My Short Stories

According to Brandon Sanderson, to make it in science fiction and fantasy in the old days, “the route to publication was largely through short stories published in pulp magazines”. The idea was simple, publish short stories first to establish a name for yourself and then publish longer works. Now I hear from many sources to avoid writing short stories unless you want to tell short stories. The difference between short stories and full length novels has become more evident as the craft has expanded, and the general consensus is that writing short stories will make you better at writing short stories, not novels.

My want

I want to tell short stories. I’m here and posting them because I enjoy the form. I’ve read many of the great short story authors, Chekhov, Kafka, Lovecraft, and when I step away from a short story that moved me in so few words, I think to myself, “I want to do that.”

My method

Writing a short story a week has required me to narrow my scope. I’ve set the following soft rules to follow:

• 1500 words. Not a hard limit, some go over and some are under, but I try to hit this number.
• For the most part, one word prompts. Sometimes I have a story I need to tell that doesn’t neatly fit a one word prompt, and other times I draw from a bank of single words. Examples are Ghost Story, not a one word prompt I just really wanted to do some Supernatural stuff with salt, and Rust, the prompt word being Rust.

Following those two rules, I plot, outline, and then draft a full short story in one week. I’ve got a big enough buffer that I can then edit it for the next two or three weeks before it is due to make sure it is good to go.

What to expect

I’m writing whatever strikes me. There’s a lot of grief, some action, mix of fantasy and science fiction, horror, comedy.

AI

See my article Here’s how I use AI as an (amateur) Author to see my take on AI, but I’ll give a brief summary on how I utilize AI:

1. A final round of proofing
2. Research support
3. Utility tasks

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