Humans of New York – I salute you

Brandon Stanton is roaming the streets of New York looking to shoot people.

And at present count, he’s shot over 1800 people. 

I’m personally rooting for him to shoot more and reach his goal – of taking 10,000 photographs and represent people from all over New York City on Humans of New York.

And while Brandon does say that his goal is to take all these photographs, what he lets you find out for yourself is that he is an amazing storyteller or photo-journalist documentarian, or a bit of both.  Some of the photographs come with a back story about how he got the shots and the story behind the person (or people) whose photograph he took.

In The Protector we learn about a homeless man who sees himself as protecting street-newbies – an image that is juxtaposed with this person’s drug and alcohol abuse and unpredictable behavior.

In The Chess Hustler we get an inside view on how one homeless chess player from Washington Square Park gets a read on his marks by observing which chess pieces they decide to discard.

Brandon is honest enough to insert his own thoughts and feelings about his subjects to his readers, even when he does not express these thoughts to the object of his interest.  For example, in the Chess Hustler, Brendon thinks about the guy he is trying to interview, who is high on crack:

This is going nowhere, I thought. I’m wasting my time.

Like I don’t have eight million other people to choose from. Fuck this guy.  I’m going to pay him $5 dollars, he’s going to talk nonsense for a few minutes, then ask for more money. I almost didn’t go back.  But I knew Harry had very interesting things to say.

In the end, he does go back and he does capture the observations and he is rewarded for his effort.  There are several such dicey situations Brandon puts himself in to get his stories, and I admire that. 

Even though he comes across people who are trying to hustle him or are extremely suspicious of his motives, he has respect for his fellow humans that help him get his story and his shots. It’s this essential respect for the subject that makes his work all the more compelling.

Brandon just has a nose for people who are hiding something that will make for an amazing story.  He’s patient enough to cultivate his journalistic leads, and he doesn’t turn away from some of the most difficult people and situations that the streets of New York has to offer – and the rest of us are so much the better for it.

Waiting takes a long time – for a writer

Short story writers who submit their work to small press magazines are waiting. And waiting.

What are they waiting for, you ask?

An answer from the magazine they submitted their story to, all those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months ago.

A short story writer can expect to wait anywhere from 24 hours to many months to get a reply, it all depends on the staff of the magazine they chose for their submission.  In some cases, magazines may have a group of readers who will turn around replies with lightning fast efficiency. Still others, like Glimmer Train, rely on the dedication of two sisters who read all submissions (I still don’t know how they handle all of their sub volumes…) and it takes a bit longer.

My own personal experience is that anderbo will generally get me a reply on a submission within 48 hours.  That’s impressive! Of course in my case, all of my submissions have been rejected. It may be that acceptances take longer – I don’t know.

I can typically rely on Everyday Fiction to turn around my submissions within 60-90 days, and they give writers a valuable bonus for waiting – two or three of their readers will provide written feedback on the story you sent. 

A great source of information on waiting periods is Duotrope Digest. They offer a free service to writers to sign up and report when you have submitted a piece to a journal, and then report when you hear back on the submission. This information is compiled for each magazine in their massive database, and they even show % acceptances vs. declines so you have an understanding of your chances when you submit.

Finally, and I’m sure that this must be the exception to the rule, one of my submissions was accepted for publication within hours of its submission! It should be said that I had the fabulous good fortune of having the editor read my entry and the piece was flash fiction, less than 1000 words.

So what should you do while you are waiting to hear back on your short story submissions? I have a few suggestions:

1. Completely forget you submitted the story and go for a walk on the beach/out to dinner with friends/pet your dog-cat-fish-iguana-etc.
2. Write another story while you wait. While you are at it, write two.
3. Submit your story to a second magazine – as long as they both accept simultaneous submission.
4. Enter your submission information into Duotrope Digest, to help other short story writers know what they are in for, in terms of the wait.
5. Write your new blog entry

 

Where writers find inspiration for stories

As a short story writer, I know that anything can be the source of inspiration for a short story. I especially like scanning the news, paying attention to people’s conversations, and watching how others behave. Writers are giant sponges when it comes to observing others, their world and themselves and then storing it all up until it can come out in a story.

For example, a few years ago there was a severe outbreak of red tide in Maine. Right around that same time, there was a news story from Europe about a conductor and his wife who committed legal suicide. Now, for most people, these two things would never be related. But for reasons even I don’t understand, a clanging bell went off inside me around this time and demanded a write a story about a man who euthanizes his wife, and the way he does it is with toxic shellfish during a red tide outbreak. (My story is titled: RED TIDE.)

The great thing about a short story is that the form is flexible enough to accomodate a large or small subject and condense it into a few hundred, or a few thousand words. People have responded very well to that story, some have even said it made them cry, and to achieve that in under 1000 words makes me happy.

But back to the topic at hand – inspiration. I’m sure you do things everyday that can fuel your story-telling. Did you get a snarky barista at the coffee shop this morning? Put him in a story and torment the character.  Did you read a wierd news item and think, that’s just about the strangest thing I’ve ever heard? Jot it down in an idea notebook, let it bounce around in your head for a while.

Then, when your clanging bell goes off-and it will-start writing.