Deadly Drabble Tuesdays publishes fiction of exactly 100 words with a lethal punch. Learn more here.
SQF: Why did you start this magazine?
Brandon Applegate: When I first started writing fiction, I found this publication on Medium called The Friday Fix. They published tiny little stories, fifty words exactly, in a big batch every Friday, genre-agnostic. I started writing for them and it was so much fun to do, and soon I found that, if I didn’t write anything else that week, I could at least write one of those. It became a bit of a ritual and, more importantly, it kept me engaged in the act of writing fiction. I had to think of an idea, flesh it out, understand it, write it, and I’d almost always write too much so I’d have to edit it down to fifty words, which forces you to make tough decisions about your language and the most crucial plot points to include. It is an incredibly helpful exercise, and I grew to love microfiction as a result.
So recently I was working my way through a bit of a slump and I turned to writing drabbles to get through it. They’re a little longer but still provide that same useful constraint. There aren’t very many venues that focus on drabbles, though, and I’ve been looking for a website feature for the “Hungry Shadow Press” website, so it all seemed to make sense.
SQF: What do you look for in a submission and why?
BA: I find it endlessly fascinating that one-hundred words stacked in just the right order can provoke an emotional reaction in the reader. And that’s what I’m looking for. Horror, dark, weird, sci-fi, and fantasy fiction all have the ability to trigger a wide array of emotions. Not just fear or wonder or sadness, but joy, humor, and love! And just because it's short doesn’t mean it can’t be impactful. But you have to do it right.
I look for entries that are as close to a whole story as you can get in a hundred words. It has to be written to be a drabble. I’ve seen many submissions that feel like someone’s favorite hundred-word chunk from their novel. A story unfolds, a little at a time, and drabbles are no different. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. You’re somewhere different in the end than you were in the beginning. Maybe there’s a dynamic character that the reader can relate to in some way (I’m not saying they have to be likable). Pay attention to what you’re using your limited word budget to convey. Is it essential to spend that time world-building? Or would you rather tell the story of the moment? Focus on the character. Make us feel what they’re feeling. If it's horror, make the dread crawl up your leg and wrap you up one sentence at a time. If it’s weird, make the weirdness important, not just for its own sake! Make every sentence, every word, push the story forward by conveying something the reader didn’t know before. You’ll be surprised how hard that is to achieve in such a short space.
SQF: I think it was Mark Twain who said, “If I had more time, I’d write a shorter letter.” What advice can you give authors regarding writing drabbles?
BA: I love that quote because Twain knew something most don’t. It can take more effort to craft a hundred words than a hundred thousand. And generally, the more concise something is, the more challenging it was to get it that way. That’s the joy of word count constraints. A writer’s first instinct is to write everything, and paring that down to something finely honed and razor sharp, figuring out where you have to explicitly state something, when to use shorthand, and when to let the reader engage their own imagination to fill in the blanks, takes time, and drabbles force you to do that.
As for advice, I’d say this: understand what you’re trying to convey in a story and why you want to convey exactly that. If your sentence tells me that your character is on a spaceship, why did I need to know that? What’s different about that spaceship than any other setting, and why is that difference vital to convey to the reader? And exactly how much of it do you need to include? Do you have to have a whole sentence about it? Will three words suffice? Can you say it in a more exciting, unique, or meaningful way?
One of the most remarkable lessons in this that I ever got was from a poet. Poets, by the way, have a lot to teach prose writers. Word choice matters. Why say “important” when you can say “vital”? One is bland and the other conveys urgency, motion, and is a whole syllable shorter.
In short, question everything you write. What do you want to say? Why do you want to say it? Are you saying it the best way you can?
SQF: Are there topics/subjects that are overdone?
BA: That’s a tricky question because I think almost any topic can be rejuvenated with a fresh point of view or a subversion of the trope.
There are some things I’d like to see less of, though. I’ve seen stories that are moralistic, philosophizing, or transparently trying to push a belief system. Most of the time, in those situations, they’re barely a story, more of a rant. I’ve also seen some where a writer is trying to proclaim their superiority over someone else, or the superiority of one group over another, which is not something I want to feature. This is a publication for fictional stories, not a bully pulpit.
SQF: Many editors list erotica, or sex for sex’s sake, as hard sells. What are hard sells for your publication?
BA: I don’t have a problem with erotic elements in submissions for DDT as long as the story focuses on horror, weird, dark, sci-fi, or fantasy elements. It’s important to understand the assignment when you’re a submitting writer. While I understand that love and erotic feelings and acts are part of the human experience, this is not a pure erotica publication. But there’s nothing wrong with that being a part of it.
Regarding hard sells, I know the guidelines state that I’ll take sci-fi and fantasy stories, and I will under certain contexts, but I think hard sci-fi and high fantasy are tough for me. But that’s only because my experience with those genres is that writers tend to focus on worldbuilding in their stories, and that’s not really what I want in a drabble. If your story starts with “Captain Flash gave the command to fire neutron torpedoes at the Glorgnap ship,” I will likely check out. There’s nothing there for me to latch onto. And don’t get me wrong, there are sci-fi stories that I love. I’m a Trekkie from way back. But Trek was always best when it used its sci-fi setting and conceits to tell extremely human stories. And that’s what I’m trying to do, too.
SQF: What’s one question on this topic you wish I'd asked that I didn't? And how would you answer it?
BA: This is a tough question to answer, because I’m never sure what others want to know! But I guess I’ll put on my writer hat and think of a question I’d have wanted to ask an editor early on.
My question would be: “How can I write a story that editors will love and want to publish?”
And my answer would be: You can’t. At least not by trying to.
At first, it seems like such a cop out answer. There are lots of ways to make sure your story doesn’t get tossed in the trash right away. Almost always format your manuscripts in Shunn; follow the guidelines to the letter; keep your cover letters brief; pay attention to the market and try to read some of their back catalog to see if your stories are a fit. These are all things most submitting writers have heard a thousand times.
But I think what I’ve learned over time is that there is no formula to writing stories editors will universally love. Every editor is different and therefore looking for something different, and you’ll never be able to crack the code perfectly. So, since it's impossible, don’t try. The only thing that really matters, unless you’re doing this for a living, which most of us aren’t, is that you love what you write. Write from your heart. It sounds cheesy, but speak from your soul. If it is genuine, editors and readers alike can feel it, and at that point, without even trying, your story has a better chance of finding a home. It's a case of watering the plant at the roots, not the leaves.
Thank you, Brandon. We all appreciate your taking time from your busy schedule to participate in this project.
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