Two things to read while writing short stories

1)Any magazine you want to submit stories to.
Back when I started writing, the standard advice was “read at least six issues” but I never had the patience. But one is essential, two or three is better (and in the case of online magazines, easy).
What do you look for? What sort of stories do they like. Upbeat or dark? If it’s fantasy (and it usually is with me) do they like Twilight Zone-style, weirdly surreal, or straight sword-and-sorcery? Is there lots of sex or is it PG? Is the writing style plain or ornate? And does your story fit with the stuff they like to publish?
2)The “what we like/don’t like” section of the website.
Even if you read the magazine, that can’t tell you everything. If the issues you read are all urban fantasy or all secondary-world fantasy (i.e., Hyborian Age, Nehwon, Middle Earth) does that mean they’d be eager to see something different or that they don’t want something different (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine doesn’t like stories set in contemporary America, for instance).
This section of the site usually includes a mix of Never Send Us This, We Really Like This and possibly some “This is a tough sell …” The middle section, of course, is the hardest call.
Reading this stuff can save you a lot of wasted time, and increase the chance even your rejections will come with a “Not quite right, but try us again” response. There are, however two problems:
1)Humor. I write a fair amount of humor, but I very rarely submit to magazines that use much of it. I usually have to wing it as to what sort of humor they like or whether they like it at all (and whether they’re simply overstuffed with it).
2)An objective evaluation of my own work. Any time I read a magazine where the writing style tends to the literary (I can’t define it better than that), I feel like I should give up.
Intellectually, I know my writing is good and my style sense, if hardly world-class, is solid (I’ve had enough people tell me so not to doubt it). I understand what Kaye Gibbons meant when she said (in a talk that I reported on) that you should write until the next word is inevitable.
But it doesn’t feel like that. I feel as if my writing is roughly the level of Superbaby’s dialogue in a Silver Age comics story—”Bad mans try to shoot people! Me melt bullets, then teach bad mans lessons and make them sorry!” This perception does not help when appraising new markets.
Even so, the reading is essential.