Voyager The Third Ghost An IWSG Anthology

Writing Short Stories
By
Yvonne Ventresca

Short stories are fun to write because you can hold the entire plot in your head at one time (unlike a longer novel). You can proofread in a single sitting. And short stories are a great way to stretch your creative writing muscles. The shorter form allows you to experiment with a new character, a new setting, a new premise without a long-term commitment.

If you are unfamiliar with this kind of writing, I recommend reading lots of short stories as you try writing them, because they do provide a different kind of satisfaction to the reader. Author Lorrie Moore said, “A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.” Study several stories that resonate with you, then have a short story love affair of your own.

Quote: “A short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.” ~Lorrie Moore

Story: The Third Ghost

Logline: Among the darkened, arson-damaged streets of Hoboken, Lewis stops to help two ghosts until he realizes his own family is in grave danger.

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HOW I DON’T WRITE SHORT STORIES
By Bish Denham

I have no idea about other writers/authors, but I don’t know “how” to write a short story. What I mean by that is that I don’t know the mechanics or the steps for writing one. All I know is that there should be a beginning, middle, and end. I like writing for elementary and middle grade kids because I can keep the stories short, a 1000 words or less, which is what most children’s magazines prefer. It was a challenge for me to make “The Blind Ship” long enough to submit for the anthology.

For me, short stories have always “just happened,” whereas with novels I plot, plan, write character sketches, research and do all kinds of stuff. But short stories are different. Most times a short story starts with an opening sentence that pops into my head and won’t go away. Other times it’s a vague idea. Sometimes (gasp) a short story is a novel in disguise!

I have a long list of titles I’ve made up—an idea for inspiration I got from my favorite book on writing by Ray Bradbury called Zen in the Art of Writing. Sometimes I will peruse the list and a title will catch my fancy. I never know where that fancy will take me. Sometimes it’ll go nowhere, other times something blooms naturally on the page that’s a delight to see happen.

Ray Bradbury, who wrote over 600 short stories (I had to research that) said, “You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.” I guess that’s how I do it.

I offer up this little game you can play to help with inspiration, courtesy of Ray. Pick a word, any word. Use the first word that pops into your head or open the dictionary at random, close your eyes, and let your finger land on one. Let’s take the word “pink,” which seems to want attention. Now we make up titles. Let the words flow. Don’t think too hard or too long. They can be anything from serious to whimsical nonsense.

The Pink Door
Pink is the Color of Money
How Pink is Your Cat?
The Pink Planet
Blink if You’re Pink
Pink is for Girls
The Pink House on Turquoise Avenue
It’s your turn. And remember to have fun.

Story: The Blind Ship

Logline: The journal of a twelve-year-old boy reveals the horrors of a slave ship, and when its cargo and crew go blind from a highly contagious disease, the situation only gets worse.

Bio: Bish Denham is from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where her family has lived for over a hundred years. The author of two middle grade novels, A LIZARD’S TAIL and THE BOWL AND THE STONE, as well as a collection of retold Jamaican Anansi stories called, ANANSI AND COMPANY. She says, “Growing up in the islands was like living inside a history book.”

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Writing Short Stories
By
L. T. Ward

I hated short stories. When I became a writer, I wrote two novels in a row (still not published, but working on that) and researched how I could turn my novels into books. The consensus was: short stories.

Why? The quick answer was that they would earn me query letter credits. Most agents want to see that you’ve published works somewhere and the fastest means is to flaunt a short story published by another publisher. So, I tried my hand at writing short stories. I read the blogs, read several already published short stories, and got to work. My first short was for Dancing Lemur’s anthology. Despite all of my prep work, I started with a sour attitude, but by the time I’d finished the short, I fell in love.

And then, the short was accepted and I’d had my first win as a writer. An incredible win.

Since that experience, I’ve written several more short stories. I’ve written literary fiction, horror, and speculative fiction. As much as I love reading and writing novels, short stories are those quick, to-the-point tales that are delicious to read. I’ve read several more anthologies, short story collections, and literary magazines. With a busy lifestyle, they fit in every day.

Writing them has also strengthened my own skills. I have to engage with the reader immediately. There’s no time to dilly dally if I want them hooked. Learning to write the action and connect my reader to the characters means I have to work harder to keep the reader locked in on what I have to say. I’ve gone back and worked through revisions of my novels (one is still in edit and one is actively being queried), I noticed that I could manage the chapters better. What I can see now that I couldn’t see before writing short stories is that every chapter is in itself a short story. Given, novel chapters must work together to form the entire book, but working them to stand alone makes them stronger.

As I’ve started on my third novel–more than anything–it’s the practice of writing a short story that has improved my storytelling capabilities. For that, I’ll never stop writing short stories.

Oh, and that query letter I was so concerned about? I’ve queried more for my short stories than I have for my novel. Getting my novels and short stories published have become equally valuable to me as I continue on my writerly journey.

Story: Return to Cahokia

Logline:

Bio: LT Ward hails from the Land of Corn, otherwise known as Central Illinois, where weather inspires her literary works. When not writing speculative fiction shorts and novels, she spends her days raising a brood of plague monsters (a.k.a. her children) as well as satisfying her never-ending thirst for knowledge through reading, meeting people, and first-hand life experiences.

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Writing Short Stories
By
Beth Anderson Schuck

My writing journey began with the short story format, as my first published work was “Draft Day” in 2019, a tale spun from my childhood. The format forces you to immediately focus on details and character development. You must pull the reader in and entrance them with the story. For me, it’s a way to determine whether the characters are engaging enough to write a full manuscript or does the short story complete the story.

I ‘live’ with any of my characters for a while before writing a word. The characters are inevitably a combination of traits from people I know well. Often, I begin with an experience or feeling that stuck with me for one reason or another. Then, I build an outline of character traits and potential settings. Once I have the protagonist profile, I see what other characters might be a appropriate foil or perhaps a supportive character that makes the story flow the best. Once I have the main characters and setting, I usually can quickly complete the initial draft of the story.

I also enjoy the short story format, as the edit mode is less onerous. For me, editing is the most time consuming part of the writing process. With the short format, this phase passes more quickly. I love completing writing projects and short stories allow me to share something that I have inside in an easy-to-digest form. I find I have more ideas for short stories than for full manuscripts. I keep a separate notebook just for my short story concepts.

Story & Logline: “The Orchard” is the tale of two outcasts trying to survive in a pioneer day Utah community.

Bio: Beth Anderson Schuck is a retired librarian who believes reading can take you anywhere. She writes historical fiction featuring willful female characters. Being in nature whether hiking, bird watching or gardening makes her whole.

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Why I Write Short Fiction
By
Rebecca Douglas

For a long time, I didn’t think I could write short stories. It felt harder to write short than long, and because I don’t always like to read short stories, I thought I shouldn’t even try.

Some of that was true: I shouldn’t try to write short stories I don’t like, and it is hard to write well in the short form (I don’t know if it’s harder than novels; it’s different). It wasn’t until I discovered flash fiction that I learned that I could write short stories, and that it was good for me.

Why flash fiction? I think the nature of the flash challenges was what freed me. It’s in the name: flash fiction. Flash fiction bits aren’t meant to be literary masterpieces, but lightly polished works to lift someone’s spirits for a few minutes. So I started writing to weekly challenge prompts, and found, to my surprise, that I liked it. Even more surprising, I found that I could do it.

Later, after I’d been writing weekly flash fiction for a couple of years, I figured out a couple of other things. Flash fiction is both good and bad for me. Good, because I learned to write a story that leaves something to the imagination. In 1000 words, you can’t tell it all. You have to let the reader fill in some gaps. Sometimes, you have to let them have a lot of gaps. Writing super-short helped me to see what was important in a story and what was just my desire to make everything clear—too clear.

I also saw that the push to create a story every week, to prompts that sometimes didn’t fit me very well, was sometimes making for bad or at least lazy writing. Hinting at things without any clear idea what they might be. Counting on a clever twist rather than a good story.

Enter the more traditional short story form (5,000 to 10,000 words). That proved to be harder than flash fiction, but I think it does more for me as a writer. A 6000-word story requires some thought as to story arc, character development, and so forth. It also requires maintaining my focus on what is and isn’t important to the story. In 6000 words there’s room for development, but no room for flab. You need to know where the story is going and how it gets there (even if you figure it out after the first draft is done!). And you need to pick every word with care.

For me, then, leaving aside all the good-career-move reasons to write and sell short fiction, the big lesson remains: writing short fiction forces me to improve my understanding of the craft of writing. It forces me to plan and execute a story with care, and often to a deadline.

 In other words, writing short stories makes me a better writer.

Story: A World of Trouble

Logline:

Bio: Rebecca Douglas is the author of the delightful Ninja Librarian books, as well as a picture book for outdoor families, a mystery series for the parents, and her middle-grade fantasy, Halitor the Hero.  After more than seventeen years working at the library, she has retired still without learning all the secrets of the Ninja Librarian.

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