Hi,
I'm very pleased to have found this interesting and comprehensive writing forum.
I'm a complete novice and have written very little since my 600 word essay writing days back in the late fifties/early sixties (God I must be old).
I've been itching to write - more for pleasure than anything else - for a number of years now. My main interest is fantasy/horror, that sort of thing - I love a good ghost story. I read a lot of Stephen King, whom I greatly admire, and also James Herbert (despite his morbid fascination with rats!).
I work for a night air cargo company and so, for practice, I've started to write a short story which is aviation related; it's much more difficult than I ever imagined. Anyway, how short is a 'short' story? I've already written over 3000 words and I'm not yet finished. I think this piece may need some serious editing; Stephen King reckons the first rewrite should be at least 10% smaller.
The way I write is this: I start with a germ of an idea and begin writing, not really knowing quite how things will develop. That's it - not very scientific I know.
Hope to upload this work - if I can think of an ending that is - sometime in the not too distant.

Many regards,
writersblock

Hi writersblock, and welcome! A short story is generally reckoned to be between 1,000 and 8,000 words long, although most are around 2,000 - 3,000.

It's good sense if you haven't done much writing for a while to start your story in a setting you're familiar with, and don't worry too much about that ending - it'll turn up, they always do!

Short stories, like any story, are as long as they need to be to tell the story. Unless of course you're writing to a limit for a competition or something (;

But anyway, welcome!

Hi,

love the website Insane Bartender...
'Insane Bartender' - sounds like a good title for another short story...?

writerblock

Nell

You are a gem. I love you're comments, they're always spot on. How do you do it?

Cheers

Hey Writersblock,

Hello Hello Hello!

You say you read a lot of Stephen King, are these his short stories or novels? If you want to write short stories read a lot more short stories (if you're reading novels) - it's a very different discipline than writing a novel, there's less you can get away with. Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber might interst you, and Ray Carver, Ray Chandler, Clive Barker. I can't think of any others off the top of my head, can anyone else?

Cheers

Fevvers - thanks, I've been called many things but I think 'gem' may be a first!

Yes, greetings Alan. As Jacqueline, (Fevvers), said, Raymond Carver is one of the top Shorts writers, also his equal woman writer is Lorrie Moore,- Birds of America is a good book to get of her short stories. If you like the twisted side of life, and can bear him, (an acquired taste), Robert Aickman. Close to one of the most perfectly crafted shorts I've read in the fantasy area was 'The Puddle' by Arthur Porges, but I'm not sure how easy it is to get his stuff.
I think that although Stephen King suggested hard editing, and that's no bad thing, he probably meant that's what he did. My experience is that the longer you write shorts the more you edit things out in your head before they even get to the page. The briefness of the form becomes natural. I find switching sections about takes a lot of my time though.

love the website Insane Bartender...

People actually look at that? Hmmm... Might actually put something on it worthwhile then.