Thank you to Dan Pope and all my colleagues in the MFA program who provided guidance as I struggled to write a mystery short story from a 12 year-old girl's point of view. I had enourmous trouble finding her voice. I'm thrilled to report that FINALLY, after two years and countless revisions, "Last Supper" has sold to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. It will appear in the June issue, which is perfect, since it is distributed free to attendees at the annual Malice Domestic Mystery Conference. Attendees at this conference are readers of the kind of non-blood and guts mysteries I write.
One additional comment, this sale is even sweeter than simply selling a project that's dear to me and that I've worked on for years; it also marks the first non-Josie fiction sale I've ever had.
8 comments:
Congratulations, Jane! So glad to hear this -- Holly
Good for you Jane, thanks for letting us know.
Congrats!
I remember workshopping the story in Mark's fiction seminar. Your hard work paid off. Congratulations :)
Yes, Laura, that was the time when I got the initial feedback that the "voice" was off. Your comments were especially helpful and encouraging.(You liked the plot!)
From the feedback I received at that workshop, I "got" the problem, sort of. At first I thought the many comments saying my protagonist didn't sound 12 meant that I simply had to make her sound younger, using more hip language, etc. I kept tweaking to no real effect.
It wasn't until I attended another Pope workshop where he talked about the difference between POV and perspective that I went aha! Capturing "voice" is far more complex than choosing vocabulary... it is looking at the world through a certain person's eyes... in this case, my gal is 12 and as such has limited experience and a specific agenda. (As do we all, now that I think about it. Hmmm.)
In any event, I loved learning this lesson!
Jane, that's awesome. I hear getting a short story published in "Alfred Hitchcock" today might be harder than getting a novel published.
Brian
Great! I'm a AHMM subscriber, and am looking forward to reading this!
Great news, Jane - congratulations!
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