Thursday, July 2, 2020

Short Stories! The dessert in a great meal of fiction!

Hello from the desert of New Mexico!

After wrestling my blogs back from the black hole of the 'net, I'm back.

Over the years, I've written all lengths of things---from a 300,000 word resource guide, to a 50-word flash fiction story, and everything in between. I'm most comfortable with short stories of less than 5,000 words and novellas, which are usually less than 40,000 words.

As a reader, I'm finding that I read a lot more short stuff and less very long novels.

Now, given my attention span and interest, I'm mostly writing short stories. And I love it.

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Interestingly enough, I got back into short fiction after writing a slew of ten-minute plays and monologues for youth theatre, many of which went on to be published, produced and win awards. 
Some of them were then turned into short stories. Writing short stuff seems to suit me well.

Thing is, I've heard people who are avid readers say that they "never read short stories." Or "I only read novels because there's a character arc." Or there are others who read an occasional short story.

I wonder, what would entice you, as a reader, to try more short stories? There's a lot of great short fiction out there these days--from literary stories with ambiguous endings (LOL) to all kind of genre stuff.

And if you have a favorite novelist, chances are somewhere they also have a collection of short stories, or stories in an anthology.

Think of fiction like a good meal. The novels can be the main course, and the short stories can be the dessert. :-)

Why not try one?

Happy trails!

bobbi c.