic rejection e-mail but doesn’t mention the title of the story.
Whenever a story is accepted I check the page in my three-ring notebook to see if it was sent to other publications. It so, I immediately send the others a letter or e-mail asking them to withdraw the story from further consideration.
At this writing, thirty-seven short stories have been published during the past eighteen years with two more scheduled for print later this year. Nine additional stories are currently in circulation, trying to rise to the top of editors’ slush piles. My short story spreadsheet has ballooned to approximately 700 entries which the astute mathematician will calculate to about a 5% success rate. The advice cited earlier — never give up — comes readily to mind.
Over the years I’ve detected several trends concerning short stories. The most obvious one is the method for submission and the medium of publication. When I began submitting story manuscripts it was in all cases mailing hard copies along with a self-addressed stamped envelope for the editor’s reply. I couldn’t find any magazine or literary review that would entertain a submission by e-mail. Today, thanks to the internet’s popularity, almost all my submissions are done by attaching the story manuscript to an e-mail or through the publication’s online submission manager. Clearly, this method is much faster, cheaper and more efficient for both the writer and publisher. This electronic capability has also given rise to the online magazine and literary review. Some publications that accept electronic submissions still publish a print version, a feature that appeals to my friends who either don’t have a computer or don’t like to read a story on their computer screen. Since today’s youth, like my grandchildren, are so comfortable with presentations on iPads, Kindles and their smart phones, ink-on-paper stories may one day disappear completely.
The first short stories I ever read were by O. Henry, probably when I was in seventh or eighth grade. I liked the humor in them, his characters who were usually on the wrong side of the law, and the sometimes surprise plot twist at the end. These days I read plenty of short stories in various types of publications. Whenever a print magazine or literary review publishes one of my stories, I take out a subscription and keep it active until it folds. I also take time to read stories in higher tier publications like One Story and The New Yorker magazines. I’ve noticed that there is little humor to be found in today’s short stories. There also seems to be more narrative summary in them and less dialogue, breaking the rule I learned about “showing and not telling.” After reading some of these modern stories, I’m left with an empty feeling, wondering what the point of it was and what message the author was trying to send. The writing in them is beautiful but it brings to mind something Elmore Leonard once said when he came up with ten tricks for good writing. His most important rule was one that summed up the ten: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it. These are just a few isolated examples; I can’t tell if it’s a trend or not but it bears watching.
I’m not sure how many more stories I have inside me but I plan to keep writing. Most of the ones I’ve written and published have been based on incidents that I’ve witnessed first hand. Traveling on business to several European and Middle-East countries yielded almost a dozen such stories. More recently, story ideas have sprung from just noticing events happening nearby or the unusual actions of colorful characters. This tells me that a writer should always have his or her “receiver” turned on and be receptive to such signals from the muse.

Richard C. (“Dick”) Reynolds was born in 1934 in East St. Louis, Illinois and raised mainly in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1953, he enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve as a private, and retired twenty-four years later as a Lieutenant Colonel. During his first twelve years, he served in infantry units as squad leader, platoon sergeant, platoon leader, and rifle company executive officer. For the second twelve years, he served in communications-electronics assignments. At the end of his military career, he also taught computer science and programming courses for two years at the George Washington University.

From 1977 to 1994, Dick was a System Engineer for Hughes Aircraft Company in Fullerton, California and Brussels, Belgium. During this time, he worked on command and control system programs for Greece, Norway, and Denmark, and on air defense projects for NATO, the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Just after retiring from the Marines, Dick took up mountain climbing. During the period 1974 to 2002, he scaled approximately 150 peaks in New Mexico, Colorado, and California. He put this experience to good use from 1994 to 2002 as a member of Santa Fe Search and Rescue Group, performing on missions in the local Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

After retiring from Hughes Aircraft Company, Dick began a fourth career—fiction writing. His thirty-plus short stories have appeared in such publications as Timber Creek Review, Skyline magazine, Barbaric Yawp, and Imitation Fruit Literary Journal. Two of his stories have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Author of three novels, Averil, My Anchor, Mayhem in Mazatlan, and Nightmare in Norway, all published by MilSpeak Books, the publishing division of MilSpeak Foundation (501c3), a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about creative works by military people. Dick’s most recent novel is, Filling in the Triangles, and will soon be published by Water Forest Press and by Amazon.com in print.

Dick and his wife Bernadette currently reside in Santa Fe, New Mexico.