All of which you only really know if it gets accepted for publication. Thus, completing the circularity of the argument. I can't see how anybody could possibly kn ow this, for certain, in advance of submission.
Unless maybe they bribed the editor.
caw
Sure, but this could essentially be said about any profession on earth. The only way you know you got it right is to do it successfully, whether it's writer, heart surgeon, or plumber.
But you have talent at any of these things, there will be indicators along the way, whether it's getting good grades, or have a professor, doctor, or whoever, say you're getting better and better.
Writing is the same way. You can't know you've got it right until you sell an editor a story, but if you have any talent, there will be indicators along the way that say you're getting closer and closer. Editors will praise your writing, they will say "Very close", and mean it.
I don't even think most of these things are difficult to know at all. It's pretty easy to tel whether you're writing same old, same old just by reading enough of the magazines.
It should also be pretty easy to get a solid feel for what the editor likes as far as style, pace, flow, characterization, fast or slow moving, etc.
Again, no one can really help F students, but if you have the talent, the work ethic, and reasonable smarts, I think the only difficult part of teh process is learning how to give editors the old "Just like everything else, only
different" type of story.
Both parts of this statement are critical. You need the "Just like everything else", and this is what you learn by reading stories with an eye toward what an editor likes.
The you need "only different", but in a way that doesn't conflict with "Just like everything else".
One writer may learn this through instinct, another through the sheer volume of reading, writing, and submitting, and another through critical study, but I think every successful short story writer has learned it.
For me, it was learning to give editors what no otehr writer in the world could give them, which is myself. My very real characters he's probably never seen, my detailed, come to life settings he's never visited, and probably never heard of, and my specific life experiences from childhood on up. Well, and through specific life experiences of those people I know really well, and was often an observer to.
As soon as I learned to incorporate these things in stories that were "Just like everything else", sales skyrocketed.
From my reading, I think this is pretty much what all successful writers do, whether they're writing literary tales, werewolf tales, or aliens visit Lady Gaga tales.
Anyway, sure, there is no way of telling you have it right until an acceptance or three rolls in, but there will always be indicators, trail markers along the way. Unless you're an F student. Then all the trail markers say "No admittance allowed".
