Short Fiction: Why Write Shorties?

I adore writing short fiction. It’s the only way I can keep several pen names going concurrently and have time to ghostwrite short fiction as well.

Recently I did a Q & A with my Pro Fiction class (sorry, it’s invitation only) on writing short stories. A couple of the students weren’t keen on short fiction. They were new to self-publishing, so couldn’t see the benefits.

Let’s look at some of them.

Short fiction helps you to develop your self-publishing venture in various easy ways, including:

• Giving you the ability to publish short stories in between publishing novels and nonfiction books to clear your mind and relax;
• It’s fun: you can explore an idea in a short story within a few hours, then publish it next day;
• No-hassle, “free” marketing. With hundreds of thousands of books hitting the Kindle Store each month, advertising is not only expensive, it takes significant time away from writing. Your short fiction promotes your novels;
• A novel not selling? Bring it to life with a prequel/ sequel short story or novella. If you try this, you may get a big surprise—you may find that you’re developing material which turns a standalone novel into a trilogy, a brilliant new serial, or even an on-going series. This has not only happened to me, it’s happened to students as well. It seems that the more time you spend in a “world” the more ideas you get;
• When you have no time to write, you can find a few minutes to continue a story on your phone.

Write spare time short fiction, it needn’t be a huge commitment

One of my students tells me she writes short fiction in her car, while dropping the kids off for their after-school activities.

New to writing fiction? Many new authors prefer to write short fiction to build their writing muscles before they plan a novel.

Get started with short fiction, and benefit.

Write and publish a short story today

---

---

Photo by Vlad Zinculescu on Unsplash