Delving into the World of Short Stories

(c) JordyR (Creative Commons – Flickr)

I have always been interested in writing novels over short stories. I’m pretty convinced that my brain is wired for long, convoluted stories with a vast sandbox for me to play in. Instead of a pond, I chose the oceans–and I’ve loved every minute of it.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve decided to take a stab at the art of writing short stories and novellas. I’ve decided I will write one story a month at a minimum, with other work being done on novellas as I have time. To facilitate this, and keep myself on track, I’m utilizing patreon as a way to give fans and readers access to these short stories as I write them.

They won’t be perfect, and I know that. I expect there will be types, ways the story could have been worded better, and stories that just don’t quite live up to my hopes and expectations for them.

Once a month, I will be sharing a story with my patrons. Some months I may include more than one story in the patron pack. Some months, I may release two different stories.

If you have been wondering how you can support my writing career beyond buying my books, Patreon is a great way you can contribute. We both win!

Since I don’t know a whole lot about writing short stories, I’ve decided to dive in and learn by doing. Today, I did rough outlines of four different stories. I think one is likely a novella while the other three will fall within the 5,000 to 10,000 word range, which is well within threshold for a short story.

The first thing I’ve learned from the process is that I have to be careful to only focus on one major theme and one story arc; it isn’t a novel. I don’t have the room to ripple the backstory in or the extra plot elements. But, I still need to include some of it, because a character is not just about who they are now. Who they were in the past matters, as their current now is a reflection of their past self, while their future self is a reflection of their present self.

I want to capture that in short story form.

I have no idea how well this will work. I don’t know how good I’ll be at writing short stories…

… I just hope that I’ll entertain my patrons, readers, and fans. Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

If you’re not interested in obtaining the stories via patreon, I will be releasing them in e-book (and possibly print) format once a year, give or take a few months. Novellas will be released to Amazon within a month or so after release to patrons.

Thanks, folks!