Constructing a Song Chain

Yesterday I started formatting my Holiday Story. For years now I have sent out a short story in place of Christmas Cards. I usually start writing August but this year it was September before I finally got word one on paper.

Most of these stories are around 2000 words. I don’t find writing and sending stories is any more difficult that finding the appropriate chards. It sure is more fun. But way more time consuming.

I once estimated it takes me 36 hours to write a short story. At 3000 words that comes to fewer than 100 words an hour. For sake of comparison, I have written 600 words in the last hour, without stopping to improve plot or character.

As much care goes into plotting a short story as a novel. The characters have to be almost as fully formed. A short story has to be more economical than a novel. Every single word has to carry weight and point toward the outcome.

I do save some time on character development by writing series characters. This is story two for Silas and Hannah. The settings, too, I reuse. I’m not sure what the model for Cobbs Crossing is, but many of my settings are places I work, or historic sites I have visited. I doubt that the reader ever sees that connection, but I am sure it makes the story richer.

Watch for Silas and Hannah in “The Song Chain” in the writing section of my Goodreads page.