I approached writing The Message with some trepidation; I’d agreed to submit two short stories for Murder Squad’s second anthology, Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories, and was already heavily committed in my professional and personal life, with very little time to come up with ideas. To make things worse, I’ve never found the short form easy – in fact most of my short fiction has been written specifically for Murder Squad anthologies.
In a state of mild panic, I began leafing through one of my ‘story ideas’ files, and came across an outline I’d jotted down ten years before – a petty theft which has potentially deadly consequences. Reading the outline I thought,Okay, this is the one. The setting came before all the rest – Liverpool in the 1970s – a surprise, since all my novels are set firmly in the present. The character of the boy followed quickly – like so many lads I knew and grew up with (and later taught) in Liverpool – he’s a bit of a Scouse scally. As I jotted and researched, building a story around a small sin committed by an innocent, a second voice insisted on being heard – the voice of innocence grown embittered, seeking, not reparation, but revenge.
So, what makes a good short story? Thankfully, there is no formula. They may be descriptive, narrative, poetically lyrical works or dramatic and fast-paced, reliant on sharp dialogue with almost no description at all. But every short story, like every story ever told must engage. The short story writer doesn’t have the luxury of introducing and slowly developing characters at a leisurely pace, building their world and drawing their readers in. Short fiction demands that setting and characters are established quickly and efficiently. The reader must feel in safe hands; if the writer is unsure of the story, the reader will know, and will judge harshly. Tone, voice, style, atmosphere and point of view, must all be carefully weighed and weighted. The writing must, of necessity, be concise, and every scene, every exchange of dialogue, every action must be there for a purpose – loose writing is unforgivable. Small wonder I put off any attempt at short fiction until I was working on my fourth novel!
My advice to aspiring writers: use the short form to hone your skills. I know, it’s great advice from someone who didn’t complete a short story until mid-way through her fourth novel. But here’s the kicker – I wish I had – because short fiction teaches precision of language and clarity of expression; it teaches discipline, and its brevity makes working on the technicalities manageable. A writer can really think about the important aspects of story-telling without getting bogged down by the sheer volume of words s/he has to buff to a shine. After all, editing 5000 words had got to be easier thanediting 100 000 – not easy, you understand – just easi-er. If you want to learn how to write a good short story, read them. Analyse them. Think about the choices the writer made and why they made them. Ask yourself if you would have made different choices – you’ll learn a lot about your writing style and aspirations from that kind of analysis. Find the clunky phrases and polish them. Find the beautiful, the evocative, the hard edged, the thrilling, the suspenseful in the stories you read and discover how the writer achieved all of those things in their writing. You’ll need to pick apart a paragraph or a sentence, looking at word order, choice of verbs, use of adjectives (if they use them at all!), feeling the rhythm of the words. Which means you must read their words aloud – as you should read aloud your own words. And when you’ve written your stories (and set them aside and edited them and read them again and re-written them) submit them – to competitions, fanzines, magazines, collections – whoever will read them and give you feedback. You might even win a prize, but even if you don’t – especially if you don’t – you should listen,really listen to what they are trying to tell you. You will understand more with each submission, and will grow as a writer.
The eBook of Best Eaten Cold and Other Stories is now available for the limited time offer of just £2.56
Website: www.margaretmurphy.co.uk
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