A lot of "aspiring" fiction writers dream of being published in the New Yorker. I have now come up with a formula that makes research, training and talent unnecessary.
It begins...
I spend a lot of time reading the New Yorker online, or I did until they started this pesky new policy of putting all their content on lockdown for subscribers. I'm not entirely surprised. But one of the illuminating side effects of this policy is that the powers that be on the web team have decided to put up keywords on all the fiction stories. So when you click on a tantalizing headline, and it does the New Yorker's equivalent of sticking its tongue out at you, you can in fact get terse, bulleted descriptions of what the fiction story in question is about. The keywords are usually nouns, so figuring out the descriptions is a bit like playing reverse Mad Libs with an eccentric person and a dictionary. Summaries like "latex gloves, foster children, buttons, kettle, Kentucky" abound.
If you were to put three monkeys into a cage with three typewriters and these keywords, they would still probably not produce half the stories in the New Yorker.
But there are trends. How do I know? I selflessly spent the past hour clicking through the streams of keywords for the first 70 stories listed in the New Yorker archives.
Here are words that appeared more than once: teachers, death, boys, children, family, sex, middle age, suburbia, widowers, dogs, mothers, sons, Egypt/Egyptians, Immigrants, Love Affairs, Rich People, Poor People, Teenagers, England, complaints, daughters, family, friends, children, Novelists, Books, Adultery, Blacks (African-Americans), Women, Marriage, Brothers, dolls, husbands, fathers, wives, TV, Movies, Boyfriends.
This really isn't all that interesting until you look at the breakdown, which is when you realize that New Yorker fiction authors are obsessed with one thing above all others. Love affairs! The phrase "love affairs" gets a whopping eight mentions, followed by "mothers" at 6 (a somewhat disturbing juxtaposition, but whatever.) Marriage, with 3 mentions, is only slightly less popular than adultery, which gets 4. (Art mimics life? One hopes not) Children, with 4 mentions, are only slightly more popular than illegitimate children, who pop up only once and still manage to make everyone uncomfortable.
Non-white people are scattered through New Yorker fiction like decorative signposts or forks in the road. Blacks are mentioned as a keyword exactly twice, with the helpful parenthetical (African-Americans) in case readers get the wrong impression. Chinese and Asians appear in a single story, together, because what is the difference? Korean-Americans and Russian-Americans pop up once each, as do the French, the English, and...the Africans. Africa is the only continent to get its own mention, proving that even published Americans still have no idea that Africa is not a country.
"Suburbia" comes up 3 times, but New Jersey, Rochester (NY), and Cambridge (MA) all get separate mentions. 'Hell' is absent.
"Rich people" and "Poor people" are neck and neck, with three mentions each. Also absent, of course, is the middle class, because middle-class Americans are good only for paying taxes, taking the census, and dying. And, occasionally, letting rich people or poor people into their homes.
Age, however, shows the reverse pattern. "Middle-age" and its associated indignities shows up 4 times, whereas teenagers come up 5 times (incidentally, 'teenage mothers' - a logical mashup of the New Yorker's many obsessions - doesn't show up once, even though it's become the premise for hours of reality TV)
"Jesus Christ" and "born-again Christians" make an unpleasant single cameo each; no other religion bothers, although one New Yorker fiction writer has something to say about "Jewish Montessori schools." Politics makes absolutely no impression at all.
So who is the New Yorker hero? If we were to take these keywords and craft the ultimate New Yorker story, guaranteed to be accepted?
A middle-aged man living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has problems with his mother and deals with them by having a love affair with a teenager. He is rich, she is poor (or perhaps the other way around.) On the way home from the movies, they get lost and end up in Africa, which up until that point neither of them has realized is not a country. While there, they meet some Africans, who advance the plot. Somebody (not necessarily the protagonists) has sex. Nobody dies.
OR.
A middle-aged mother of two teen-aged daughters starts an adulterous love affair with an English novelist. He has an illegitimate child. The novelist has a vision of Jesus Christ and becomes a born-again Christian, but the mother continues to send her daughters to a Jewish Montessori School. The writer complains; the affair ends. The dog dies. Everyone is rich, and stays that way.
OR.
A teenage Asian immigrant living in Rochester, NY, wants to be in the movies even though her family is too poor. She marries a middle-aged teacher, but has a love affair with a Russian-American who has a large doll collection. The teenager has no friends, so she becomes an organ donor. This doesn't help. Eventually she moves back to Africa (since Asia is never mentioned), the teacher marries a middle-aged widow who dislikes her mother, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
It begins...
I spend a lot of time reading the New Yorker online, or I did until they started this pesky new policy of putting all their content on lockdown for subscribers. I'm not entirely surprised. But one of the illuminating side effects of this policy is that the powers that be on the web team have decided to put up keywords on all the fiction stories. So when you click on a tantalizing headline, and it does the New Yorker's equivalent of sticking its tongue out at you, you can in fact get terse, bulleted descriptions of what the fiction story in question is about. The keywords are usually nouns, so figuring out the descriptions is a bit like playing reverse Mad Libs with an eccentric person and a dictionary. Summaries like "latex gloves, foster children, buttons, kettle, Kentucky" abound.
If you were to put three monkeys into a cage with three typewriters and these keywords, they would still probably not produce half the stories in the New Yorker.
But there are trends. How do I know? I selflessly spent the past hour clicking through the streams of keywords for the first 70 stories listed in the New Yorker archives.
Here are words that appeared more than once: teachers, death, boys, children, family, sex, middle age, suburbia, widowers, dogs, mothers, sons, Egypt/Egyptians, Immigrants, Love Affairs, Rich People, Poor People, Teenagers, England, complaints, daughters, family, friends, children, Novelists, Books, Adultery, Blacks (African-Americans), Women, Marriage, Brothers, dolls, husbands, fathers, wives, TV, Movies, Boyfriends.
This really isn't all that interesting until you look at the breakdown, which is when you realize that New Yorker fiction authors are obsessed with one thing above all others. Love affairs! The phrase "love affairs" gets a whopping eight mentions, followed by "mothers" at 6 (a somewhat disturbing juxtaposition, but whatever.) Marriage, with 3 mentions, is only slightly less popular than adultery, which gets 4. (Art mimics life? One hopes not) Children, with 4 mentions, are only slightly more popular than illegitimate children, who pop up only once and still manage to make everyone uncomfortable.
Non-white people are scattered through New Yorker fiction like decorative signposts or forks in the road. Blacks are mentioned as a keyword exactly twice, with the helpful parenthetical (African-Americans) in case readers get the wrong impression. Chinese and Asians appear in a single story, together, because what is the difference? Korean-Americans and Russian-Americans pop up once each, as do the French, the English, and...the Africans. Africa is the only continent to get its own mention, proving that even published Americans still have no idea that Africa is not a country.
"Suburbia" comes up 3 times, but New Jersey, Rochester (NY), and Cambridge (MA) all get separate mentions. 'Hell' is absent.
"Rich people" and "Poor people" are neck and neck, with three mentions each. Also absent, of course, is the middle class, because middle-class Americans are good only for paying taxes, taking the census, and dying. And, occasionally, letting rich people or poor people into their homes.
Age, however, shows the reverse pattern. "Middle-age" and its associated indignities shows up 4 times, whereas teenagers come up 5 times (incidentally, 'teenage mothers' - a logical mashup of the New Yorker's many obsessions - doesn't show up once, even though it's become the premise for hours of reality TV)
"Jesus Christ" and "born-again Christians" make an unpleasant single cameo each; no other religion bothers, although one New Yorker fiction writer has something to say about "Jewish Montessori schools." Politics makes absolutely no impression at all.
So who is the New Yorker hero? If we were to take these keywords and craft the ultimate New Yorker story, guaranteed to be accepted?
A middle-aged man living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has problems with his mother and deals with them by having a love affair with a teenager. He is rich, she is poor (or perhaps the other way around.) On the way home from the movies, they get lost and end up in Africa, which up until that point neither of them has realized is not a country. While there, they meet some Africans, who advance the plot. Somebody (not necessarily the protagonists) has sex. Nobody dies.
OR.
A middle-aged mother of two teen-aged daughters starts an adulterous love affair with an English novelist. He has an illegitimate child. The novelist has a vision of Jesus Christ and becomes a born-again Christian, but the mother continues to send her daughters to a Jewish Montessori School. The writer complains; the affair ends. The dog dies. Everyone is rich, and stays that way.
OR.
A teenage Asian immigrant living in Rochester, NY, wants to be in the movies even though her family is too poor. She marries a middle-aged teacher, but has a love affair with a Russian-American who has a large doll collection. The teenager has no friends, so she becomes an organ donor. This doesn't help. Eventually she moves back to Africa (since Asia is never mentioned), the teacher marries a middle-aged widow who dislikes her mother, and everyone breathes a sigh of relief.
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