Hi Ian,

Thanks for this. I have always liked the idea of writing short stories and putting them into anthologies, especially an author anthology! So congratulations on signing with Ticonderoga Publications, I shall be very interested to read Angel Dust. I hope to have published an author anthology myself one day but first I will have to write a fair few short stories. Writing short stories has been on my list of ‘writing projects’ for a long while but I seem to write novels by natural inclination so that is where I have started off with my writing endeavours. But I really like short stories for the reasons you mention. I especially like that you can write lots of different stories and explore different plots and narrative styles and worlds and characters and for me that is where the appeal lies, both as a writer and a reader. And also that you can write or read them quickly, so you can escape into a particular world or story for a while without being in the position of not wanting to put the story down but having to come back to it later.

I agree with you about short stories being a good way of practising your storytelling and honing your craft, which is why for me at this stage I’m endeavouring to develop a regular habit of writing short stories. I know you are right when you say writing stories leads to other stories; the physical act of writing always leads to something else I find. I don’t know about your second point i.e. investing more in your characters/world, because I don’t have that experience as a writer from a short story perspective so I will be interested to see what I find. But the idea of creating richness without overloading as you become more experienced with storytelling is very appealing. It is something I keep in mind though I like the way you express it. As for a body of work, it is something I have been considering more lately from the perspective of what stories do I really want to put out there. In the end you have to choose a bit, because there are so many things that could be written, but what do you really want to write? that’s what I think anyway. But from the practical perspective of having a track record of writing stories people want to read and working with editors it must be very nice to have a body of work you can point to.

By the way, I like the titles of your stories, they are a lovely combination of intrigue and/or beautiful imagery. I personally find titles the most difficult thing about writing (chapter headings are easy but book titles are different).

Thanks again for this post. Very interesting and helpful.
Kind regards,
Joanne