“I think the best stories start from something tiny. [...] A short story can easily destroy itself through metastasis. I think if you start a story with more than two scenes in mind, you may be doomed. At least you have a hell of a lot of work ahead of you. If I start [...]
Desire is the writer’s best friend. When you know what your main character wants, you have your entire story. When someone wants something–badly–he or she will get up off the couch and try to attain it. The object of desire might be a new winter coat (”The Overcoat” by Gogol), a boy (”City of Boys” [...]
Most stories we read, hear, even tell — we forget. A scant few haunt us across years. The best ones never leave.
I still remember the first time I read One Story issue #141 on the F train. Early November in New York, when wet, bare branches foreshadow winter. It begins:
Freda weighed eighteen pounds when she [...]
“With short stories, you never really expect the World at Large to care one way or the other. It’s a labor of love, and no one disputes that, and I think the purity of that endeavor is very liberating.”
~ Valerie Laken
Further Reading:
Read more about Valerie Laken on Fiction Writers Review
Looking for something to read? Check [...]
Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” (1908) is one of those stories—paralleled by certain films—that I always return to with an odd yearning. Each time, despite myself, I hope that the story (or film) will somehow end differently. That Connie won’t leave with Arnold Friend. That Christopher Reeve won’t discover that penny from 1979. Or, [...]
Write what you know without simply writing what you know …
Write What You Know. I’ve never felt wholly comfortable with this phrase. I tell my students to abandon the literal idea of it on the first day of class. How bored and boring we’d all be if that were all any of us ever wrote. [...]
Happy Short Story Month 2012! Once again, we’ll be celebrating short stories all month here at Fiction Writers Review:
Reviews of fantastic story collections
Interviews with short story writers like Lysley Tenorio, Ben Fountain, and Laura Maylene Walter
The return of our popular “Stories We Love” blog posts: writers on the stories that inspire them—and why
Book of [...]
Welcome to Fiction Writers Review’s third annual Collection Giveaway Project: a community effort by lit bloggers to champion great short story collections. The brainchild of Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus, 18 bloggers participated in the CGP 2011, giving away dozens of collections.
Instructions on how to participate in The Collection Giveaway Project 2012.
Note: Bloggers, please feel [...]
Short Story Month countdown: 7 days to May!
Fiction Writers Review will host the third annual Collection Giveaway Project: a community effort by lit bloggers to champion great short story collections. The brainchild of Contributing Editor Erika Dreifus, 18 bloggers participated in the CGP 2011, giving away dozens of collections.
How to participate in The Collection Giveaway [...]
The award-winning Alexi Zentner on fiction as types of food, pen as talisman, bad music as white noise, and his fellow Canadians, who inspired him to take up the pen.
