Robin Storey's Blog, page 6

Five Reasons To Love Short Stories

After years in the literary wilderness, short stories are making a comeback. In the days when traditional publishing was the norm, publishers usually baulked at publishing short stories unless you were a famous author, as they perceived them as being difficult to sell.

But in these days of digital publishing and indie authors, short stories are thriving – either sold individually or in anthologies. 

I love reading and writing short stories, and recently won a highly commended prize for my short story The Perfect Job in the Stringybark Stories Malicious Mysteries Awards.  I couldn’t resist entering that competition, as I love writing dark fiction – the more malicious, the better.

If you’re not already hooked, here are five reasons to love short stories.

They’re…ahem…short

Meaning they’re excellent for busy readers, who want something quick to read while waiting for the potatoes to boil, or the kids to finish soccer training.  Plus there are times when you don’t feel like expending the time and energy to read a novel, and a short story fits the bill perfectly.

I often read an anthology of short stories as a ‘palate cleanser’ in between novels. Or I’ll read a short story if I only have a few minutes spare.

Short encompasses wide parameters when it comes to stories. Flash fiction is usually under 1000 words and can even be as low as 100 words. As an author, your storytelling skills are tested writing a 100 word story. 

Legend has it that Ernest Hemingway, the master of succinct writing, won a bet by writing a six word short story.

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

Amazing how poignancy can be conveyed in so few words.

The maximum length of a short story is deemed to be 7500 words, although some go up to 10 000 words. A story of this length is long enough to immerse you in its world and characters but still able to be read in one sitting.

They’re just as satisfying as novels

A well-written short story provides you with all the ingredients of a good novel – an overriding theme, authentic characters and an engrossing plot with tension and resolution.  So you have the satisfaction of a story that immerses you in another world, moves you in some way and stays with you afterwards. All in just a few thousand words.

The proof is the number of short stories that have been made into movies – Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, by F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Dead by James Joyce, The Minority Report by Phillip K. Dick, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber and The Birds by Daphne du Maurier are just some examples.

They leave you wanting more.

Like finishing off the tub of salted caramel/pecan ice-cream in your freezer. You know that’s all there is, but it doesn’t stop you wanting more.

Because of its brevity a short story can only involve certain events and characters in a specific time frame. Backstory and description are limited and much is hinted at or implied about the characters and their world.

But a good short story will make you feel as if you want to keep on reading; you want to know more about the characters and what happens to them. When a reader tells me that my short story would make a good novel, I take it as a compliment. It means there is depth and breadth to the story; that it has a life of its own that transcends its time and place and continues after its ending.

Many famous novels started their lives as short stories, including Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffry Eugenides, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and The Hours by Michael Cunningham.

You get quantity and variety.

In an anthology of short stories, whether by one author or several, you get a number of stories for the same price or less than you would pay for a novel. So a lot of bang for your buck.

And you don’t have to start at the beginning. You can do what I do and read them out of order.  Yeah, I know, I’m a rebel at heart.

You can sample different authors.

Like getting a taste of all the cheeses from the friendly dairy demonstrator at the supermarket. 

Reading a short story by an author you don’t know is a good way of getting to know their writing style and genre before investing money in one of their novels. And reading multi-author anthologies will undoubtedly introduce you to a lot of authors you haven’t heard of and who may become your favourites. I’ve discovered many authors through short stories, particularly crime anthologies such as the Akashic Noir series.   

Bonus reason: why authors love writing short stories.

Actually, there are many reasons. Besides the obvious fact that they are shorter than novels and take less time to write, writing short stories is an effective way to learn the basics of good writing – how to be concise (every word has to earn its keep), how to create a convincing plot and memorable characters, without the blood, sweat and tears of an entire novel.

Short stories also enable authors to experiment with different genres and styles of writing.  In my free anthology of short stories, Comedy Shorts, there are two stories with a fantasy element. I’d always wanted to try incorporating some fantasy in my writing and those two stories, A Peaceful Death, about a man who is commissioned to do a job for the Angel of Death, and The Muse, about an author who meets her muse, were a great way to dip my toe in the water and have some fun.

And speaking of dipping, if you’re looking for some short stories to dip into, Stringybark Stories has just published all 27 winning entries of the Malicious Mysteries competition in an anthology called Red Gold, available as an e-book or in print. 

I highly recommend it, with complete impartiality, as an excellent read.

Are you a fan of short stories? Do you have any recommendations? I’d love you to join the conversation in the comments box below.

The post Five Reasons To Love Short Stories appeared first on Robin Storey.

How Mindfulness Can Enhance Your Life

One of my goals for this year is to incorporate more mindfulness into my everyday life.  Unless you’ve been held captive in a cave in darkest Africa by one-eyed multiple-tentacled aliens, you will have heard the term 'mindfulness' bandied about with reckless abandon, in the company of other words like meditation, karma, holistic and green smoothies.

What is mindfulness?

But in case you’ve been reluctant to ask what it means because you don’t want to be thought of as uncool, mindfulness is about focussing your attention on the present moment.  Not only being aware of your surroundings – really aware, with all your senses – but also your thoughts and emotions, without judgment. And I have found mindfulness especially valuable for my writing, as I’ll explain below.

Monkey minds

Mindfulness is a simple concept, but difficult to put into consistent practice. As Jon Kabat-Zinn points out in his book Wherever You Go There You Are (which I highly recommend), most of us spend our days in a fog of semi or complete unawareness. Our minds are always racing; if we’re not thinking about events of the past – reminiscing, replaying scenes that have annoyed or frustrated us or thinking about how we could have done things differently – we’re projecting ahead, ticking off a mental list of things to do, wondering or hoping how certain events will play out, our fears and anxieties about the future always at the forefront of our minds.

Wrong way ahead

I am particularly prone to the latter, constantly running through my mind what I have to do for the day and the week ahead. You know the feeling when you’re driving on automatic pilot and you arrive somewhere and you don’t remember the journey? Or you take a wrong turn because you’re not concentrating, or your automatic pilot mind thinks you’re going somewhere else. (That happens to me a lot).     

Now is all you have

The disadvantage of this is you're not able to take in and appreciate the present moment, so your life rushes by before you’re even aware of it.  You can’t change the past or predict the future, so there’s no point in dwelling in either.  Easier said than done. But awareness is the first step. When you’re aware of your mind wandering, you can bring it, gently and without judgment, back to the present.

For me, this is a double-edged sword. Some of my best ideas for my novels have come to me when I’m not ‘in the moment,’ such as in the shower or washing the dishes. My mind is somewhere else completely, and then the idea just pops up. But ideas are always bubbling away in the subconscious mind of an author, so I’m hoping now that I’m making an effort to stay in the present, those ideas will still make their presence felt in some way or another.

Senses alert

Being in the moment involves engaging all your senses. Treating your surroundings as if you’re experiencing them for the first time – taking in the scent of the flowers in your garden, the feel of the warm washing up water on your hands, the cacophony of the crows on the front porch, the timeless majesty of the ancient fig trees in the park, the intense sweetness of chocolate on your tongue. 

Not only has this meant that the enjoyment factor of my daily life has increased tenfold, it is also an excellent practice for my writing. My heightened awareness of my senses and my environment has brought a fresher and more vivid approach to my writing, especially as I have always found description challenging. Incorporating a variety of senses when writing scenes is a valuable way of transporting the reader into your story.   

Control your thoughts and emotions

The other aspect of mindfulness is being aware of your thoughts and emotions as you are experiencing them, without judging if they are positive or negative. Over time you develop the capacity to mentally step outside yourself and observe your thoughts and feelings without getting caught up in them, which means you then have more control over them. Instead of reacting spontaneously to things that happen to you or are said to you, you’re able to pause and make a conscious decision on how you will respond.

In my breast cancer memoir Making The Breast Of It – Breast Cancer Stories of Humour and Joy, I give an example of how mindfulness has helped me cope with my anxiety about my breast cancer returning.

‘When I think about my cancer coming back and feel that constriction of anxiety in my chest, I say to myself, “I am experiencing fear of my cancer returning. This is not serving any useful purpose and I don’t want to be fearful, so I will now replace that thought with another positive thought.”’

Mindfulness helps creativity

As well as being useful in all sorts of personal situations, I’ve found mindfulness has helped me deal with creative challenges such as procrastination, writers block, comparisonitis (comparing myself to more successful writers, a common affliction of authors, except perhaps JK Rowling) and lack of energy and motivation.

Even just acknowledging to myself how I’m feeling – ‘I don’t feel like writing at all today. I’m feeling tired and lethargic and I have a strong urge to put it off until tomorrow – ‘can often be enough to motivate me to sit down and actually do it.

Do you practise mindfulness and if so, have you found it useful?  I’d love you to join in the conversation in the comments box below.

The post How Mindfulness Can Enhance Your Life appeared first on Robin Storey.

What Was Your Most Un-Christmassy Christmas?

Have you ever stopped to mull over all the Christmasses you’ve had, and thought about the happiest, the saddest, the weirdest, and – I’ve invented a new category – the most un-Christmassy Christmas? Which could also be the happiest, saddest or weirdest Christmas.

Great Expectations

It’s difficult for me to pinpoint my happiest Christmas, but near the top of the list is when I was seven and a half months pregnant with my first child. Admittedly, I had to put up with the heat (for which Christmas in Australia is notorious), but at our extended family Christmas, I was given the most comfortable chair, waited on like royalty, could eat as much I wanted without worrying about putting on weight and was given a leave pass from the washing-up,  all overlaid with the joyous anticipation of impending motherhood.

I didn’t even mind the tired jokes about making sure we had a ready supply of towels and boiling water. (I’ve never known the reason for the boiling water – for a cup of tea, perhaps?  Though if anyone had offered me a cup of tea while I was in labour I would have thrown it at them.  Maybe it’s for the onlookers).

The magic of Christmas

When I was a child, Christmas was always magic – putting up the Christmas tree and decorations, oohing and aahing at the glittering night lights, singing our favourite carols around the piano and the agonizing anticipation of Santa’s arrival. Christmas Day seemed to take forever to arrive and every day I would ask my mother more than once, ‘how many days until Christmas?’ until I’m sure she was on the verge of doing something very un-festive.

When Christmas Eve finally rolled around, we did the usual putting out of soft drink and Christmas cake for Santa’s supper, and apple or carrot for the reindeer. The next morning the glass was empty and the cake and reindeer food had vanished, undeniable proof (not that we needed it) of Santa’s existence.

Elementary, my dear Watson

But at eight I discovered the truth by a clever process of deduction. I realised that Santa’s handwriting – ‘with love from Santa’ – on the gift cards sticky-taped to our presents was the same as my mother’s.  She buckled under my interrogation and admitted her deception, at the same time probably kicking herself for her oversight.  The game was up; the magic dissipated overnight and didn’t reappear again until I had children of my own.

The saddest Christmas was decades later when we brought my mother home from her aged care facility to spend Christmas Day with us. There were lots of laughs and photos and she appeared to enjoy herself, but we knew it would probably be her last Christmas Day spent away from the facility, due to her advanced stage of Alzheimer’s.  (It turned out we were right; she died a couple of years later).

No room at the inn

On a lighter note, my most un-Christmassy Christmas – and probably the weirdest as well – was  when I was nineteen, backpacking around New Zealand with a friend during our university holidays. On Christmas Eve we ended up in Picton, a town in the South Island.

The only accommodation we could find was not, unfortunately, a stable. A stable would have been very welcome. After we’d exhausted all the options, one of the holiday parks took pity on us and offered us a tree.  A large, sturdy tree and as a Christmas special, free of charge.

We had no tents, so we rolled out our sleeping bags on the grass and gazing up at our vast, star-studded ceiling, we drifted off to sleep under the tree’s generous embrace.  (Fortunately it didn’t rain). We were woken at dawn by the shouts of children speeding around the park on their brand new bikes, testing their bells for volume and durability. 

E. T. phone home!

Some of the families invited us to share Christmas lunch with them, but we decided to push on in the hope of finding a proper bed for the next night. We managed to get a ride out of town and at lunch time we came upon an open take-away food store. Our Christmas lunch was a meat pie and ginger beer, sitting on a seat outside the store in the still heat, in a small town that felt like the end of the earth.  

I can’t remember where we ended up that night (though we did find a room with a bed), but I remember feeling very homesick for the family whose shackles I’d been so keen to throw off, and relieved once Boxing Day arrived and life could continue as normal.

A minimalist Christmas

To some, the way my partner and I spend Christmas these days might seem un-Christmassy.  My children are adults and living away from home, and although I can usually count on at least one coming home for Christmas, we don’t bother with a Christmas tree, decorations or carol nights.

I do admit, though, to still oohing and aahing when driving at night and coming upon houses - and whole streets - festooned with Christmas lights.  We dispensed with Christmas presents long ago, preferring to give donations to charity. You could say it’s the lazy person’s way out, but it’s also more satisfying.

A champagne toast for breakfast

So that leaves what I consider are the most enjoyable and enduring aspects of Christmas – family, friends and food. And the one day of the year I can have champagne for breakfast.

What was your happiest, saddest, weirdest or most un-Christmassy Christmas?  Reveal all in the comments box below.

The post What Was Your Most Un-Christmassy Christmas? appeared first on Robin Storey.

Finding Your Tribe

What does finding your tribe mean? It’s one those buzz phrases beloved of bloggers, marketers and pop psychologists, and it means finding those people who have the same interests as you and who you feel comfortable around, in order to feel accepted and share meaningful experiences. It’s a concept as old as humanity itself and it’s something most of us do instinctively when we forge friendships.

Marketing – the soft-sell approach

Marketers have cottoned on to it because they have realised that the hard sell approach only alienates potential customers. Finding people who have the same likes and interests and connecting with them on a personal level without the obvious intent of selling, results in loyal fans and more customers in the long term – it’s the old adage of people buy from those they like.

Danger – author tribes ahead

The reason I’m mentioning this is that in a few days’ time I will be gathering with some of my tribe at a writers’ conference, GenreCon. GenreCon is a biennial conference held at the State Library in Brisbane for genre authors – which is all of us. Or at least those of us who want to sell our books, as they have to be placed in a genre category to sell them. Even literary fiction is a genre.

Although GenreCon holds some workshops relating to specific genres, the main emphasis is on the aspects of writing common to all genres – plotting, characterisation, themes etc and issues experienced by all authors such as editing, publishing and marketing.

Instant bonding

I’m looking forward to a whole week-end of discussing everything from writing process to motivation, knowing that my fellow fanatics will be able to relate to it all.  At GenreCon there are authors of every conceivable genre (and many like me who write cross-genre) and we all respect each other’s genres, even if we’re not fans ourselves. What we write is irrelevant; being an author gives us an instant connection.

Is there a spaceship leaving soon?

When a non-writer asks you how your current book is coming along and you make the mistake of going into the gory details, their eyes soon start to take on that abstracted glaze, the one where they’re looking right at you but you know they’re not listening, and you can almost see the thought bubble above their head. ‘Will someone please rescue me?”

Commiserations and celebrations.

Whereas if another author asks about the progress of your book, you know they really want to hear about your sagging middle (in the story, that is) and how you can’t make up your mind if you should get rid of/add some characters,  tone down the violence and ramp up the sex or vice versa. You’re guaranteed to be offered tea and sympathy before they regale you with their woes.

Of course it’s not all misery – it’s also a great opportunity to celebrate your achievements with other authors, as no-one but another author understands the blood sweat and tears that go into writing and publishing a book.

Up close and personal

Writers’ festivals are another favourite way of mine to connect with my tribe, and I wrote about that in this blog post Do Writers' Festivals Inspire You? However, although listening to authors and commentators on a panel discussing a variety of subjects is interesting and inspirational, I prefer the hands-on nature of conferences and workshops.

It’s more intimate, you learn more and you have more of an opportunity to meet and get to know other authors. Genre-Con offers a good mix of panel discussions and workshops, as well as social occasions, in which we normally introverted creatures can let our hair down and mingle with our tribe, including the guest authors and presenters.

 The convenience of online

A lot of tribes hang out these days online, in forums and Facebook groups. I belong to a few Facebook author groups and although it’s a convenient and efficient way of connecting with others and getting support and information (just ask a question in any of the groups and someone will know the answer) I get so much more value from meeting in person. There’s an energy, a vibrancy and resonance that you can’t get from an online conversation.

Social engagement is vital

Scientific studies have shown that social engagement is one of the most important contributors to  mental and physical well-being, and it even outclasses exercise and nutrition as a vital factor in healthy aging. And that’s personal engagement, not online.

Those of us who are lucky enough to have close family relationships (and I say ‘lucky’ because I know plenty of people who don’t like their family, and some who haven’t spoken in years) would probably class their family as their most important tribe. Even if you have nothing in common with them, blood ties and a shared history usually overrides it. And if you do have interests in common, it’s a bonus.

And as far as other tribes go, it’s common to have more than one, depending on how many different pursuits you’re involved in. Author usually have at least two – other authors and our readers. Sometimes they overlap – authors are always readers, but readers are not often authors.

Quality over quantity

In business, tribe usually refers to fans or followers.  In his blog post Finding Your Tribe May Be the Hardest Thing You Do, author Jeff Goins asserts that you only need 1000 true fans to become successful in any venture, because not only will they buy every product/service you create, they’ll pass the word on to their own tribes. And if you haven’t got 1000 fans, 10 devotees are better than hundreds of half-hearted fans.

Zombie-erotica anyone?

And no matter how bizarre your niche is – whether it be romantic-historical-space opera, alien-billionaire-fantasy or zombie-erotica, if it appeals to you, you can be assured there’ll be others out there who like it as well.

I made up those genres just then, but I bet if you Googled them, you’d find authors whose books fit them. If you’re interested, I’ll let you know if I meet any of those authors at the conference.

How many tribes do you have?  How did you find them? I'd love to hear about your experiences in the comments box below.

The post Finding Your Tribe appeared first on Robin Storey.

Where Do Authors Get Their Ideas?

If I had a dollar for every time someone had asked me, ‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ I’d be so rich I wouldn’t need to write any more books. (But I would, anyway).

Ideas are everywhere

To a non-writer, it must seem like a perfectly logical question, but for many writers it’s a difficult question to answer, because we don’t know where to begin. Ideas are everywhere – newspapers, TV, movies, other books, overheard conversations, dreams, nightmares, people we’ve met, loved, hated, been married to. And sometimes we have no idea how we got an idea!

The Ideas Book

In his book Telling Lies for Fun & Profit, author Lawrence Block recounts how an author friend told askers of this question that there was a magazine published twice a month called The Ideas Book, or something similar.

‘It’s loaded with excellent plot ideas,’ he said. ‘I have a subscription, of course, and as soon as I get my copy I write in and select half a dozen ideas and get clearance on them, so that no other subscriber will go ahead and write them. Then I just work up stories around those ideas.’

Quite a few aspiring authors believed his story and wanted to subscribe to the magazine. In an even crueller twist, he dashed their hopes by telling them they weren’t eligible, as they had to be a professional writer and have a dozen sales to their name. ‘But keep on plugging away,’ he said encouragingly.

That story in itself could inspire a variety of plots.  (Could the aspiring authors, on discovering they’d been made fun of, get together and arrange his sudden demise?)

Author Harlan Ellison’s stock reply is ‘Schenectady.’ Not being a US citizen, I had to Google it to find out where it is (a city in Schenectady County, New York) and I would have no idea how to pronounce it. The Australian equivalent would be Woolloomooloo.

I don’t get ideas, they get me

Canadian novelist Robertson Davies says about ideas; ‘I don’t get them, they get me.’

I can certainly relate to that – the story of Will and Frankie in my noir romance novel An Affair With Danger gradually evolved, the characters taking residence in my head and nagging at me constantly until I wrote their story. If you’ve read it, you’ll know that Frankie is a feisty lady and not easily ignored.

Dreams and nightmares

Stephen King attributes many of his story ideas to dreams. ‘I fell asleep on the plane, and dreamt about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed the remains to her pig and bound his novel in human skin. His skin, the writer’s skin. I said to myself, “I have to write this story.”’

The plot changed quite a bit (thank goodness, the original idea is far too gory for my delicate stomach) and became the acclaimed novel (and movie) Misery, about a crazed female fan who keeps a writer prisoner in her house after she rescues him from an accident.

I started keeping a dream journal at one stage, hoping it would produce some brilliant gems of ideas, but all it proved was that my subconscious was boringly predictable, because all I seem to dream about are babies. (Which for an author is symbolic of his/her books).

Life experience is fertile ground

Certainly your own life experiences can inspire ideas, which is one of the advantages being a mature age author. You have so many to choose from!  The ideas for my first two books arose from my experiences; How Not To Commit Murder, about a conman trying to go straight, was inspired by my employment as a probation and parole officer, and my romantic comedy Perfect Sex was inspired my experiences of internet dating.

And my humorous memoir Making the Breast Of It – Breast cancer stories of humour and joy was also based on my experiences of being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer.

However, the ideas for my most recent two novels, An Affair With Danger and A Time For Penance, and current work in progress, as yet untitled, were driven by characters created in my imagination. (You’re never alone when you’re a writer).

What if…?

The idea for A Time For Penance sprang out of a ‘what if’ concept that has fascinated me for ages. What if at all the important crossroads decisions you’d made in your life, you’d taken another path? Married a different person, taken a different job, moved to another city or country? How different would your life have been?  Sometimes a split second decision can change the entire course of your life.

Furthermore, if you had the chance to travel back in time, would you change anything? Would you make the same mistakes? This is the dilemma I put my protagonist Eva in. After living with the guilt of murdering her philandering husband 20 years ago, she is offered the opportunity to travel back in time to live her life again and undo her crime. But not all goes according to plan, and her second life becomes even more challenging than her first.

Ideas are looking for you

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, has a rather esoteric viewpoint on ideas. In her book Big Magic, she explains her concept that ideas are a ‘disembodied, energetic life form,’ that swirl around the universe looking for available and willing human partners.  She’s referring to ideas in all disciplines, not just writing.

She maintains that when an idea has found someone it thinks can bring it into the world (because it needs a human partner to bring it to life) it will visit that person. If the person is too preoccupied to notice it or unwilling or unable to pursue it, it will move on to someone else. If the person is open and receptive to the idea, they will start to notice all sorts of things pointing them towards it.

‘Everything you see and touch and do will remind you of the idea. The idea will wake you up in the middle of the night and distract you from your everyday routine. The idea will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention.’

Whether or not you go along with her ideas about ideas, many authors, including me, have experienced that compulsion about an idea that grips you and won’t let you rest until you write it. The passion and belief that the story you’re creating from your idea is worth the time and energy you’re putting into it, is often the only thing that keeps you going in your toughest moments.

Now comes the hard part

In the end, as Neil Gaiman says in his blog post Where Do You Get Your Ideas? the ideas aren’t the hard bit. ‘Hardest by far is the process of simply sitting down and putting one word after another to construct whatever it is you’re trying to build.’

How do your ideas come to you? Have you had an idea that won’t let you go?  I’d love you to share your experiences in the comments box below.

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Novellas – Why Readers And Authors Love Them

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What’s a novella? I hear you cry. While most authors are familiar with them, a lot of readers don’t know that what they are, even though they have probably read at least a few. The easiest explanation, simplistic though it is, is that a novella is longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel. The commonly accepted word count of novellas ranges from 20 000 to 40 000 words (although some say 50 000 and I’ll go along with that, as my novella An Affair With Danger is 46 000 words).

Famous novellas

Many famous books are novellas – Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad), The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote), Animal Farm (George Orwell), The Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King), A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) The Prime of Miss Jean Bodie (Muriel Spark). The list is endless. Here are more of the World’s Greatest Novellas according to Goodreads.

I recently attended a seminar at Queensland Writers Centre in which author Nick Earls told us everything we wanted to know about novellas, but were afraid to ask. Nick is doing a PhD on novellas and has written a few himself, so he’s an expert.

Nick is of the opinion that although novellas have been around for years, they’re coming into their own now. I predicted (perhaps hoped would be more accurate) in this post four years ago that novellas would grow in popularity, and in this post written two years ago, I had just started writing my novella An Affair With Danger and was enjoying the invigorating change from the marathon of novel writing.

Here are the three main reasons that authors and readers love novellas.

1. They’re short

You can read one in a couple of hours. Modern lifestyles are busy, crammed with activities and commitments, and for many people, finding the time and commitment to read a full length novel is difficult. You can read a novella over a couple of lunch hours, in a day’s commute on the train or while your kids are at soccer training.

Nowadays books also have to compete with the online world for attention – games, social media, forums, movie and TV streaming. So a short book is more likely to catch the attention of people who live in the online world, knowing they can read one in the same time it takes to watch a movie.

If we’re talking print copies, short means small in size, perfect for slipping into your handbag – for us women, in any case. No self-respecting reader is without a book no matter where she goes, and you’ve always got something to read when you’re in the waiting room at the accountant/dentist/doctor instead of archaeological copies of Readers Digest.

No sagging middle

For authors, the brevity of the novella means, as Nick said, that you can hold the whole story in your mind, never losing sight of the beginning or the end. You avoid the ‘sagging middle,’ often experienced when writing a novel, a sort of no-man’s land of quick sand, where you often feel you’re sinking because both the beginning and the end are miles away and you feel as if you’re never going to reach the finish line. When writing a novella, I like the psychological boost of being able to see the end when I start.

2. They’re satisfying

Which makes them sounds like a cigarette commercial from back in the day. Novellas essentially contain one main story and perhaps a sub-plot, a small cast of characters and usually, but not always, take place over a condensed period of time.

But just because they’re short doesn’t mean they lack complexity, suspense or depth, or any other characteristic we associate with good novels.

A well-written novella will have enough tension and pace to keep your interest and enough depth to immerse you in its world and characters, leaving you with the satisfaction of having read a complete, well-rounded story, but paradoxically still wanting more.

Acclaimed author Ian McEwan, whose own novellas include The Cement Garden, Amsterdam and On Chesil Beach, asserts that the novella is a superior literary form to the novel. He said, ‘If I could write the perfect novella I would die happy.’

In an article for the New York Times, he described the novella as the ‘perfect form of prose fiction. It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated, ill-shaven giant.’

Succinct but deep

For authors, the challenge in making a novella satisfying reading is to write economically, with depth. It means knowing what to leave out, what to infer rather than describe, how to convey character and situations with the fewest possible words, but still pack emotional punch. As Ian puts it, ‘the demands of economy push writers to polish their sentences to precision and clarity.’

It’s a painstaking art with attention to tiny detail, like sculpting an elaborate figurine, which is what makes it so challenging to write and so satisfying to have completed.

3. There is no barrier to their publication

In the days when traditional publishing ruled the literary roost, it was almost impossible to have a novella accepted for publication, unless you were already a famous author. It cost the same to produce as a full length novel, but it had to be priced less, so publishers didn’t consider it to be economically viable.

Now with the advent of digital books and self-publishing, the cost of production is immaterial – it costs nothing to upload a book to Amazon and other e-book sites, and indie authors, as their own publishers, bear the associated costs such as editing, formatting, cover design etc.

And there is no-one dictating that your book must be a certain length, so if your book happens to be over 40 000 words and you want to call it a novella, you can. If it’s good enough for F. Scott Fitzgerald (the Great Gatsby is often classified as a novella, although it’s about 50 000 words) it’s good enough for me.

My novella recommendations

For an example of beautifully crafted novellas, read any or all of the five novellas in Nick Earls’ Wisdom Tree series. Each novella is a stand-alone story, but they are all linked by a common theme of the nature of family and relationships in all their variety, breadth and depth.

My favourites are the first, Gotham and the last, Noho. You can also buy the whole series in audio.

Have you read any novellas you can recommend? Do you prefer them to novels? I’d love you to join in the conversation in the comments box below.

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The post Novellas – Why Readers And Authors Love Them appeared first on Robin Storey.

Why Crime Writers Are Such Nice People

The other day someone said to me, ‘You’re such a happy person. Why do you like writing crime?’

Although my novels fit more into the psychological suspense/noir genres, crime plays a significant role in them.

My reply was along the lines of, ‘That’s why I’m so happy, because I release my dark side on to the page.’

M is for Murder

It’s a simplistic, glib answer, but I think it holds true for many crime writers. Author Sue Grafton wrote the first novel in her famous alphabetical crime series, A Is For Alibi, as a direct result of lying awake at night fantasizing about killing her ex-husband, with whom she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle.

She came up with a plan to poison him with oleander – easy to get and very lethal. But in the clear light of the morning she came back to reality. ‘And since I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in a shapeless prison dress, I decided to turn my homicidal fantasy into a mystery novel.’

I’m sure she’s not the only author to have killed an ex-spouse in a novel. Crime is one of the most popular fiction genres and under the umbrella of crime, you can also include its associated genres of thriller, suspense and noir, as they frequently meld together. And I believe that the reasons that authors love writing crime are the same reasons that people love reading it.

Chills and thrills

Firstly, there’s the vicarious thrill of being able to experience the darker side of life while curled up on the couch with a glass of wine and a block of chocolate. We can experience spine-tingling suspense, heart-jumping fear and pulse-pounding terror through the story and characters in our novel. Like armchair travellers, we can be armchair crime fighters or criminals - and most importantly, if it gets too intense or scary, we can stop reading (or writing).

Many people, myself included, are fascinated by the world of crime and the people who commit them, because it’s so far removed from our own lives. And writing it gives authors the same thrills –as we’re writing the books, we’re living in that other world, which is much more exciting than our normal, humdrum existence.

And when we have to force ourselves back to reality to make dinner and help the kids with their homework, we can smile and be serene and nice, because cooking a gourmet meal a la MasterChef and making a whole city out of egg cartons by tomorrow is a piece of cake compared to wrestling with plot twists and turns, characters who won’t do what you tell them and getting your heroine out of a locked room before the baddies come back to pull off her fingernails with a pair of pliers.

It can happen to you!

Secondly there’s the believability factor in many crime novels – the possibility that the events could occur in real life. You could very well become the victim of a mugging, extortion or threats, or unwittingly become involved in a crime, just to name a few scenarios. Crime author and psychiatrist Mark Rubinstein in his blog post Why Crime Thriller Fiction sums it up well. ‘Crime novels tap into the prospect of the possible, which makes them ever more compelling and frightening.’

While we authors find the world of our imaginations infinitely more thrilling than reality, we’re at the same time perversely grateful that we don’t live in that world; that we can drive to the shops without being followed by a bald man with a scar and a nasty sneer driving a big black Dodge, answer the phone without a menacing voice ordering us to leave a million dollars in a briefcase behind the oak tree in the park or Fido gets it, or go to the local for a drink without worrying that the man sitting next to you is trying to recruit you for a top secret mission that involves going to Afghanistan and becoming a goatherd.

And gratitude always makes a person nice to be with.

The good, the bad and the ugly

And thirdly, crime novels usually deal in some respect or other with the human condition – the best and worst of it, from greed, anger and jealousy to courage, loyalty and justice. They highlight the eternal battle between good and evil and all shades in between. They give readers food for thought, and authors a way to weave those themes into their stories.

Because crime writers are dealing every day with the human condition, by evening we’re plumb out of nastiness. We can’t even find it within ourselves to yell at the children to tidy their rooms or pour scorn on our spouse’s favourite TV show. In fact, the entire house can fall down around us and resemble a crime scene and we won’t bat an eyelash, as long as we can indulge in our favourite killer cocktail.

Which makes us very nice, if strange, people.

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Confessions Of A Grammar Nazi

I suffer from an affliction shared by many other writers. (Apart from caffeine addiction, procrastination and thinking about plots while driving and missing my exit). I am a grammar Nazi. And under that umbrella I also place misspelling and erroneous punctuation. Repeat after me please. They’re drinking their coffee over there.

Wanted: man with good grammar

I’m such a correct English tragic that many years ago when I was dabbling in internet dating, if a man had spelling or grammar mistakes in his profile, he was immediately struck off my list of potential suitors. I could see that my compulsion to correct his errors, especially in a moment of passion, might prove to be a stumbling block to a relationship that lasts longer than dinner. ‘No, Henry, it’s not, “Why don’t you and me retire to the bedroom?” It’s “you and I.”’

One of the most common mistakes I see is the misspelling of there when it’s supposed to be their and vice versa. But there’s also then instead of than, your instead of you’re, to instead of too, weather instead of whether – I could go on and on (and on and on…) Predictive text on mobile devices may be partly responsible, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the human at the other end. I always check what I’ve written for errors before I email it or post it on a site.

Social media is partly 2 blame

I know that with the advent of instant communication, language has become more casual and I have no truck with that. I use abbreviated words myself when sending text messages to family or friends. U r instead of you are etc.

And while you could argue that it doesn’t matter so much on social media because much of that conversation is casual, if you’re used to posting ungrammatical stuff, it becomes so much harder to get out of that habit when you’re writing professionally, and a lot of people don’t bother to differentiate.

But I don’t think there’s any reason for poor grammar and spelling to be acceptable, and what really makes me grit my teeth is poor English in the public and professional sphere. I’ve seen a lot of misspelling on business websites (and some are authors or in writing-related businesses) and I have often contacted them and informed them of it – in a friendly manner.

They usually thank me, but whether they bother to fix the errors, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s obvious that English is not their first language, and in that case I would hope they’d be happy that someone had taken the time to point out their mistakes.

I guess the bottom line is, how important is it? Would you refuse to buy a product or service because of spelling or grammatical errors on the company’s website, signage or other promotional material? In my case, probably not, unless it was a business that was writing-related, such as copy-editing or report writing. However, I still don’t think it’s a reason for errors to be shrugged off as irrelevant.

Delinquent apostrophes

The worst mistake of all, the one that makes me want to scream, is the errant apostrophe. Apostrophes in plurals are so common I don’t even bother commenting on them. I just mentally roll my eyes, as a fellow grammar Nazi puts it.

Fruit and vegetable shop vendors seem particularly susceptible. Banana’s on sale. Fresh local cabbage’s. And also those in authority. Violator’s will be towed. No Dog’s Allowed. And what about this one? No Drink’s Allowed in Shop. Thank’s. A double whammy.

Another very common error is using an apostrophe in ‘its’ when it’s the possessive, such as Every dog has it’s day.

It seems as if a lot of people subscribe to the Blanket Apostrophe Rule – when in doubt, whack it in. In a recent article in the Week-end Australian, columnist Stephen Romei asked readers to send in examples of the misplaced apostrophe and other ‘grammatical gherkins.’

(I am at a loss as to why he chose gherkins for his metaphor, but as I don’t like them, it works for me).

There are some amusing responses, but my favourite is the article’s illustration, from a railway waiting room in Tasmania.

Please place wet umberella’s here.

Another delightful double doozy. The same people might also write, Beware of burgulars or Perculated coffee sold here.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

But while I’m doing my old codger act, moaning about the low standard of today’s spelling and grammar, (not like when I went to school and had to parse sentences, learning the title and function of every word), a grammar vigilante in England is taking action on this serious issue, which threatens to shake the very foundations of modern society.

This caped crusader creeps around the streets of Bristol in the dead of night with a long-handled tool he calls the ‘apostrophiser,’ which he created especially to correct rogue apostrophes on signs by placing stickers over them. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous for obvious reasons, told the BBC, 'I do think it is a cause worth pursuing. I have felt extremely nervous and the heart has been thumping.’ He maintains he has not committed any crime. ‘It’s more of a crime to have the apostrophes wrong in the first place.’

Move over, Avengers, there’s a new superhero in town - Apostrophe Man, courageously fighting a single-handed battle against the scourge of this deceptively innocuous-looking dot with a tail. Why stop at Bristol? The world needs you! I can only hope that Apostrophe Man finds a way to clone himself so we can banish the Evil Errant Apostrophe for once and for all to Punctuation Purgatory.

What about you? Do you have any bloopers or gripes you'd like to share? I'd love you to join in the conversation in the comments box below.

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Fashion In Fiction – From Bodices To Bridget Jones

‘Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life.’ Bill Cunningham.

I love clothes. Love looking at them, buying them and wearing them – especially when something I’ve bought feels comfortable and looks good. And if it was on sale, I’ve won the trifecta. As I’m a woman, you could say it’s in my genes. (No apologies for the pun). But I know some females who aren’t into fashion – if what they wear is serviceable and covers the appropriate amount of flesh, they’re happy. To me, that’s like saying that food is just fuel for the body.

Clothes make the man, so the saying goes. Although this idea is attributed to Shakespeare, who declared that ‘apparel oft proclaims the man’ (from Hamlet), it was Mark Twain who said with his usual wit, ‘Clothes make a man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.’

‘More is more and less is a bore.’ Iris Apfel, 95 year old fashion guru.

You can tell a lot about someone by the clothes they wear, and authors can convey much about their characters with descriptions of the way they dress. Clothes are indicative of class, affluence, mental health, body image and self-esteem.

For example, you could deduce a number of things about a woman who never leaves the house without wearing designer clothes and full make-up – she is obviously someone to whom appearance is very important, probably well-off, vain perhaps to the point of obsession. A man who turns up to a cocktail party in jeans may be a rebel who thumbs his nose at conformity, puts comfort above good taste or doesn’t care what people think of him. Or all three.

‘In difficult times fashion is always outrageous.’ Elsa Schiaparelli.

I’d love to be the sort of person who can dress outrageously and get away with it, but because I don’t have that flair, I channel my inner fashion rebel into my characters. In my suspense novel An Affair With Danger, this is our first introduction to the main female character Frankie, who has just entered a courtroom:

A woman had entered. Tall, a mass of wild reddish-auburn hair that appeared to be exploding from her head. Startling red lips, too much eye make-up. She sashayed down the aisle on her high heels, her jeans and purple breast-hugging top under a denim jacket clinging to her as if they’d been painted on. Skinny except in the chest department.

It seemed as if the whole courtroom was holding its breath watching her. She stared straight ahead with an expression that said, ‘I know you’re all watching me and I don’t give a damn.’

‘Fashion should be a form of escapism, not a form of imprisonment.’ Alexander McQueen.

In my romantic comedy novel Perfect Sex Susie, a middle-aged divorcee, has thrust herself back into the dating scene and tussles with Wonderpants and push-up bras to make herself look sexier. I invented the brand name Wonderpants, but it’s another name for the slimming undergarment (now known by the tradename of Spanx) that women wear to keep all their unruly flab under control, enabling them to wear close fitting clothes with no tell-tale bulges. One day after a large lunch, Susie ends up with stomach cramps because the Wonderpants are too tight, and when she gets home she takes action:

I kick off my shoes and lift up my dress, a figure-hugging design in purple and black, bought in a last minute panic especially for our lunch. I wedge my fingers into the top of my Wonderpants, an act which defies the laws of spatial physics as they’re so tight they’ve created a seam in my stomach, and yank them down to my feet. My cramps instantly dissipate and my stomach, bottom and thighs settle back into their comfort zones with a collective sigh of relief.

I pick up the Wonderpants and stride out of my bedroom, down the stairs and out the front door to the garbage bin. I open the lid, toss them in and slam the lid down hard, in case they have any ideas about escaping.

I will confess to wearing a push-up bra but I have never felt the urge to wear Wonderpants, or the equivalent. But I do remember my mother wearing what were called step-ins, the forerunner of Spanx, which were a kind of heavy duty girdle that looked extremely uncomfortable. As a child watching my mother shoehorn her generous body into a pair of step-ins, I reflected that I was in no hurry to grow up, if that was what it entailed. Journalist Frances Whiting has written an amusing article on step-ins and Spanx.

Annie, one of the other characters in Perfect Sex, undertakes a fashion design course, which allows her to design and wear all sorts of weird outfits, including one made from garbage bags.

‘I’ll stop wearing black when they make a darker colour.’ Wednesday Addams.

There have been many famous fashion scenes in fiction: Holly Golightly’s black dress and pearl choker in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Cecilia’s dazzling green evening dress in Atonement, Miss Havisham’s wilted yellow wedding dress in Great Expectations, Scarlett O’Hara’s green velvet dress made from curtains in Gone With The Wind.

And it’s not only the women who steal the limelight – there’s Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby in his white flannel suit, silver shirt and gold tie and Alex and his gang from A Clockwork Orange in their memorable ‘pair of black very tight tights with (a) jelly mould...on the crotch... waisty jackets without lapels... with these very big built-up shoulders... off-white cravats (and) flip horrorshow boots for kicking.’  But for sartorial elegance, no man could wear a suit like James Bond.

‘I’m one of those strange beasts who really likes a corset.’ Cate Blanchett.

Bodices played a major role in romances of the Victorian era, as they were invariably ripped off in the heat of the moment, resulting in the term ‘bodice-rippers’. I have read, however, that ripping off a woman’s bodice was not just a matter of popping off a few buttons. Apparently they were laced at the back, very tightly, with several layers of clothing and a corset underneath, so by the time the eager suitor unlaced the bodice and got all her clothes off, like unwrapping a parcel in the party game ‘pass the parcel,’ his passion may have wilted somewhat. But as all good authors know, you never let the facts get in the way of a good roll in the hay.

‘Hello, Mummy!’ Daniel Cleaver.

For a more contemporary and less glamorous example, who could forget Bridget’s giant panties in Bridget Jones’s Diary? Apparently, Bridget made control pants fashionable – there was reportedly a surge in sales after the movie was released and I have it on good authority (from Kim Kardashian, no less) that ‘big pants’ are in again; the trend now is to wear them under see-through dresses. You might disagree with me, and Bridget Jones probably would, but I don’t think there is a woman in this world who can make big pants look attractive.

Do you have any favourite fashion moments in fiction? Or fashionable characters? I’d love you to contribute your thoughts in the comments box below.

The post Fashion In Fiction – From Bodices To Bridget Jones appeared first on Robin Storey.

The Health Risks Of Being A Writer

Danger – writer at work

Don’t let anyone tell you that writing isn’t a dangerous occupation. Just last week I came perilously close to stapling my manuscript to my thumb, and yesterday I dropped my dictionary on my foot. (It’s a large dictionary and it was from a considerable height).

The worst afflictions are the ones that creep up on you – one day you’re sitting at your desk typing away, in the creative flow, with your protagonist about to stab the serial killer/her personal trainer/a thermometer into the roast lamb, and the next you’re grasping your back in agony and hobbling around like a geriatric donkey.

A sitting duck for back pain

That’s what happened to me a couple of weeks ago, when I had an attack of lower back pain which lasted a few days. I’m sure that a major contributor was the accumulated result of the number of hours I spend sitting in one position in front of the computer. I always had good intentions of getting up regularly and moving around, but it’s easy to forget when you’re in the middle of a shootout or a raunchy love scene – or looking at baby and dog videos on Facebook.

Think you’re sitting pretty?

There’s been a lot of publicity lately about the dangers of a sedentary job. ‘Sitting is the new smoking’ is the catchcry. Scientists say that our bodies are designed to be mobile and that even if you exercise regularly (which I do), it doesn’t negate the effects of sitting down for 8 hours a day.

According to an article in the UK Daily Mail, ‘When we sit for long periods of time, enzyme changes occur in our muscles that can lead to increased blood sugar levels. The effects happen very quickly, and regular exercise won’t fully protect you.’

More bad news

There’s more bad news, so you’d better sit down while I tell you. Apparently sitting for too long more than doubles your risk of diabetes, increases your risk of heart attack and kidney disease, and often leads to muscle and joint pain.

So given that it’s not very practical for us all to throw in our desk jobs and find a job digging ditches, what can we do to prevent these ‘sitting down’ diseases? In this article, two suggestions are given –

· Make sure you’re sitting up straight in your chair, with your shoulders down and back, your buttocks against the back of the chair and avoid crossing your legs.

· Get up every 30 minutes and move around for at least a couple of minutes.

A timely solution

I have now set a timer on my computer to go off every 30 minutes, whereupon I get up and walk around the house. I often find that the movement and change of scenery from one room to another sparks inspiration. Every hour I spend 5 minutes doing hamstring and hip flexor stretches, as prolonged sitting causes the hamstring and hip flexor muscles to tighten, a major cause of lower back pain.

Obviously I can’t do those exercises on the days I’m working in a café or the library without causing a stir, but I’ve found a couple I can do fairly unobtrusively while sitting in my chair.

Stand up and be counted

A popular solution to the sitting down issue is a standing desk. Many famous authors, including Ernest Hemingway, Vladimir Nabokoff and Lewis Carroll, wrote standing up. However, prolonged standing can exacerbate lower back pain, so if that’s your issue, experts recommend alternating standing and sitting.

Most standing desks can be accommodated to sitting as well, but I’m not sold on them, especially if I have to alternate standing and sitting – I’d be up and down all day like a jack in the box. And with the rapid change in trends, who knows – next year we may well be warned about the dangers of standing, and the new catchcry will be ‘Standing is the new sitting.’

On the treadmill of life

Then there’s the treadmill desk. I must admit I find this idea appealing for its sheer novelty, but as I’m uncoordinated at the best of times, I’m not sure how good I’d be at walking and writing at the same time. Of course, you’re only walking very slowly and enthusiasts insist it doesn’t take long to get used to it.

Many writers love them, including A.J Jacobs, author of Drop Dead Healthy. He tried hundreds of health-conscious life adjustments in researching his book, and the treadmill desk was one of the few he stuck with.

Devotees of the treadmill desk tend to superiority and hyperbole, like those who’ve discovered a new religion. In the article Work While Standing and Walking, staff writer from The New Yorker Susan Orleans says, ‘The biggest problem with working at a treadmill desk: the compulsion to announce constantly that you are working at a treadmill desk. It’s a lot like the early days of cell-phone calls, when the simple fact that you were doing what you were doing seemed so amazing that most conversations consisted largely of exclamations about the amazingness of the call.’

As I see it, the main problem with treadmill desks is that they’re big and expensive, and if you buy one and find you don’t like it, it becomes an overpriced, cumbersome clothes-drying rack and ends up as an ad in the local paper. For sale – one treadmill desk. Hardly used.

Dictation is the new pilates

It looks like for the time being, I’m stuck with my non-adjustable, non-moving desk. However, I’ve recently bought a new tool which will help get me out of my chair more often. It’s the voice to text software Dragon Naturally Speaking.

Dictating is the new craze amongst authors and those who do it swear by its benefits –

· better health, because you can walk around while doing it and there’s less strain on the hands, especially for those who suffer from RSI.

· higher productivity – it’s touted as being three times faster than typing. It’s certainly true in my case; my mind works much faster than my hands can type, and when I try to keep up I make so many errors the result is something only a Martian would understand.

Authors have always used dictation, but previously only those who could afford to pay for transcription did it. Or those in the Barbara Cartland mould, lounging on their chaise-longue with a gin and tonic and the obligatory fluffy dog, while dictating to their personal secretary.

Dragon Training for the mature-aged.

Now with software like Dragon Naturally Speaking, with over 90% accuracy rate and with the latest versions taking less than 5 minutes to train themselves to your voice, dictation is now a viable and practical alternative to typing.

So far, I have used my Dragon for brainstorming notes for my next novel – I record on my mobile phone or tablet while I’m walking around the house or outside, save the file in the Cloud, retrieve it on my computer and use the ‘transcribe’ function to have it typed straight into Word.

It’s taking my brain some time to adjust to speaking the words and not seeing them on the screen, and there are lots of long pauses and ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ while I collect my thoughts and work out what I want to say. But I am confident that will improve with practice, and I’m aiming to dictate the first draft of my next novel in a few weeks.

How to get a seat by yourself on the train

It’s quite common these days to see people talking into their mobile devices, so you shouldn’t get too many strange looks if you dictate while you’re out and about. Granted, most of those people are probably engaged in phone or video conversations, but if you hear something like this: ‘She drove the knife into the soft flesh of his belly again and again, until her new white Versace dress was drenched in blood,’ it’s probably not a phone conversation.

It’s undoubtedly a writer engrossed in their latest novel. It could even be me.

Have you had any health problems due to prolonged sitting? Or experiences with standing/treadmill desks or dictation?

I’d love you to add your comments in the comment box below.

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