Evelyn Klebert

Why do I write short stories?

While in the midst of deep edits for my long-form novel, The Alchemist’s Bride, I am at the same time completing another short story collection of paranormal stories centered in the Ouachita Mountain region. And the fact that I seemed to be pulled back time and time again to the short story format made me wonder exactly why that is.

“In a rough way, the short story writer is to the novelist as a cabinetmaker is to a house carpenter.” -Annie Proulx

“Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“I’ll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2.” – O. Henry

If you look up quotes about the short story, undoubtedly you will get a thousand different perspectives, and not so surprising some completely contradictory. Perspective, Perspective, Perspective!

Personally, I began my dance with short story writing many eons ago. Actually, my first dive into the literary genre was in high school. I was out of school for some weeks with a nasty case of the shingles when I decided to pick up my pen. I crafted a rather long, winding sci-fi/detective tale using my closest schoolmates as characters, something that will never see the light of day again.

After that, it was some years later that I wrote my first story collection, Breaking Through the Pale, then Dragonflies came next, and so on. And interestingly each collection I crafted came between the writing of several novels, as though I had to shift gears a bit. The truth is that some of my novels came directly from short stories. The novel The Broken Vow was a sequel to the short story entitled “Wolves.” The book I’m working on now, The Alchemist’s Bride, is a prequel and inspired by characters created in a short story called “Emma Fallon.” And I am also developing a full-length sequel to a short story called “The Wizard.”

So, the literary genres do intertwine and overlap, at least in my experience. For me, I find short story writing to be a field of experimentation. Sometimes it’s a brief glimpse of someone’s life. At other times, it’s a deep dive into a character moment, perhaps a pivotal juncture or decision in a life. It can be so many different things, just like the quotes above. But it’s always refreshing, unpredictable, and a lovely place to fly home to.