Short stories
I’ve written a few short stories and self-published them on Amazon. I’ve many more in draft, still waiting to be finished up. My focus has been on novels and with my goal of writing at least one novel a year, the short stories tend to take a backseat. On two occasions, a short story has become something more. My novel The Copernicus Coercion, started out as a short story, which is now chapter one in the finished novel. I recall writing it and thinking that after a couple of thousand words I could easily take it to five thousand. Then I passed seven thousand words and pushed on to ten thousand. By then I knew I had a novel and I managed to finish the opening draft in seventeen days which is the quickest I’ve ever produced an initial draft. I hadn’t set out to write a novel that day, but to write a short story to finish book 4 of my Small Print series. I did return to it and write another short story to complete book 4, but for reasons beyond me right now, this never made it to Amazon.
I have a short story called Eva, which I worked up last year into a Novella, which was very exciting to do. I had no idea the potential was there, and had not read the story for several years, but when I decided to write my first Novella, I realised this was a possibility. I now have a completed manuscript ready for submission or publication.
Today I’m working on a new short story for a submission by the end of June for Dark Venice. This is an open call for short stories by Darkstroke Publishing, and is part of their Dark anthology series, proceeds of which are for charity. Each volume is set in a different city. The call is to write something dark set in Venice. It’s always interesting writing to a brief. It pushes you to think about setting and plot that you may not otherwise have given time to. I’m excited to see where this goes and if it will make the cut. Perhaps it’s the start of a new novel. We will see.
The Fiction Factory 