So I thought I’d do a blog entry on why I like to write short stories, even though there is virtually no market for them. First of all, there is something really satisfying about a project you can complete in a single sitting. Novel writing is like running a marathon, it’s all about endurance. Even a novella is not going to get finished in a single session. But a short-short, I can sit down and write one and be finished! There’s a lot of satisfaction in that.
Also, it’s good for my creative self. It allows me to experiment, stretch, try different things or simply explore ideas that aren’t big enough to sustain a longer work. It’s a very refreshing change of pace for me, like writing a poem. It flexes my creative muscles in a different direction and lets me come back to novels and novellas refreshed. It does something to sort of “reset” my brain in between longer works, too.
And I like the idea of being able to provide short reads on a semi-regular basis to offer something of value to readers, and I’m a person who likes to write stories about what happens to characters before or after the “main” story. Before I started in on the book that’s currently being shopping around, I wrote a short story about the main characters. The novel then developed in a totally different direction from what I’d initially imagined, but it let me put them together and see how they interacted and that helped me flesh out the novel. I went into it with a new depth because I went back in time to before the novel started with them, without cluttering up my book with backstory.
Finally, the exercise of writing a short story affirms something very important: my process works. It may not be like anybody else’s process, but it’s my process and I can trust it. It works, every time.
Off to write some more pages! The plot is thickening and the characters are starting to feel the burn as I hold their feet to the fire, heh heh.
