Short Stories
I am not much of a short-story writer.
Oh, I have tried. It is not my thing, I suppose; I think in bigger
chunks. I think in terms of continuing stories. Indeed, my best
attempts at the short-story, in my estimation, have dealt with
characters who recur in other tales, tales that impact the current
story (and vice-versa).
Some of those narratives have become
back-story for characters and events in my novels. I have stories
about Ted Carrol, the protagonist of my two Cully Beach novels, that
deal with his younger days (one or two of them somewhat erotic), that
inform the character that appears in SHAPER and WAVES. They tell me
who he is, help me better draw the man he becomes.
But stand-alone short-stories? I
haven’t been very successful, by my standards. I see longer tales
as soon as I get into them — not all, admittedly, but more often
than not. In many ways, I think the novella length is more suited to
me. The whole DONZALO’S DESTINY sequence is truly eleven novellas
and novelettes, put forth as a single novel (in four books, for
publishing convenience).
For that matter, all of my fantasy
novels are divided into distinct novella-length sections with their
own narrative arcs — not only Donzalo, but also the Malvern books,
my recent THE EYES OF THE WIND. They are novels, none the less, with
an overarching plot. Not the Ted Carrol/Cully Beach novels, nor the
related YA, THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, however; those run right through
in a manner more typical of mainstream novels. Which they are.
No doubt I shall continue to dabble at
the short-story, but it is not my focus at this time. If I do finish
some, they might end up incorporated into novels. It has happened
before — SHAPER started out as a story of a guy nearly drowning
while surfing, a story that now exists in altered form as one
chapter.* Or they might become a sequence of tales centered around
one character and published as one book. All that is of the future,
if it happens at all.
So, I shall get back to writing
something. I’m dabbling at the folk festival murder (which may
become only attempted murder) but other ideas are milling about in my
head, asking for attention. And I REALLY need to pay attention to my
music and get some songs recorded for the Will McLean Festival!
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*That story is based on a real life
occurrence, though the rest of the novel is pretty much fiction. That
is, nothing else that happens in the book is ‘real’ but some of
the backstory derives from life.
