The literary journal wormhole + MFA voice
“We lean toward literary fiction” Oh, brother, this guy stinks!
[First, thank you all for giving my post, I Was the Only Black Person at the Rock Concert, all the love! Your comments and anecdotes made me feel so supported. You like me! You really like — *mic cuts out*]
This summer I decided to write a short story for June, July, and August, as a way to challenge myself and put some of my old ideas on paper. It worked for the first two months — I birthed two overdue story babies (one’s a Gemini, the other a Cancer) that are waiting to be nursed once I’m in the mood to edit them in the fall. August came and went too quickly, and I was sputtering from my consecutive creative bursts, so no inspiration for a Leo baby.
But that also made me think about submitting my work to literary journals again. Especially since part of my job is to look up writing contests and submission opportunities, I was in the mood.
Rejections are nbd
Some rejections from submissions long forgotten rolled in this week and last. Those kinds of emails don’t get me down, I don’t take it personally at all. The most it will get out of me is a sigh and an eye roll. I get it, you liked my work but there were just so many great submissions and bleh bleh bleh. It’s okay, seriously.
Contrary to some complaints I’ve seen from writers on Medium, I don’t really need a reason as to why you couldn’t accept my piece; I don’t need to read what is essentially the equivalent of an editor crawling on their hands and knees begging me to forgive them. To be honest, I just skim over the whole spiel anyway to get to the point. The other shit is just performative at this point. But I get it, they have to appease the whiny adult-children who think the world owes them an explanation. Then again, I might just be jaded because of the depressing year-and-a-half period where I was ghosted by a hundred employers during my job search.
Or maybe it’s because no amount of rejections could make me not want to write anymore. I do it for me first and foremost because, well, I love my stories. I’m my biggest fan. My ideas are good, my writing technique is good (and getting better), and I feel like I’m starting to develop my voice. So, if a literary journal says “no,” it’s truly nothing to cry over.
However, I do still want to get my work out there, simply for my own satisfaction, for the plaque on the wall so to speak. I’m a Capricorn Venus, I like the idea of collecting accolades, what can I say? So, I want to find a good home for my stories, because they deserve it. It’s just…I can’t seem to find a good fit.
Me vs. literary fiction (I’m losing)
The thing about my stories is that I’m not sure what genre they fit into. And it’s cool that they can kind of straddle different ones and exist in their own space. But when you shop your work around and submit them to journals, they kind of do need to fit into a genre. And the preferred genre, for most literary journals, seems to be literary fiction. Even if they claim to want exciting new voices that break boundaries and subvert expectations, it’s really just literary fiction that they’re after. I mean, one quick skim of their latest issue could tell you that.
Seriously, what is it about literary fiction that has so many people on their knees, tongues wagging and starry-eyed? It is so deeply boring and lackluster! I start reading the first line and my eyes start to gloss over; the start of the story looks just like the end of the story, and nothing interesting has happened in the middle — which is always entirely too dense. I’ve learned that this boring, homogenized style of writing is called “MFA voice.” It’s kind of amazing how similar these types of stories are, and they’re everywhere! I wonder if MFA students notice when they’re workshopping each other’s stories…like, “Ooh, I love this, Hannah. This is totally something I’d write.”
And then (can you believe it?) they all get an MFA degree, submit twenty versions of the same story to big literary journals, and get published like it’s the easiest thing in the world!
I didn’t want to pursue an MFA because I started to absolutely detest school, but now I’ll never give my money to one of those programs — on principle. I’m not gonna pay someone the big bucks to strip me of my individuality. Being a writer with her own voice is the only thing that makes me, me. And not to mention that I’d likely die of boredom in an MFA workshop — another story that starts with someone contemplating their relationship with their family in the kitchen of their house in Maine…cool!
What to do, what to do…
But anyway, MFA style literary fiction is the vibe I’m getting from a lot of journals, even smaller ones. I suspect that they aim for those kinds of stories so that they can be taken seriously and seem more legitimate in the ~literary world~.
I understand, everyone wants to make it big somehow; everyone wants to do what’s best for themselves at the end of the day. That’s why I’m not going to keep trying to fit my stories in where they clearly don’t belong. I want to find literary journals that truly match my style, but admittedly, it’s proving to be a bit of a challenge. No worries, though…I’ll just add that to list of goals for the fall. (Summer’s over and I’ll come alive once again!)
In the meantime, I’m wondering if I should post my fiction here on Medium. Do people do that? I figured why not just cut out the middle man and get my stories online myself, on my watch. As I search for other homes for my babies, I can support them with what little means I do have (the cents I’ve accumulated from my Stripe earnings). Why not, right? It’s all just a bit of fun, innit?
Before I leave you
One more thing: I have a new sworn enemy and that is SPECULATIVE FICTION. Don’t play in my face, this is a chapter of your dystopian/sci-fi novel and I am falling asleep! Goodnight!
