Jonathan Ball | Issue 7

The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine

Jul 28, 2021

Jonathan Ball | Photo by Michael Sanders.

The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine

This letter concerns the best story ever submitted to your magazine. I shall submit this story at a later date. Meanwhile, I write to prepare you for the submission, which shall come unbidden, in a private moment, after devastation.

Your eyes will circle the room, restless to keep dry, and fall upon the manuscript. Some word spied on that first page shall be the perfect word for that moment. It shall compel you to read on, and this reading will change your life forever.

For this reason, I shall ignore your guidelines and will not enclose a title page or cover letter with my submission. The manuscript shall arrive in your office unnoticed. It will not be there, and then, without further warning, it will be there. Perhaps slipped into your slush pile by some intern who skimmed the story and saw its promise, but did not read it — not in the way you shall read it — and so did not recognize it as, in fact, the best story ever submitted to your magazine.

I cannot say much about the particular content of the story, which makes it difficult to describe. Anything I tell you about the story now will defuse the surprise of your first reading, and it is this first reading that shall change your life. Subsequent readings will deepen your appreciation of the story’s complexities, each bringing you back to the story as to a lover’s body. But this first reading shall remain magical, the primal reason for your love.

Another reason I cannot divulge the particular content of the story is this: I do not yet know what this story shall contain. I wait, monkish, for revelation. You might question my confidence then, but I question yours. How is it that you have lost hope?

You should trust. Trust that the best wine is yet to be drunk, the best story yet to be submitted.

I shall send you this story, you of all readers, in part because you have lost hope. In so many ways, in such small ways. Countless miniature losses not yet collated into crisis. This story shall be written for you. It shall transcend the occasion of you, to say something to others, but you shall remain its first reader — its true reader — and so, in a paradox, will hesitate to publish this story.

It shall speak to you with such gravity, such precision, that you will think your reaction a mere personal tic. You will not trust your judgment. You will hold the story close, keep it at hand.

With each new reading you will become more convinced of its beauty and power, yet devise new reasons to delay publication. Not able to bear the thought of rejecting the story, neither will you be able to bear the thought of accepting it, publishing it — sharing it with others, letting it go free. You will keep it on hand longer than is decent.

I know this, and I understand. I shall not await your response, nor shall I submit the story elsewhere. We accept even the impossible, given time.

Perhaps that same industrious intern, the one angling for your job, will rifle through your office. She will pick the story up off your desk, where it sits dog-eared, and read it again, give it a real read. Perhaps your receipt of the submission will be tracked by others somehow, and demands for your verdict made. In any case, you shall find yourself forced to proclaim the only thing that you can proclaim: Yes, it should be published.

Yes.

All your reasons against the story shall fall away, all those illusions you built up to protect it from the world, to protect yourself. They shall fall away, and you shall publish the story.

You need not contact me regarding the story, only publish it. Yes, the rights are available. I refuse payment. No, you know that those edits are superfluous. If it were a different story, another story, then we might talk. I would be happy to talk. But this story is different — you know this as well as I do. This story is something else, perfect, a jewel.

In the final accounting, it is not my story, not yours. It just passed through our lives to transform them in its passing. And it shall continue to pass, from the pages of your magazine to anthologies, to new readers. In living its own life, the story shall lay its inky hands on countless others, marking them, healing. In small, immeasurable ways it shall alter this world.

It shall refine its readers like a purifying fire. It shall be a catalyst, the moment that is necessary. It shall dazzle all, this story. Wind its way into every small life. Find us dying in houses with too many rooms.

I do not know how I will ever write this story. But I am trying, and trust that I will.

If I never die. If the world does not die.

It shall be the best story ever submitted to your magazine.

“The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine” from The Lightning of Possible Storms

Purchase a copy here.

Jonathan Ball, PhD, writes “stranger fiction” — horror, science fiction, and fantasy influenced by experimental literature. He teaches creative writing and hosts the podcast Writing the Wrong Way, showing writers new ways to work and create innovative art that stands out. His book Ex Machina is available for free at www.JonathanBall.com/FreeBook.

The Lightning of Possible Storms | Book*hug Press | 2021

Winner of the 2021 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction

Description from publisher:

Aleya’s world starts to unravel after a café customer leaves behind a collection of short stories. Surprised and disturbed to discover that the book has been dedicated to her, Aleya delves into the strange book…

A mad scientist seeks to steal his son’s dreams. A struggling writer, skilled only at destruction, finds himself courted by Hollywood. A woman seeks to escape her body and live inside her dreams. Citizens panic when a new city block manifests out of nowhere. The personification of capitalism strives to impress his cutthroat boss.

The more Aleya reads, the deeper she sinks into the mysterious writer’s work, and the less real the world around her seems. Soon, she’s overwhelmed as a new, more terrifying existence takes hold.

Jonathan Ball’s first collection of short fiction blends humour and horror, doom and daylight, offering myriad possible storms.

Praise for The Lightning of Possible Storms:

“Cheerfully horrifying, and full of the unexpected, The Lightning of Possible Storms is an entertaining Borgesian foray into the existential dread of writing itself.” —Saleema Nawaz, author of Songs for the End of the World

“This collection is so beautifully written and expertly composed—it is rich, layered, and complex. In every story, characters are forced to confront their secret, subterranean selves, their suppressed longings and anxieties, and the stories will linger with you long after you’ve finished them, much like the last strains of a beloved song. Witty, sad, sardonic, each story is its own masterpiece. This collection confirms Jonathan Ball as one of Canada’s very best writers.” —Suzette Mayr, author of Dr. Edith Vane and the Hares of Crawley Hall

“The Lightning of Possible Storms is an impressive clockwork construction of narrative cogs and gears that never loses sight of either its humanity or its nature as a manufactured work of art.” —Robert Wiersema, Quill and Quire