Hello, Heidi. Welcome.
I’m answering as someone who has had mostly articles published in magazines and newspapers, and just a couple of short stories, but the principles are the same.
I don’t know anything about American markets, but would imagine there are far more magazines over there than there are here in the UK. The problem with short stories is that every woman (and her sister) wants to write them, so that editors of the big nationals are inundated with hundreds of unsolicited scripts. And when the magazine only wants one or two stories per issue, and the editor has accepted enough for the next six months, she will shut the door and say, “No more submissions until …”
But it’s not all doom and gloom. For every hundred scripts submitted, probably at least ninety-five will be rejected without being read, for various reasons — wrong length, wrong kind of subject matter, not presented in the correct manuscript form, or simply badly written and full of typos.
If you make sure you’ve got those things right, you’ll be in the top five percent, and at least your story will be read. But I wonder where you are setting your sights. A beginner has more chance of getting published by aiming at the smaller markets, like small press magazines, to start with. They don’t pay much, if at all, so that they don’t attract established writers and you are not up against so much competition. But you are getting published, gaining credits, and giving your self-confidence a tremendous boost.
Then, of course, there are lots of short story competitions you could enter, and if you are a winner, your story will be published.
It all boils down to doing your market research, looking for target magazines that use the kind of stories you want to write. Send for their tip sheets, or phone and ask if they are taking submissions. If they are, study the magazine to get a feel for their writing style, the kind of protagonist they favour, whether they use single or double quote marks, the length of the stories, whether they like twist endings, and so on. You need to know all that to be in with a chance. If you’ve already written a story, you may have to re-write it to fit the requirements of a particular magazine. There are no short cuts.
Above all, never give up. Keep on writing stories, and keep sending them out. I know someone who had forty stories rejected before her first acceptance. Now, with several hundred stories published, she still gets rejections, but not many.
But first I’d suggest you post one of your stories in Review My Work and get some feedback on it.
Hope this hasn’t put you right off, but is some help.
Hugh
