Interview with Writer Bryan Stubbles
1. How did you get started writing fiction?
I’d been working as a playwright for several years when the pandemic came and shut down theatres. I wrote a short horror Western that was accepted and published in Six Guns Straight from Hell Vol. 3 and haven’t looked back.
2. What kind of fiction do you enjoy writing? (Such as fantasy, romance, horror, or unspecified)
For novel-length, I love writing mystery thrillers. I have a mystery thriller with satirical elements that I’m shopping around. Unfortunately, what we enjoy writing the most isn’t always what publishers enjoy publishing the most.
I also enjoy writing horror. I’ll tell you more in question 4.
3. What was it about writing short stories that just seemed to "click" with your writing career?
Writing short stories was great practice to get away from the confines of playwriting. My first attempts at short stories had so much dialogue. Haha. They were also a good practice ground for fiction before attempting something larger (like a novel). As Ray Bradbury once said: “Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.”
4. Is there a type of short story that you enjoy writing most? Please explain.
I enjoy horror, especially horror Western. I feel the genres complement each other naturally. However, I enjoy tempering the horror with humor or irony. I just have fun writing it.
5. What was it like when you sold your first short story?
Amazing.
6. Where do you find short story markets to submit to?
Horrortree.com is good for that genre. I also belong to several submission opportunity groups on Facebook. I subscribe to a couple of newsletters: Caitlin Jans’ Authors Publish and Hope Clark’s FundsforWriters. All very informative and useful.
7. What is one lesson you have learned as a writer when it comes to writing short fiction?
Emails that start “Dear Bryan Stubbles” are always rejection emails.
8. How is writing short fiction different from your work as a writer of longer fiction?
From the writing aspect, I can see a call for an anthology that has a deadline of, say, tomorrow. I can focus and put together a competent short story by the deadline. This would be akin to a sprint. I can’t maintain that pace to finish a novel. Slow and steady wins the race on novels for me.
Also, it’s much, much, much easier to sell a short story than a novel.
9. What is some of the best advice you have received from other writers or editors when it comes to writing short fiction?
Sadly, I didn’t have anyone I would call a mentor. Nobody really gave me advice. I learned a lot by observation and trial and error. I am still learning. Always learning. I’ve read a lot of short fiction including Yi Beomseon (이범선), Poe, Ernest Gaines, Nikki Giovanni, Caryn Larrinaga, Bert Edens, Blackwood and O. Henry, among others. After deciding to write short stories, I purposely read O. Henry. He published 66 short stories in 1904 alone. I figured someone that prolific and successful knew what he was doing. I tried to learn by reading his work specifically.
10. Do you have any advice of your own to share with other writers?
Ignore rules. I don’t mean ignore submission guidelines. Follow those. But ignore writing “rules” someone made up in their head. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. What works for one writer might not work for another. Find what works for you.
ABOUT BRYAN:
Published short nonfiction in Out of Time, short fiction most recently in Dismember the Coop: An Alice Cooper Tribute Anthology and This Isn’t the Place: A Collection of Utah Horror. My plays have been produced in three countries. I translate Korean and Indonesian into English. Translations have been published in Asymptote and The Mercurian, among others. A dead country singer (Charlie Daniels) blocked me on Twitter. I have an inactive theatre blog and I’m on Facebook and I’ve got around 17k Twitter followers (@BStubbles), though it feels like Zombie Twitter now. My debut horror novel will come out this year from Baynam Books Press.