I've never been a fan of short stories. The only one I can really recall off-hand as having any sort of impact on me is The Weapon by Fredric Brown (It's telling that I still had to do a Google-search to figure out the name of the story).
However, my feelings on short stories have been changing lately.
I think, maybe, they don't suck.
So my book (my only book so far), Leaper: Down to Earth (if you haven't checked it out, you really should. It's cool, and there's lots of info about it on my site here) is really, really long. I know it's quite long. Long enough probably to scare away many agents and publishers, and maybe even some readers.
When writing it, in my head I was thinking that books just are so damn long compared to what I've ever written, so I just need to write as much as I can. And really, what's wrong with a long book? Reading Harry Potter, even the really long books, I only ever wanted them to be longer. So why not? (Do note that Leaper did go through several drafts and I'm quite happy with the narrative as it stands).
But finishing that first book and trying to move on to writing the second, and then even a third is just ... really daunting. It's so much writing. Enter short stories.
At around 2,000 words (about 1 per cent of Leaper: Down to Earth), they take about a day or two to get the first draft done. And there it is — something I've started and completed. Hallelujah!!!!!
Ask my wife to read it, some family and maybe a few friends, go through a couple edits and there it is, the more-or-less completed product, ready for people to read.
What's even cooler is that there are places to actually send these short stories to: magazines and competitions. And once you've submitted them, it only take a couple months to find out anything. Compare that to more than a year of trying to get a book agent and I'll take a month or two of waiting any day.
What I'm saying, I guess, is that right now, short stories are giving me some focus. I find a magazine or a contest that's open to submissions, I come up with an idea, I write it and I send it off. By the end of it, at worst I've written something that will have stretched those writing muscles for me.
In the past few months, I've written three short stories: one with fantasy elements, one sci-fi, and one I'd dare to categorize at CanLit (something I also don't tend to like but I'm trying my hand at anyway). The first I'm sending off in a few different directions in the hopes it can get published. The second I'm considering sending to the Surrey International Writers' Conference, and the third I wrote specifically to enter into the CBC short story contest. We'll see what happens. If all else fails, I'll post the short stories here for you guys to read. Still, here's hoping. In the mean time, I'll probably work on a few more short stories, and hopefully work up to some book-writing soon.
Thanks for reading:)
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