Short stories; the challenge of any prose writer in any genre. Short stories (if written well) are every bit as engaging as a novel or 3+ hour film (Peter Jackson take note). Being short you’d be forgiven for thinking that makes them easier to write. They’re not. A decent short story is incredibly hard to write.
Why Short?
1. It’s good training to learn how to tell a story with a beginning , a middle and an end.
2. People are more likely to read it when they’re pushed for time
3. It’s a good antidote when you’re stuck on something longer
Why am I telling you about it?
1. I want you to show you how easy it is to read a story quickly if you didn’t already know.
2. If you feedback constructively on it, I’ll pop your name in the acknowledgements when it’s published in a collection I’m putting together.
As I’ve been editing my first book, I find myself constantly being distracted by other areas of work and life in general. It’s frustrating when you’re trying to concentrate and your phone is constantly beeping with a new email or message from someone somewhere who wants something yesterday or last week. As fun as it may be to tell someone somewhere to politely fuck off and leave me alone, I learnt that not only is that impolite, it’s not very diplomatic. So now when I don’t want to be disturbed by other work when I’m writing I turn my phone data off or even my phone off. Writing a short story helps distract me from the larger things I’m working on as well as the other things that happen in life.
So here’s a short story I wrote recently. It will pop up in a collection I’m compiling at the moment. See how long it takes you to read. I guarantee you’ll be done in well under 10 minutes.
If you’re interested in reading (or writing!) short stories then the following links may be of interest to you.
http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books/adults/short-stories/
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/22/down-sunless-sea-neil-gaiman-short-story
