Short Studies

Things have slowed down a bit on the writing front. I'm still waiting on the cover artist's schedule to open up and I haven't written much on the second novel in the last few weeks. But in the meantime...

...I love short stories.

First, the are fun to write. I've mentioned the pair of stories out in Van's superhero anthology, but I've got another one due out sometime this year that I'm even more excited about. I'll talk that up once it is available.

But they are really fun to read and quite educational. For anyone aspiring to write, well-written short stories serve as great studies in story structure. It is important to understand the three-act or five-act structure and short stories are easier to decipher what the author is doing structurally.

I have recently picked up collections of O Henry and Edgar Allen Poe that I look forward to digging into. And Sir Arthur Conan Doyle penned many Sherlock Holmes short stories that are just gems of tight little stories. I have that collection as well.

In between my own writing and my regular diet of comic books, I'll be spending time with these guys as well as other classic authors. Thanks to a few gift cards and a "3 for 2" sale, I have just stocked my shelf with not only Henry, Poe and Doyle, but also Alexandre Dumas, H. G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard and probably a couple of others I'm forgetting.

It was through the study of short stories that I was able to get my head around story structure. Once I knew that, I could easily apply my plot to those requirements and soon I was typing away.