short story author – The Writers in Residence

Why Short Stories?

by Travis Richardson *

I love short stories. I love to both write and read them. Since 2012 I’ve had over 40 short stories published. I’ve been asked before why I like it and I’ve had answers, but the best one I had came at Left Coast Crime in Vancouver in an Author Speed Dating event.

Travis Richardson post Let me explain what Author Speed Dating is first. In two hours, two authors pitch their works to approximately 144 readers at 18 tables seating 8 people. Each author has 2 minutes to pitch their book/project and then the next author pitches their book for 2 minutes. I partnered with Ann Parker, author of the Silver Rush series. We had recently had stories published in the anthology Low Down Dirty Vote.

We decided ahead of time to try to get our pitches down to a minute so that we could have time for questions. I pitched my short story collection Bloodshot and Bruised. The pitch went something like this: I have a collection of crime stories that take place in the south and the western areas of the United States. The title represents the political and geographic divide of the country as Bloodshot is for the red states and Bruised is the blue. The stories include Anthony, Macavity, and Derringer finalists.

Travis and Ann Parket After that point I ceded my time to Ann who spoke about her protagonist Inez Stanner traveling from Leadville to San Francisco in the 19^th century and then a quick pitch for her friend Priscilla Royal who couldn’t make it.

With a minute and a few seconds left we asked the audience if they had any questions. They often did and we had seconds to respond before moving on to the next table. So when I was asked, why do you write short stories instead of novels, I didn’t have time to come up with a long-winded answer. What came to my mind was one word. Perfection.

As a reader I love short stories because the great ones are intense emotional journeys that keeps focus on the characters or plot all the way through to the end. They often have an impact that resonates as strong if not stronger than a 300-page novel. In great short stories, the author took extra effort to make sure every word counted. Eliminating everything and every word that is not necessary. When I write a short story, I can edit it several times over, making sure the pacing is pitch perfect. That the character reaches an emotional arch, that the plot has a twist or an intense resolution that will resonate.

This is something I can’t seem to do with a novel (yet). Time is an element that we don’t have much of and between a full time job and a four year old, I have even less. With a short story I can read every word in a single sitting, making sure the flow moves right and the tone shifts or stays consistent. In short, you can make sure the story is as close to perfection as it can possibly get and the more words you add the less likely that will be.

Travis Richardson is originally from Oklahoma and lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter. He has been a finalist and nominee for the Macavity, Anthony, and Derringer short story awards. He has two novellas and his short story collection, BLOODSHOT AND BRUISED, came out in late 2018. He reviewed Anton Chekhov short stories in the public domain at www.chekhovshorts.com. Find more at www.tsrichardson.com

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* NOTE: This article was posted for Travis Richardson by The Writers In Residence member, Jackie Houchin

A Fish out of Water

By Jackie Houchin

A journalist among published book authors…what am I doing here?

I’m a “Writer In Residence” in a book emporium with only a pencil and pad and a rampant curiosity about everyone and everything around me – all of them possible subjects and mysteries to write about for the weekly (daily) news readers.

My newspaper articles (back in the day) were flashes in the night. Written fast, submitted, run through processors onto newsprint, placed in supermarket stands, picked up by semi-disinterested shoppers for a quarter, a buck, or even for free. And then gone; in the trash can, recycle bin, as puppy papers or to line a bird cage. (Does anyone have birds in cages anymore? Hmmm…. I must research and interview someone and write about that!!)

fish-octo — I have a tentacle in a hundred things!

Today, my daily (hourly?) posts are on Facebook – yes, I know, that gobbler-of-time social media outlet that most people have a love/hate relationship with. I love it. I enjoy posting a variety of things on my “timeline page.” I share tips (how to make cookies either crisp or chewy) & fun facts (12 million adult coloring books were sold in 2015). I talk about people who do marvelous things (like my fellow writers), post upcoming events (Baskin & Robbins 31st-of-the-month discounted ice cream), and tell my friends and family what I am doing that is ho-hum or adventuresome.

And if you know me well, you also know I post a lot of things that I learn in my Bible study reading. And photos…. whoa, do I post photos. (Throwbacks from my photographer and photo-journalist days.)

But again… flashes in the night. Sure, you can scroll down to see former Facebook posts, but any more, about 10 days is all you can see without major effort.

My fellow fish in the sea of writing, Writers In Residence in particular, have finished products that are enduring; books bound in soft or hard covers, given as gifts, re-read, treasured, shared among friends, and at the very least, end up on Friends of Library book shelves or even at yard sales at discounted prices to be bought and re-read again.

Flashes in the night versus beloved tomes held erect by sturdy bookends. (Sigh) But we are all valuable, as I discovered recently.

Our Writers In Residence (formerly Wednesday Women Writers), had a brainstorming lunch-meeting about our blog. (I was taking notes, figuring in the back of my mind what kind of articles could come from it.) The others were discussing how to promote their books, encourage reading in general, and inspire others to write and write well. And entertain. We all want to entertain in some way – to inspire, enlighten, and make readers ponder… or laugh.

Hey… did you hear the one about why the French like to eat snails? It’s because they hate fast food! Get it? FAST food, SLOW snails?*

Or… How many cars does it take to fill a mall with shoppers? Why, a whole lot, of course!

Yeah….
About being the odd man (woman) out…I actually feel comfortable among my book writing and selling sisters. And if I can promote them, inspire them, write about them or their books, I will. (Look forward in the next months for some blog posts in which I feature these WWWs, or WIRs – you know, the talented, passionate, fun, interesting friends in our little lake of scribes.)

Well, if you will pardon this stream of consciousness post, I promise to do better next time. Meanwhile….

1) Check out my fellow writers (here and on their websites)

2) Buy and read their books (Amazon or other places)

3) Write reviews about their books (Amazon or Goodreads, etc.)

4) Tell your friends about them and this blog

5) Link our posts to your Facebook or Twitter page

6) And comment, oh please comment, on our posts (it’s how we know you are out there!). And it will delight us so much!

Okay, time for a swim among all the other amazing and eclectic fishes in the sea. SPLASH! Notice that we are all swimming in the same direction.

(Can you find me? Color me different, but blended in.)

*Joke submitted by Richard Pool.

(PS: If you don’t see a comments box, or an icon to Facebook or Twitter or a “like” and “follow” us button, GO TO THE TOP OF THIS PAGE (or any of the posts), click on the title (it will change to blue for a fraction of a second), and then………… Voila! All those possibilities are right here below.

Recycling Your Writing by Kate Thornton

Kate Thornton is a retired US Army officer who enjoys writing both mysteries and science fiction. With over 100 short stories in print, she teaches a short story class and is currently working on a series of romantic suspense novels. She divides her time between Southern California and Tucson, Arizona. Check out her website here.

I finished a Christmas story last week and sent if off to a magazine that has a tracking application online. Of course, I check it daily. Five days in slush and still not read – I may have to volunteer as a slush reader to get it going.

I always write seasonal stories out of season – that way there is really no looming deadline and magazines really like to get their seasonal stuff lined up ahead of time. Writing short stories is not easy – they must be tight, have impact, be satisfying and, well, short.

But the really tough writing project I am working on is a novel I wrote in 1998. Back then, I thought I was a novelist and knocked out 3 or 4 long works – adventure/mysteries – that I thought were really good. Hah! Shows what little I knew! They needed a lot of work. So I shelved them (one was actually agented and had some interest from St. Martin’s Press, only back then I didn’t know enough about revisions to do the necessary rewrites.) The event that triggered this effort was lunch a while back with an old friend, a dear friend, who asked about that particular book and remembered it fondly. Bless my beta readers!

So I am re-reading it first (I have a copy printed on my old laser printer) then doing a page-by-page rewrite into my computer. I used to have this work on an ancient five-inch floppy disc, but who knows what happened to that and what I could use to extract the info anyway. Also, I think it was in one of the very first iterations of Word Perfect. Yes, I am old!

I once heard you must write a million words before you learn how to put them into the right order. I am sure this old effort was part of my first million, and therefore should just be counted as practice, not the real deal. But I want to salvage the basic story, change the main character to one I have been developing, and update the technology (both in the storyline and what I use to write with.)

Maybe it will be a successful project. If so, I have at least three more “Trunk Novels” that could get the same treatment, if they’re worth it.

So, how about you? Do you save your old stuff and use it – or parts of it – later? I like the idea of doing this, but it sure is a lot of work. An author of my acquaintance recommends just ditching it all and writing something new. There is certainly a lot to be said for that approach. But there is also something about an old friend, a character you have created, coming home to the present and being with you again.

So, for now, I want to revisit this person and see if they can get used to the world as it is now. And I think maybe it will help me to accept the world of today as well.

The Novel Approach by Kate Thornton

THE NOVEL APPROACH

I write mostly short stories – concise, complete, beginning-middle-end pieces with one or two plot points, one or two (or at the most three) main characters and a satisfyingly twisty ending. I take a week or so to get one out, sometimes longer, sometimes much shorter. The “thought time” – the time I spend ruminating about an idea – can be much, much longer, years even. The end product is usually no more than a page or two for flashes, and not more than 6 or 7 pages for the rest.

But I have been thinking about a novel. Yes, it’s a big project. Yes, it makes putting together a precise if not precious little short story collection look easy, and yes, I must be out of my mind. The idea is there, lurking in my head like a well-behaved child, quietly playing in a corner, smiling when I look directly at it. So how does one start writing a novel? I can only tell you how did it.

I started something, a first page of a something – mystery? adventure? – with lost dogs and lost children and at least one spooky old house full of secrets and dread. I thought of a Main Character, a middle-aged woman with some problems. I like my Main Character and I decided to put her on vacation. The vacation premise is a nifty device which limits the amount of time that MC can hang around and get the meat of the story on the table. I like the setting and I myself have vacationed, so I know what it’s like to be in a strange part of the world. I like to read about lost people and lost stuff and old secrets and spooky houses, so i want to write about them, too.

But writing a novel is hard. Even the “thought time” is hard. I know I just want to tell a story, and when I tell the story in short form, I get to the point pretty quickly. But in a novel, I have all this room. It’s like being a container gardener who enjoys the little pots of color and scent but is now thrust onto an acre and told to grow food. I *did* write that first page, it *is* intriguing (well, to me, anyway) and I really do want to push forward. But the landscape is daunting.

So maybe I need to do something I have never done before: outline. Outline the big story, and then fill in the smaller stories, maybe. Make character lists in which I describe them so they don’t change hair color or family ties or gender mid-story. Sketch out locations, descriptions, where the tension is, where the body is. Okay, *who* the body is – and why they are now just worm-fodder.

But I am afraid to outline and then lose interest, because once I know the whole story, what’s the point in telling it? Is this what all novelists face? Do they plod on anyway? Is it really more work, more trouble, more tedium than it’s worth?

Maybe. Maybe I’m just really a short-story writer with a screwy idea. Maybe the novel form is more difficult than I imagined, harder than anyone who hasn’t tried it knows. For all those folks who sneer and say, “Huh, I could’ve written this!” after reading a novel, I just want to publicly say, “Oh, yeah? Well, show me!”

Because it’s hard. But it’s not impossible.

Hang in there. You can do it. I think I just did.