New! Single Short Fiction Stories

 

Single Short Fiction Stories   In the past few years, I've put together collections of my short fiction (Transfusion and Other Tales of Hope; Pearls of Fire, Dreams of Steel; Azkhantian Tales). Now I've embarked on a different project: stand-alone single stories that can be read in a single sitting. The first five have never appeared in a collection, although they are reprints from recent volumes of Sword and Sorceress.   The first one, a novelette entitled, "Four Paws To Light My Way," features a blind swordswoman and her guide dog. The inspiration was our last German Shepherd Dog, a retired seeing eye dog named Tajji. Tajji was not only an amazing companion but a teacher, and I learned so much about what seeing eye dogs can do and the freedom and empowerment they bestow upon their humans.   Tajji (2004-2016) I read the opening aloud at a pre-pandemic convention and everyone wanted to hear more. A few clamored for an entire novel about Jian and Dog. "Four Paws To Light My Way" will release on May 1, 2021, and is available now for pre-order. The others will follow at monthly intervals. Four Paws To Light My Way (May 1, 2021) The Poisoned Crown (June 1, 2021) "The Fallen Man" (July 1, 2021) The Girl From Black Point Rock (August 1, 2021) Sage Mountain (September 1, 2021 -- not yet available for pre-order) Eventually, I'll put them all together in a new collection. Stay tuned for further news! As a special treat, and to launch this project, please enjoy this excerpt from "Four Paws To Light My Way."

New on Curious Fictions: Totem Night (Free Short Story)

This week's treat for you is a free short story in Curious Fictions. While you're there, I hope you'll subscribe or check out my other posted work.

When the young wizard journeys into the mountains to find her totem spirit, she little dreams of the twisted fate that would exchange her own soul with that of the winged unicorn.

---

Totem Night

The night was darker than she expected. Darker and colder. Frostmist haloed the stars. As she pulled her sheepswool ruach’ tight around her shoulders, Xiera wished, not for the first time, that she’d paid as much attention to her weaving as to her wizardry.

She had traveled, alone and unarmed, from Choa’tlexa at the edge of the Harvest Plains and into the barren mountains of Hua’tha’s Curse. At the fifth setting of Choa’tl’s Eye, she came across the circle of fallen stones. When she touched one, a spark crackled, stinging her hand. Her fingertips came away, covered in acrid dust. She sat cross-legged in the center of the circle and composed herself.

It will come, she reminded herself. My totem will come to me. Everything so far had been exactly as her teachers foretold, the journey to Hua’tha’s Curse, the moonless night, this place of power.

Moments crept by, bleeding into one another. The earth shivered, so light a ripple that she might not have noticed if she hadn’t been sitting so still. It was the third tremor that hour, each one raising it own false hope.

A speck of silver winked along the western ridge. Heartbeats followed one another. The mote of light elongated into a circle, quickly followed by the second moonlet.

 “The Kiss of the Twins,” a man’s voice spoke from the night, velvet-smooth. Darkness masked his face, as coppery as her own. She’d never known a life without him, from her earliest memories of following, playing and fighting with him and his brothers, sleeping on the mounded carpets of the children’s tent, curled together like puppies.

Only later, as her wizardry stirred and her body changed, so did Xiera’s feelings for him, and his for her. She wept when the elders sent her to Choa’tlexa with its towers, stepped pyramidal temples and markets, as priests, traders, artisans and wizards bustled along the narrow stone streets. She wept again when Tl’al followed her three years later. His beauty burned as sharp as the sun, as did the answering fire within her. That was the last time she had wept, for wizardry kills tears.

Short Story Sale!

I just sold "Sage Mountain" to Sword & Sorceress 31. Some of my stories are fluff and some are dark, and this one just took the bit between its teeth and ran away.

Here's a sneak peek:

The troll bent over to peer at her. “What you do here?”

Roseline had heard stories of people eaten by trolls, but she had never heard of a troll who initiated the process by asking a question. Without thinking, she blurted out, “I've come to ask you for help.”

The troll was so startled, it sat on the ground with a loud thump, thereby effectively blocking the entrance to the cave.

For lack of any better idea, Roseline assumed her most trusting expression. That had always worked with her father and, come to think of it, with Audric as well. The troll night be persuaded to sit on Audric and squash him into jelly, and that would solve her problem.

“I'm in terrible trouble,” she said. “There's no one else I can turn to. I have always heard that trolls are fearless,” which was perfectly true, although not necessarily in this context, “and so I came all the way here too beg for your assistance.”

The troll blinked at her. Being begged for assistance was undoubtedly outside its previous experience. “What you want?”

“There's this horrible boy who is forcing me to marry him. He has threatened to tell my father all kinds of lies if I don't. Please help me!” She did not elaborate further, for fear of confusing the troll with too much information.

The troll scratched its head. “Eat boy?”

“That's all very well for you,” she said. “You are big and powerful. I, on the other hand, am only a weakling human girl. Besides, the boy would object to being eaten. He’d much rather kiss me. Can't you do something?”

Sorry, you'll have to wait until November to read the whole thing.

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

Tajji

Tajji, our retired seeing eye dog, has made such a difference in our (sighted) lives that I wanted to feature a dog like her in a story. Being a fantasy writer, and one who loves strong women characters, I came up with a blind swordswoman and her guide dog. The whole story appears in Sword and Sorceress 30 (in print and ebook editions at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, other venues). Here's the opening:

Four Paws To Light My Way (excerpt)

The curse lay heavy on the Shining City. Jian could smell it in the dust and the sourness of the leaves of the ginkgo trees that lined the approach to the royal palace. They fluttered unseasonably to the ground and crunched under her feet. Here and there, the paving stones, once so level and smoothly joined that she had felt as if she were walking on glass, had buckled. From time to time, Dog nudged her knee in one direction or tugged on the heavy leash in the other, guiding her along the crowded streets.

Dog didn’t like this place. Jian could tell from the stiffness in his muscles, the staccato tapping of his nails on the stones. He preferred bare earth or the windswept hillsides around their home, where wild cattle grazed. Jian did not allow herself the luxury of an opinion; she came when the Emperor commanded, and she would continue to so until he released her from her oath.

The quality of air and sound changed as they passed the outer gates. Here was naked wall, there the many-times-lacquered wood of the gate, here the density of living flesh. Guards would be posted, watchful and still.

Dog slowed, a slackening of the leash. Jian bowed. The guards did not ask her name. How could there be two of her — a blind woman dressed in patched and faded soldier’s garb, a sword in its battered sheath tucked into her sash, a scarf of imperial silk tied around her neck? At least, they were not so foolhardy as to suggest she leave Dog outside the palace.

“Forward,” she said, and Dog guided her inside.

Footsteps on the raked dirt of the courtyard came nearer, then stopped in front of her. She paused, nostrils flaring even though she lacked Dog’s keen sense of smell. There was something familiar about that stride…but she’d been sighted when she’d last heard it.

Pearls of Fire, Dreams of Steel Story Notes

I love reading "the stories behind the stories," so here are some background musings from the stories

in my new collection from Book View Cafe, Pearls of Fire, Dreams of Steel.

Introduction

As I put together this collection of short fantasy fiction, I realized it comprises a retrospective of my writing career. Although it does not include my very first professional sale (“Imperatrix” in Sword & Sorceress), it spans the decades from novice to seasoned writer. To my delight, I found many of those early stories still spoke to me—delighted me—as much now as when I labored to create them. Often the output of a young writer will be justifiably relegated to the Trunk of Doom (hence the term “trunk stories”). When we’re learning new skills, we need to practice, and not all of those early experiments succeed. More than that, in order to grow as artists, we need to take risks, to “push the envelope,” even if it means falling flat on our faces, so to speak. But it does not follow that every early effort is best forgotten. Stories ignite within us, waiting to take shape on paper. Once we have acquired a certain basic level of craft, it no longer matters if this is our first sale or our fortieth. And one of the gifts of new publishing technologies is the ability to revive those stories, even from decades ago, so that new generations of readers can enjoy them.

“Storm God,” “Fireweb,” and “Dragon-Amber” all come from those early years, when I was trying out lots of new ideas. Astute readers will recognize a touch of a well-known American folk tale in “Storm God.” “Fireweb” was an early exploration of the “wounded healer” theme, and also taught me that whatever I thought a story was “about” when I started writing it, I was sure to be wrong; I developed the wisdom to let the “underneath” story tell itself. When I wrote “Dragon-Amber,” it seemed as if everyone and their cousin was writing stories based on Anne McCaffrey’s “Pern” series. True to my contrary nature, I insisted on something different. No oversized fire-breathing flying reptiles here, but a creature of magic nonetheless.

“Bread and Arrows” and “Nor Iron Bars A Cage” were written within a couple of years of one another. Both stories arose from a turning point in my life. When I wrote it, I had just moved from a large city to a redwood forest. I’d started a full-time day job to support myself and my younger daughter. It’s about new beginnings, and also making choices that close off other avenues. “Bread and Arrows” echoes “Summoning the River” (Transfusion and Other Tales of Hope) in its journey into a dark place, grappling with loss and mortality. I also wanted a different role for the charismatic, sexually attractive stranger; Celine looks beneath the handsome exterior to the suffering man, and draws compassion from her own struggle. And the bakery salamander was irresistible!

Pearl of Fire, Dreams of Steel Table of Contents

Here's the lineup for my forthcoming (October 27) collection of short fantasy stories, from Book View Cafe. Many, but not all, of these stories made their first appearances in the anthology series Sword & Sorceress, many of them under my former name, Deborah Wheeler. For some, this is the first time they've been reprinted anywhere and the original volumes are hard to find. One of the things I love about epublishing is the opportunity to keep gems from the past available to today's readers. 

Bread and Arrows

A Hunter of the Celadon Plains

Storm God

Nor Iron Bars A Cage

Poisoned Dreams

Silverblade

The Sorceress’s Apprentice

Fireweb

Under the Skin

Our Lady of the Toads

Pearl of Fire

Pearl of Tears

Dragon Amber

The Casket of Brass

The Hero of Abarxia

The Artist Behind The Cover

My story, "The Hero of Abarxia" appeared in When the Hero Comes Home 2, edited by Gabrielle Harbowy, from Dragon Moon Press.The story was a particular delight to write because the hero was a horse and my love of horses was in full swing. Also, my friend Bonnie got to enjoy the story in pages proof form while she could still focus enough to read. The book has a beautiful cover, and here it is, with the proud artist.

"The Hero of Abarxia"

I'm so glad to see When The Hero Comes Home 2 is now available, partly because I'm tickled to be in an anthology with some amazing writers, and partly because my story, "The Hero of Abarxia," is a special favorite of mine. All right, I confess, all my stories have their places in my heart. Why would I submit anything less than a story I'm in love with myself?

In my novel-length work, I'd been revisiting my love of horses and the horse characters (one might say, the horse heroes) in The Seven-Petaled Shield, most particularly the middle volume, Shannivar, due out in December from DAW. So when this anthology opened up, that part of my creative mind pricked her ears, tossed her mane, and invited me to come for a gallop. And what a ride it was! This was one of those stories that just writes itself. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

The anthology is edited by Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood, and also features stories by Chaz Brenchley, Mercedes Lackey, Juliette Wade, Cliff Winnig, Fanny Darling, and a whole bunch of other fine writers. The ebook edition contains bonus stories not found in the print version, and it's available now at a discounted price.

epub/Nook version.

mobi/Kindle version.

BOOK RELEASE: Azkhantian Tales

The Seven-Petaled Shield was inspired by four short stories that Marion Zimmer Bradley bought for Sword & Sorceress. Now they're together in one collection (with a gorgeous cover by Dave Smeds!) Here's the skinny:

Across the Azkhantian steppe, warrior women ride to battle against foes both human and supernatural. From the world of The Seven-Petaled Shield come four fantasy tales, originally published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword & Sorceress.


Prophecy links a mother and daughter in an unbreakable bond.

A young woman defies tradition to become a shaman.

When twins are magically divided, the survivor searches for the other half of her soul.

A warrior woman discovers that to wield a magical blade dishonorably carries a heavy price.

This collection includes a previously-unpublished Introduction and a sneak peek at The Seven-Petaled Shield.

Only $1.99 in DRM-free multi-format from Book View Cafe

Deborah Discovers Darkover

The next Darkover book, The Children of Kings, was released on Tuesday, March 5, from DAW Books. Here and in the following weeks, I'll also talk about how I met Marion Zimmer Bradley, how we came to work together, and a few thoughts on "playing in her sandbox."

I frequently am asked how I came to work with Marion and to continue her Darkover series after her death. Here's a bit of my own journey into this marvelous world.

Marion Zimmer Bradley had published several novels set on the world of The Bloody Sun when I first discovered Darkover with The World Wreckers (1971). The Planet Savers and The Sword of Aldones had come out in 1962, followed by The Bloody Sun (1964, revised in 1979) the YA Star of Danger (1965) and an Ace Double, The Winds of Darkover (1970). The early Darkover novels were action-adventures, solidly written but also well within the fantasy genre. The World Wreckers (1971) pushed the boundaries of acceptable topics. Although a secondary plot, the evocative love story between a Terran man and a hemaphroditic chieri brought up issues of sexuality and gender in ways I had never before read. I believe it was Marion's first "breakthrough" in the Darkover series, and it firmly established me as an avid fan.

           

The next two Darkover novels added depth and complexity to my experience of Marion's special world, and I admired Marion tremendously for not shrinking from presenting provocative questions. In Darkover Landfall (1972), she confronted a shipload of marooned colonists not only with a strange world and their deepest fears, but the necessities of survival. To the outrage of many in the burgeoning feminist movement, Marion depicted a situation in which, for the human colony to have a future, every woman of child-bearing age must contribute to the gene pool. She went on to ask what kind of cultural mores -- towards monogamy, towards intergenerational sexual relations -- would then evolve. The Spell Sword (1974) continued the idea of telepathic intimacy and non-exclusivity.

On The Cover of the Next F & SF

This is the issue that will contain my story, "Among Friends." And it's the first time my name has appeared on the cover of the magazine. I find myself unexpectedly but quite delightfully excited to see it!

Here's the Table of Contents. Doesn't that make you want to run out and buy the issue?

NOVELETS

• “Among Friends” by Deborah J. Ross
• “Solidarity” by Naomi Kritzer
• “The Assassin” by Albert E. Cowdrey
• “The Lost Faces” by Sean Mcmullen

SHORT STORIES

• “The Cave” by Sean F. Lynch
• “Code 666″ by Michael Reaves
• “What The Red Oaks Knew” by Elizabeth Bourne And Mark Bourne)
• “The Boy Who Drank From Lovely Women” by Steven Utley
• “The Long View” by Van Aaron Hughes
• “The Trouble With Heaven” by Chet Arthur

POEMS

• “Dislocated Heart/A Starpilot’s Post-Operation Note” by Robert Frazier

DEPARTMENTS

• Books To Look For by Charles De Lint
• Books by James Sallis
• Plumage From Pegasus: Kozmic Kickstarter by Paul Di Filippo
• Films: All Man-eaters Great And Small by Kathi Maio
• Coming Attractions
• Curiosities by Richart A. Lupoff

Let's Hear It For Short Stories!

I grew up with a love-hate relationship with short fiction. Having to read short stories in school almost ruined them for me. Actually, the reading was fine; it was the having to answer the brain-dead, pointless, intellectually insulting questions about those stories that made me want to throw the books across the classroom. I had no idea what criteria the textbook authors were using, but if this was what short fiction was about, I could not understand why anyone would voluntarily read it.

And yet, as soon as I got a library card, I checked out volume after volume of Groff Conklin's anthologies. I read the few digest magazines in my possession so many times, I wore them out. I could almost recite some of those stories word for word. I decided that the field of short fiction was divided into two parts: the dry, tedious stuff that no one in her right mind would have anything to do with; and the cool stuff - the stories that grabbed me right away and swept me into worlds filled with surprises, nifty ideas, and no-holds-barred excitement. I could indulge myself for an entire afternoon, or sneak in one of my favorites and still have time to finish my homework. Although the prose was not of the elevated literary sort (a good thing, in my opinion) and the characters might be cardboard supporting actors for the above-mentioned Incredibly Nifty Ideas And Situations (I didn't care), these stories got the most important things right. They didn't muck around with showing off the author's vocabulary; the "point" wasn't dreary and obscure. They were complete stories, single-minded of purpose, with well-defined beginnings, middles, and ends, and the characters had actual goals and perils. These were stories I wanted to read, and hence they were what I attempted to write.

Two academic degrees and a kid later, I embarked upon a serious writing career. The conventional wisdom of that time, still held by many, was that you began by writing short fiction and then "graduated" to novels. This was supposed to teach you the fundamentals of writing. Short fiction, you understand, contains all the necessary elements, only in condensed form, like literary Campbell's Soup. Why anyone thinks it's easier to make every sentence accomplish three things when in a novel-length work it has to do only one, I don't know. In this case, short does not equal simplified. In addition, at that time there were quite a few markets for short fiction, and new ones popping up all the time (and disappearing, so it behooved the beginning writer to keep track of current listings, an art in itself).
It turned out, however, that short stories were no more difficult for me than those of any other length. It was easier to send off a short story for critique than an entire novel, not to mention the savings in copying and postage. Having to create a new world for each story gave me lots of practice. The clincher came when Marion Zimmer Bradley, with whom I'd been corresponding, told me she was going to edit an anthology of women's sword and sorcery and would I like to send her a story, no promises. My fate as a short fiction writer was sealed.

Print markets for short fiction have come and gone, editors have come and gone, and yet people persist in reading the darned things. Clearly, I'm not alone in loving good short fiction. But one of the enduring challenges has been the ephemeral nature of most magazine publications. The issue comes out one month and all is rapture and celebration. A few short weeks later, that issue has been replaced by the next, and the availability of back issues shrivels rapidly. Unless a story is reprinted in an anthology, it may be impossible to find (or to find at a price one can afford for a collector's copy) a decade or two hence. Those anthologies I loved contained reprints, "The Best Of...", but these have largely given way largely to originals. (Not that I'm complaining. I've had the pleasure of editing a number of original anthologies.)

I think that electronic publishing may be the best thing to happen to short fiction in a long while. Most of your favorite authors have backlists of those ephemeral stories. (I say most because some writers are natural novelists, and they are no less wonderful, they just don't have long bibliographies of shorter work.) Epublishing is a great way to make these available again. Shorts are usually priced so a reader can pick up one or four to explore an author's work without having to invest a great deal of money.
And shorts still offer the advantage that you can read a whole story in one sitting. In the airport or doctor's office, on your lunch break, at bedtime. Just load up a couple of dozen on your ereader and you're set. Sometimes you want the length and complexity of a novel, to spend hundreds of pages exploring a world and hanging out with characters who have become your friends. But other times, you want to jump into a story and jump out again with the full satisfaction and sense of completeness that a short story can bring.

At Book View Café, I'm embarking on an experiment in short fiction publication. Today, I offer you not one but four for your delectation. Three are fantasy, and one is science fiction. I had a wonderful time writing each of them, and I hope you'll enjoy reading them, too.


"Take two, they're small." And only $0.99 each.

The Feathered Edge: Return to Meviel...With Pirates!

One of the challenges of writing short fiction is how much must be accomplished in how few words. Harry Turtledove once said that novels teach us what to put in a story, but short stories teach us what to take out. Every story element must serve multiple purposes - setting the scene and evoking the larger world beyond it, creating and heightening tension, revealing character -- oh, and moving the plot along. It's a tall order to accomplish in only a few thousand words. Some writers do the world-building part so well in even so short a space that it keeps beckoning them to return. That happened to me with a series of short stories I wrote for Sword and Sorceress (that eventually became a fantasy trilogy, The Seven-Petaled Shield). It also happened to Madeleine E. Robins with her world of "Meviel."

The first I saw of this wonderful place was the story Madeleine wrote for the first anthology I edited, Lace and Blade from Norilana Books. It was called "Virtue and the Archangel" and began thus:

Veillaune meCorse left her virtue in the tumbled sheets of a chamber at the Bronze Manticore. This act, which would have licensed her parents to cut her off from family and fortune, was a grave error; but with her maidenhead, Veilliaune also left the Archangel behind, and that was a calamity.

A New Anthology: Beyond Grimm: Tales Newly Twisted

First of all, a Happy Editor dance... [dance, dance, dance]

This is the first anthology I've edited (actually, co-edited with Phyllis Irene Radford) for Book View Cafe. It began, lo these many many months ago, with an in-house discussion along the lines of "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to..." Book View Cafe has already published several anthologies (Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls, Dragon Lords and Warrior Women -- which has a story of mine! -- The Shadow Conspiracy I and  II), so there was some precedent. We knew to ask things like, Will this be reprint, original stories, or both? Will it be a benefit for BVC or will the authors receive shares of the proceeds? How will we define the theme? At a certain point, we'd reached a sufficient level of enthusiasm and clarity so that someone had to put on an organizational (aka editor's) hat.

Thinking this would be marvelous fun, I volunteered, and the way it worked out, Phyl co-edited it with me. I supplied time and my own editorial experience, and she had the expertise of working with the BVC anthology publication procedures. Because there were two of us, we could submit our own stories to one another, thereby avoiding the editing-your-own-work scenario.

One of the things I love about editing anthologies is watching the process, the landscape of that adventure, unfold, discovering moments of truth and hilarity and heart-wrenching sadness and sheer beauty and poetry in prose. Beyond Grimm was no exception. Although we started with "let's retell classic fairy tales," our imaginations took us in other directions as well - the sun-drenched islands of Greek mythology, legends from the frozen north, Arthurian tales, nursery rhymes, even my own riff on the plots of classical ballets. Fairy-tale lands, contemporary urban settings, magical and not-so-magical steeds, spells and epistles of the people's revolution, mysterious locked chambers and shape-shifters...moonlight and storms.

Sword & Sorceress 26 Interview

Jonathan Moeller interviews me on my story, "The Seal Hunt," in the forthcoming Sword & Sorceress 26. I talk about epublishing, whether it's good for readers as well as writers, and a bunch of other cool stuff.

“The Seal Hunt” came from the same utterly unworkable attempt-at-a-novel that “The Casket of Brass” (S & S 24) did. Each one then underwent quite a lot of re-working so that it could stand on its own. In the process, my heroine, Tabitha, really took shape. I’ve never written a character quite like her, a sort of fantasy-world/scholar/Sherlock Holmes who uses keen observation and rapier intelligence to solve mysteries. I’d pit her wits against any evil sorcerer!

Here's the whole thing: http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/writer/?p=1518

A bit of authorly happy-dance

My contributor's copies of the September/October issue of Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction arrived yesterday. My last story to appear in it was back in 2009, and it was science fiction, as in space, as in planets. Before that, we have to go back to the Wheeler byline, it was so long ago.

This story is fantasy, one of those that came together in odd and beautiful ways, definitely more on the X-rated side of the scale than my usual, so much so that there's a "not for younger readers" warning in the intro.Then there's the intro description "a deft period fantasy." So consider yourselves warned. Or enticed, as the case may be.

It's just wonderful to see those words in print. Novels are so long between, and the thrill never goes away. At least, not for me.

Oh, did I forget to say? It's called "A Borrowed Heart."

Here's the Table of Contents.

The Story Behind the Story: "The Casket of Brass"

I'm in the process of epublishing a series of short fiction pieces that have appeared in the Norilana editions of Sword & Sorceress. Whyfor? For one thing, the distribution of any small-publisher POD edition is extremely limited. I love these stories, and hope you will, too. I hope that reading about how I came to write them will pique your interest. You can find them on my shelf at Book View Cafe (and can download them from there for your Kindle or Nook), or on the 400/pound/g/o/r/i/l/l/a amazon or Barnes & Noble (links on the slideshow to the left). Here's the first, with more to come.

"The Casket of Brass" began years ago, after Jaydium and Northlight, but before I began working with Marion on a Darkover collaboration. I wanted to try novel-length fantasy, and I started playing around with some images from The Arabian Nights. Not, you must understand, the real Arabian Nights, full of very grisly stuff, but the Arabian Nights of my childhood. As watered-down as those stories were, they offered deliciously exotic adventures, not to mention wonderful language. The image of a statue, part marble and part living man, is very much in keeping with those dream-like stories.

Check out my "Highwayman" Story

Many long years ago, when GEnie was the place to hang out online, at least for the fantasy and science fiction communities, a number of anthologies got put together as a result of these conversations. It was a bit like thos late-night parties at conventions. Someone throws out an idea, and other people throw back variations of it, and pretty soon you've got a themed anthology with an editor and verbal commitments from a a bunch of published authors.

Highwaymen: Rogues and Robbers began with a bunch of us discussing the romanticism of the poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Jennifer Roberson's author topic. The idea -- imgery, emotion, plot ideas, characters -- had wonderful resonance for many of us. My own came about as a synthesis of an old dream and playing around with the James Bond character, putting him in period drag (and making him considerably less arrogant and more amenable to seeing the error of his male-chauvinist ways). I had, as they say, way too much fun with this story. I hope you'll enjoy it, too. Just click "Read A Story."

Why Write Long?

According to Harry Turtledove, novels teach the writer what to put in, and short stories teach what to take out. This makes it sound like a whole lot more work to write novels. Why slave over the completion of 100,000 words, a year-long project for many of us, when you could be done in a month's mere 5,000?

The obvious answer is that novels and short stories aren't interchangeable.

Most of the authors I know, myself including, have misjudged the "weight" of a story idea from time to time. Occasionally, I'll start work on a novel only to have it fizzle in a chapter or three when I realized I've already said everything there was to say, and in far too many words. That central-core idea simply wouldn't support chapter after chapter, no matter how many secondary characters, narrative descriptions, or turns-of-fortune I stuck in. Likewise, I've found myself in the middle of what I believed to be a short story, when it felt like someone exploded the walls of my house and I'm floating in the middle of a galaxy -- the world got suddenly much, much bigger.

Way back in my newbie days, a wise friend likened the process to finding the right type of wood for a sculpture. Balsa is soft and light, great for toy airplanes (like a short-short). Then there's pine, a bit more sturdy, and so forth, moving through oak and maple to teak and mahogany and ebony. Those latter types are the ones you want for a novel -- dense, intricately patterned, durable.

Why Write Short?

The facile answer is, "That's the length of the stories that the Idea Fairy leaves under my pillow." The question is a whole lot more complex than that, for both writers and readers.

The perennial conventional wisdom is that a new writer ought to learn to write short stories before tackling a novel. The theory goes that working on shorter lengths will allow you to master various aspects of prose and storytelling craft while giving you the satisfaction of actually completing a story in a reasonable amount of time. We all need those gold stars, right? the more so when we're struggling to learn something new.