The Long and the Short

It's an exciting time right now. In addition to the launch of my latest novel Still Death, I have a short story that's been accepted for inclusion in the Awesome Indies Anthology - Awesome Allshorts: Last Days, Lost Ways.

 

I am thrilled to be included in such stellar company.

I like reading short stories, and I'm pleased that since the advent of eReaders there seems to be more collections of short stories available.

Reasons to read short stories
I love the intense nature of a short story and the way it gives you a glimpse into a different life. It's like a short conversation with a stranger that leaves you changed in some way. I find some short stories leave me thinking more about a character, their choices and their life, than a novel simply because there is less said and more implied.

In our busy world we can sometimes think we don't have time to read and that's a huge shame, but a short story can be read and absorbed during a train or bus trip to work, or during our lunch break. It takes us away from the humdrum and gives us a different perspective on our world.

Reasons to write short stories
Because of their brevity, you have to make every word count, especially in flash fiction where you may have as little as 100 words to tell a story. This means choosing exactly the right word, and/or exploring the possibilities and using a word that can offer different meanings and images but which still fit with the character.

Short stories offer a writer the opportunity to experiment: perhaps with different narrative structures or a tense that may be difficult to carry through an entire novel, both for the writer and the reader.

A short story is much more than an anecdote or joke, like a novel, it shows a character at a moment of emotion and change, and the stories in Last Days, Lost Ways do exactly that.

Taste of Summer

A hot drive along narrow dusty tracks. Collect cardboard baskets from the gloomy barn. The best strawberries are in the distant corner of the field, where lazy folk don't go.

Sunny afternoons picking strawberries. Shorts and t-shirt stained with red juice and dust.

The drive back to town, windows open to catch the breeze, singing along to the radio.

Jam was a mistake, too many hours of boiling. Search through the recipe books for something else. 

Another hot day, and another visit to the farm.

Cream, strawberries and sugar. Mix and freeze slightly. Mix again and freeze.

After all the years and miles, I still remember the taste.

Perspective

Recently I did a writing exercise - a room and a memory in less than 100 words.  This was mine.

'Four years later, and James and I sit in the counsellor's room.  We've sat in so many, together and individually.  This one is marriage guidance - a last chance.
I can remember a time when we were both happy, before Emily.  We would lie in our bed as the early morning sun lightened the room, or watch the full moon rise over the elms.  Matthew lying on his side facing the window, while I snuggled close, our bodies fitting together like spoons in a drawer.'

I know it's not the most amazing piece of writing, but at the moment that's not the point.

As I wrote, this couple and their situation were very clear to me, so clear that I was surprised when everyone concluded that Emily was the other woman.  From the few words in the writing that assumption is not wrong, but it's not how I saw the scene.

To me this couple have not been able to get over the grief of losing their baby daughter, Emily, aged just five weeks. They've been to grief counselling, seen therapists and tried all they can, but ultimately it feels that being together with their grief, is harder than being alone.

The perspective changes depending on where you sit. That's one of the things I love about writing.

Twittering On

I enjoy trying out different forms of prose writing, and for the past week or so I've been practising the short-form. In other words I have a Twitter account.

Writing novels is great.  It gives you the luxury of thousands of words to build a world, create havoc, and then watch the characters sort it out, but I also like short stories. Those I've written have varied from around 500 words to 8,000 though I must admit to preferring the shorter length.

I think there is a real skill in developing a mood, characters, or place with just a few words. I don't suggest that I'm particularly skilled at this, just that I enjoy having these boundaries.

I had a 50-word story published in a book a number of years ago, but the 140-characters of Twitter is an even tighter limit. Comments or replies to other people are fun and reasonable within those confines, but in addition I decided to stretch myself and come up with something 'story-like' as often as I could. Hopefully practice will make, if not perfect, at least a little better.

Efforts tweeted so far:

Long ago summers. Car seat sticky against bare legs. Gravel car park, and then a long hot walk past stooped backs. Warm strawberries sweet on my tongue.

She used to run at life, too busy to enjoy the sun. Now frail and stooped she dances through each day.

I'm finding Twitter another amazing procrastination tool, and can see how addictive it could become, so if you'd like to practice the short form of writing you can find me @shaunabickley

Over Writing

I’m an over writer.  When I finished the first draft of my present manuscript it was around 110,000 words - now after a few edits it is significantly less.

Someone else told me they need to write themselves into a novel, and subsequently delete much of the first couple of chapters.

As with everything else, we all do things differently and need to find our own way.  Much of my over-writing tends to be repetition, and not just repeated words, or even sentences.  In my first drafts I can often find three paragraphs saying the same thing, and then there is the obvious element of backstory.  This and more is deleted in later drafts, leaving me then worrying whether I’m going to have any words left!

Realising I’m an over writer in fiction was an interesting revelation for me, as in business writing I tend to a minimalist bulletpoint style.

In contrast to the (relatively) sprawling nature of a novel, I do enjoy the constraints involved in writing to a word limit, especially flash fiction.

Here is one of mine from a while ago.

'I've been sitting here for eternity. Pretending. Passing time. We both know, but can't look each other in the eye. You used to carry me on your shoulders and now you struggle to breathe. I don't want you to go, and yet I can hardly bear to stay.'