#MotivationalMonday -- Giving Your Characters Authentic Personalities

My Open Letter to the Market

Dear publishing world:

I know it isn't as popular now, nor is it as marketable, but I have to shout it out: "I am a short story writer, and I love it!"

I simply adore the art of the short story. I have recently been re-reading Shirley Jackson, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, Robert Chambers, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood and Ray Bradbury, and their short works have reminded me all over again who I am. I'm a throwback, apparently.

Will I continue to write longer works? Yes, just as Jackson, et al did, but I admit that my heart is in the 2k to 5k word count. That's where I thrive. That's where my drive to create burns the most passionately.

That's probably also why I have trouble with the 10-15k wordcount of pulp novelletes and the 30k+ digest novels/novellas, not to mentions the 40k+ novels, trouble not so much with the technical aspect of writing them, but with the emotional aspect of staying interested in them.

I love the stories that don't have to have three acts or beginnings, middles, and endings -- stories that can thrive in the moment, beginning way after beginnings and ending long before their endings.

Thanks for listening.

I still love you in all your glorious formats.

Sincerely,