You can’t write a short story without having a real feel for what a short story can be and do. What interests you? What do you want to explore, to pull apart and understand more deeply, to rant about or laugh about? Eley Williams, winner of The 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize, is passionate about language and the physical stuff of language – dictionaries, bookmarks, old books – and she’s written an entire collection Attrib.
Let yourself write about what you really want to write about. They daren’t write from the point-of-view of a giraffe because they don’t know what it’s like to have an extremely long neck. Some writers daren’t write about vampires because they actually haven’t lived the life of a vampire. Many writers are afraid to write about working life because again it doesn’t seem glamorous or exciting enough it’s just work. Lots of writers are afraid to write about the domestic because it doesn’t seem glamorous or exciting enough. Davies is happiest being pithy whilst Munro likes plenty of pages to roam around in. I can’t imagine the great American writer Lydia Davies producing a story which is as long as the stories of the great Canadian writer Alice Munro. The more you actually write stories the more you’ll find what suits your voice. They just have to be the length they’re going to be. I think story competitions are great, it’s good to have something to aim for, somewhere to send your work to, but sometimes/often stories won’t obey competition word-length rules. Don’t over-think word countsĭon’t worry too much about rules, about how long the perfect piece of flash fiction should be, or the perfect short story. Now use your favourite list or part of a list to start your story. List-making helps to get the writing mind working it frees you up to play, to be a bit silly, to relax.
There’s a tendency to want to nail that opening from the first sentence and this can stop you from writing anything at all. Often the most daunting thing about writing a short story is starting, getting some words on the page. Write a list of all the different kinds of ways you can cook a chicken or get a baby to drink from a bottle. Lists of things that scare you, things that make you laugh and things that make you cry. George Saunders once said, ‘when you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you’ …but what is the best way to start? We asked Lynne Bryan – writer, editor and creative writing tutor for NCW, the Arvon Foundation and the University of East Anglia – for the most important advice she would offer when embarking on your first journey into the short story form.
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