Chip on Your Shoulder

Dear Chip,

I was wondering if you could give me any advice on breaking in to the field of creative non-fiction. I'm a 45-year-old voracious reader who's always wanted to write, but in college I was too much the capitalist to endure the starving artist path and changed from an English major to Computer Science. I try to write 1,000 words a night in a journal and read "everything," but realize that's nothing more than doing mental push-ups and have no idea how to "get an assignment." Any tips or insight you could shed would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Gary Leydon
Systems Administrator
Yale Univ. Sch. of Med
Department of Neurobiology

Dear Gary,

First, of course, write. Fortunately, you're already doing that so it's possible you have material already that you can turn into manuscripts to submit.

Breaking In: One Writer's Experience

In the summer of 1972, fresh from a lonely year as a Peace Corps volunteer in French West Africa, I was broke, unemployed, and couldn't even finish the short stories I labored on. Through a friend who worked as a reporter for the Bridgeport Post, I got a tryout with The Milford Citizen, a small daily in a suburb of New Haven (6,000 circ., 7,200 Sunday). Around town, it was known as "The Shitizen." >>Read more about Chip's first assignment

Survey the market. As I said in part one of my response to your question, creative nonfiction is the latest name for fact-based journalism that includes literary journalism, personal essays, memoir and cultural criticism.

Get the latest "Best American Essays," which includes prizewinners and notable essays and a list of places that publish, as does the annual collection of "Pushcart Prizes."  Doing this will give you a sense of the range of work that editors deem suitable. Look for something that makes you say, "Heck, I could do that," or "I've got a story like that" or "That gives me an idea for a story I could report." The world of publishing is replete with examples of readers saying just that (which must be why Saul Bellow said, "A writer is a reader moved to emulation.") And the world of creative nonfiction accommodates many voices.

The key will be to read as a writer as well as a reader. Ask: How did this story come to be? How was it reported, organized, written?

Get a manuscript together. Double space it with your name and contact info in a top corner of the first page and your last name and page number on succeeding ones.

Write a cover letter. Short and sweet.

Here's an annotated one that went out with a short story of mine:

Dear Editor:
Get a current copy or check the publications's website to make sure you're sending it to the right person.

I’d be grateful if you’d consider the enclosed short story, "Cascade."
ASK THEM TO CONSIDER THE STORY (Forgive me if this is too basic. But this is the stuff that I always used to agonize over. The point is to be as professional as possible. If you read something in the magazine that you liked you could say so, but most people go on ad nauseaum about themselves or say things like "My wife thinks this is the best thing I've ever read," and that turns off an editor instantly.)

My short fiction has appeared in Redbook, Mississippi Review Web, Elysian Fields Quarterly and Tampa Tribune Fiction Quarterly. I have published essays in Salon.com, The Boston Globe Magazine and River Teeth; one was recently selected as a Notable Essay of 2001 in Best American Essays 2002. I direct the National Writers Workshops at The Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, in St. Petersburg, Florida.
INCLUDE A GRAF WITH YOUR CREDITS (If you don't have any publishing credits, don't worry about it. I wouldn't say you edit the PTA newsletter; while that's laudable it doesn't indicate professional experience. If your occupation or experience is pertinent --"My essay describes my experiences as a POW in Iraq" -- include that. The story is what will get you in not who you are.)

I enclose a SASE; no need to return the manuscript.
Enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope; otherwise you may not hear back from them. It costs more to return your manuscript than to send a rejection letter. Just print out a new copy; a manuscript with coffee stains or bent corners signals that this isn't the first place to get this, and while editors recognize that, you don't have to rub it in their face.

Thanks for your consideration.

In recent years, I've started doing what's known as simultaneous submissions, sending to more than one magazine at once. Life is too short, and it can take months to hear back. I waited for eight months for a magazine to accept a piece and then another four months for it to appear. If you get lucky, it means you have to write all the other magazines and say you're withdrawing your manuscript from consideration. Fortunately, more and more publications are willing to accept simultaneous submissions, asking only that writers let them know as soon as a piece is accepted elsewhere.

You will receive rejection notes. Brandish them like Purple Hearts. One came in my mail this week. Make sure you have another package ready to go out so you don't dwell on it.

I wasted a lot of years not sending stuff out because it wasn't good enough. Of course you have to make sure the stuff's spelled right and that it's not a total piece of crap, but don't let perfectionism get in the way of pursuing your dream.

Get a manuscript together and start sending it out. It will get you in the game. And it will make all the difference. I guarantee it.

As for getting an assignment, you do the same thing as described above, but in this case write a brief pitch letter -- aka a query letter -- describing the story you'd like to write. Here's a piece I wrote about queries that I hope helps.

You may, as a beginner, have to do something on spec, either reporting and writing it without an assignment or offering to do something for an alternative paper.

It's as simple as just asking -- to be published, for an assignment -- and as difficult as getting someone to say yes.

You just have to ask, which means swallowing your fear, suppressing your ego. What makes it easier is focusing on the work ... the story, the reporting, the revision. That's the part of the process that you can control. Focus on the work, and you'll be ready when your break comes.

Best of luck.

Chip

[ How did you break in? Share the story behind your first acceptance/assignment here. ]

>>Read about Chip's first assignment