Between Kindle books and hard copies, I own more than 50 books on writing. Of those, a dozen or so are reference books for fiction writers, several are on writing nonfiction, probably an equal number on getting published, and about twenty on writing fiction.
The sad thing is, when I pulled them all out to try and decide which one to use for my next study sessions, I found I had only actually completed reading two of the 20; although I had started three others and stopped for some, now, unknown reason. Further, I have owned all these books for several years and haven’t even started the majority of them. Aside from my goal of getting back to writing on a regular basis, I need to work on reading these books.
So, it’s time to choose my next project. Since I’m not ready to go back to my WIP, I’m leaning toward something on short story writing. I’ve never really cared for that format. Reading a short story just leaves me wanting more. I find writing them difficult because I always wind up with too many words. My Friday Fictioneer attempts are usually more like excerpts from a novel than complete stories.
I have long realized this was a weakness. The proof being that I own three Kindle books specifically addressing the short story form.
- How to Write a Great Story by Othello Bach
- The Writing of the Short Story by Lewis W. Smith
- Let’s Write a Short Story by Joe Bunting
I have been thinking about this for a week or so now. I was very tempted to go back to the unfinished books and work on carrying through to the end. However, I’ve spent the past two weeks doing that with both my writing and my prayer project. I’m ready for something new.
I have K.M. Weiland’s Outlining Your Novel and her Outlining Your Novel Workbook. I thought that would be a fun exercise, but it would be cheating. I enjoy outlining. I bought the books to see what tips I could pick up, but I already know how to do it. In fact, I have a tendency to do it even when it’s not necessary.
So, short story writing it will be. All three of the above are Kindle books. I usually prefer a hard copy for studying so that I can underline or highlight as I go. I know the Kindle allows that, but I’m just more comfortable with a writing utensil in my hand. After all, I did grow up in the last century when electronic notes weren’t a possibility. So, this will be an exercise in getting more comfortable with the ebook format as well as writing.
I don’t really know anything about these authors, so I’ve been Googling to find out more. That has helped me make my decision.
Othello Bach is a well respected and widely published author. She does novels, biographies, and nonfiction as well as music and art. The Bach book, while the title sounds like a short story treatise, is actually more on general fiction writing. It could be applied to either short stories or novels. Since she seems to be more of a novel length writer, I eliminated that one for now.
Lewis Worthington Smith died in 1947. That made me hesitate, but I would still have been willing to attempt it, after all there are many excellent writers who have joined the Great Publisher. I doubt if the short story format has changed that much over the past 60 years or so. However, the book’s reviews on Goodreads aren’t really all that positive, so I decided to leave it for later too.
That leaves me with Joe Bunting. He doesn’t seem to be a best selling author, but he has an active blog and Facebook presence. He actually says he’s currently concentrating on short stories instead of novels. It just seems like we might be sympatico. I’m trying to get back into keeping my blogs updated and wanting to learn more about short story writing. It’s fate, right?
So, here we go. I finished Writing Your Novel from the Middle last night. I liked the concept and found it an interesting read. Now it’s time for the next step. Hopefully, this choice will move me further along toward my goals.
Comments are closed.