Sin, Suffer, Cash The Checks

Writing Confessions with
Seekerville Guest Blogger,Michael Bracken.

Confessions, a unique genre of women’s fiction published in True Confessions, True Experience, True Love, True Romance, and True Story, are written “by,” for, and about “real” women. A confession is a story about a woman confronting and resolving a problem. This might be dealing with a parent’s death, overcoming financial difficulty, or finding love when life seems to conspire against that possibility.

The protagonist of a confession confronts her problem and resolves it either directly or indirectly through her own actions. The more emotionally-charged the problem, the greater the reader’s involvement and the more “confessional” the story seems. While the structure of a confession is essentially fixed, variation in subject and theme are permissible.

A typical confession is written in the first-person from a lower- or middle-class woman’s viewpoint--though confessions written from a male viewpoint or from the viewpoint of an upper-middle class woman are published occasionally--and are written in a colloquial manner, as if the narrator is speaking directly to the reader.

Confessions have evolved over the years. The fundamental plots of the first confessions were often described as “sin-suffer-repent.” These evolved into “problem stories” in which a woman confronts a problem and then overcomes it directly or indirectly through her actions. During the past few years more and more “confessions” appear to be “romances-told-in-first-person” and the unique qualities of traditional confessions are disappearing. This may be the result of a major romance publisher purchasing the magazines from the previous publisher, or it may be the result of an influx of romance writers with little or no knowledge of the confession genre.

Confessions follow standard story structure: each has a beginning, a middle, and an end. A traditional confession begins with the narrator confronting her problem. This is followed by background information explaining how the narrator came to be in her current situation, the narrator’s attempts to solve her problem, and the results of her attempts. The conclusion comes from one or more of the narrator’s attempts to solve her problem. Many confessions have happy endings; the rest are “lesson learned” stories where the narrator sums up the moral of the story and the reader flips the page, thinking, “There but for the grace of God...”

Confessions that resemble “romances-told-in-first-person” begin with a “meet cute”--which is how many chick flicks and romance novels begin--and follow a girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy, girl-gets-boy back plot structure. These types of confessions inevitably have happy endings.

Problem stories and romances can be blended into a single story to create a hybrid confession, one that, if done well, contains the best of both story types.

Confessions are presented as if the stories are true, as if the events described in them actually happened. Don’t be fooled: They aren’t true and they didn’t happen. Even so, a good confession always has a fundamental truth as its core and the events described could have happened. For example, a confession about two seemingly mismatched people meeting and falling in love might have as its core the idea that love conquers all. This couple might meet at an oncologist’s office where the man is a nurse and the woman’s father is a patient. The plot revolves around their developing relationship and the continuing decline of her father’s health. Does the father die? Perhaps; it could happen. Or, does his cancer go into remission? Perhaps; it could happen. Or, does somebody give the father a miracle cure? No. There is no miracle cure for cancer and the moment you inject it into your confession, your story has lost its veneer of reality.

Confessions come in various lengths--I’ve sold confessions of less than 1,500 words and more than 25,000 words--but a new confession writer might want to aim for a story between 2,500 words and 5,000 words. A confession that falls within this range is long enough to have a good plot (and maybe a sub-plot), a reasonable setting, and sufficient character development, but is short enough that the writer doesn’t lose control of the story and go wandering off on too many tangents.

Writing confessions isn’t for the impatient. Editors may be slow to respond to submissions, with response times occasionally measured in years and months rather than weeks and days. The magazines purchase all rights, and payment--five-cents/word at True Story; three-cents/word at the other magazines--is made more than a month following publication and can be late.
On the other hand, a highly productive writer who masters the problem story, the “romance-written-in-the-first-person” story, and the hybrid, can become a frequent contributor to the confession magazines.

I know.
I’ve been selling to the confession magazines since 1981.

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Sometimes referred to as “The King of Confessions,” Michael Bracken is the author of 11 books and more 1,100 short stories, articles, essays and poems, including more than 170 confessions. Additional information about Michael can be found at his Web site: www.CrimeFictionWriter.com.

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