Let's Revisit Short Stories

A little over a year ago, not long after I started my first novel, I toyed around with a few short stories. One of them I tried submitting, but it was ultimately rejected. It didn't bother much then or now since I like longer stories; short stories are too restrictive.

One of them, about the legend of Melusine, I ended up incorporating into my now second Secondworld novel. Melusine and her family will play a large role in the second book.

The other story, Burden of Discovery, I think still has an interesting premise (set in the future, where barren women are the outcasts of society and worth is determined by how many children you have), but is more suitable to a novel than a 5,000 word story. I've put in on the back burner for now, but maybe someday I'll be able to rework it.

Since I finished Melusine's story back in 2009, I have focused solely on my novels. I enjoy a larger cast of characters and the freedom to play around with the plot. I never thought I would try writing a short story again unless it tied to my Secondworld novels, hopefully after they'd been published. Then this week I started thinking, what if I gave short stories another chance? It'd be nice to write something that wasn't part of an 80,000+ word story and I could even write it in first person (something I want to do, but my current novels require narrow third person viewpoints).

I sat down and five minutes later, I had an idea. What if one of the characters from my second book, a huldra who can shift to the form of a fox, wrote a letter to his children about his first days as a shape-changer, offering fatherly advice along the way? I sat down and started writing. I finished half of it, took a day off for Christmas, and finished the second half this morning. It's cute, to say the least, and after letting it sit for a few days, I plan to edit it and submit it to a few online magazines.

After a year of near-constant writing and editing, writing a short story was easier for me. The key was to keep the topic narrower and focused, and not try to write a story spanning a number of years, as I had tried to do before. If my fun little exercise pays off, I may have to repeat it again in the future.