It’s National Short Story Week (11-17th Nov) and you can find out all about it here on the National Short Story Website.
I take this as a very good omen. I’ve just finished my new novel and my days are now clear – for the time being at least – for other projects. I have to admit, much as I’ve enjoyed writing the novel, I’ve been dying to get back to short stories, longing for the time when my head is free to conjure fresh ideas and begin to play with them.
There are so many good reasons for writing short stories. Writing short stories gives us the opportunity to write something new, something different, outside of our normal genre, experimental even. It’s easier to play with the short form, try things out, because if in the end the story doesn’t work it’s not 80,000 words down the drain. Besides nothing is ever wasted, stories can be re-visted, re-shaped, maybe combined with another to make them entirely new.
This is what I had to say about writing short stories in a recent interview on writer FC Malby’s blog – ‘ What I love about writing a short story is that it allows you to experiment, to try different voices, to use language not so much as a vehicle for narrative but for its own sake, although simplicity and clarity are what counts. I love the intense nature of the short story and it’s ambiguity – the way you leave space for the reader to bring their experience and imagination to the piece. You have a chance with a short story to make it as perfect as you can. What I fear is that writing which is not good enough will be immediately exposed, it’s a very unforgiving form. Also for me I am often afraid that there isn’t enough of a story there and I’m not good at quirky or different and I can’t really do funny which I think is a real skill. I think perhaps my stories are too quiet for some taste but then those are probably the kind of stories I like to read.’
So it’s back to writing short stories for me and if I need inspiration I’ll be listening again to this wonderful interview with Lydia Davis
http://wamc.org/post/lydia-davis in which she discusses her writing.
I now have my hardback copy of The Story, Love, Loss and the Lives of Women – I’m on the final section – ‘Lives’- To my mind the introduction, which you can read on the Amazon link, says a great deal about the power of the short story and how it works for the reader.
And for a story that blew me away when I first read it The White Road – Tania Hershman
Happy Short Story Week!
