A Short Blog on Short Form

We writers love to debate which form demands the most grit. Novelists claim they trek across epic landscapes armed with nothing but caffeine and plot holes. Flash fiction writers like to say they perform delicate surgery with sentences the size of breadcrumbs. 

Short stories camp out right in the middling, to quote my favorite Witcher. At first glance, they look adorable–even easy to write based on word count–until you try, and then suddenly you’re bartering with your muse like you’re in a back alley and your cell phone is about to die.

My last short story, “Plenty,” featured in RARE, A Dark Anthology of Unusual Secrets, is a dystopian tale about survival and desperation. Not exactly cheerful vacation reading, but it reminded me why I adore the short form: a short story hits once. There’s no wandering. No fifteen chapter build up. Just one moment that has to land perfectly.

Every short story starts with a feeling, a single emotional resonance that the author wants the reader to experience to their core. When I drafted “Plenty,” for example, the emotion was quiet dread–the kind that hums in the background. Once I zeroed in on that, the rest of the story stopped acting like a runaway horse. 

But ideas never show up politely, do they? They arrive half-formed, wearing mismatched shoes, and carrying one line of dialogue they refuse to explain. Most of the time, I let them wander. It’s part of the charm.

Fantasy and dystopian stories love to pack heavy with whole histories, elaborate magic, and political systems that need a flowchart. But short stories are like backpacks: too much weight and the whole thing doesn’t really work, no matter how hard you try.

But when it does…perfection.

A short story ending doesn’t need to solve the world. It needs to land the emotion you started with. When a reader told me the last scene of “Plenty” stayed in her head for days, I knew the story had done its job. Not because it answered everything, but because it left a feeling that hung in the air.

Novels are wonderful, but short stories? They’re sparks. Quick flashes of sharp, bright hits of emotion. They experiment with time, fate, myth, and strange corners of the imagination without needing an entire trilogy to explain it.

They also remind me to focus. To follow the thread. To let the reader interpret what I leave unsaid.

Short stories are honest. They beg for clarity, courage, and a little mischief. 

And that’s why I keep writing them.