February 2023 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my February 2023 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post (linking to where they are first mentioned).

January 2023 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my January 2023 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post (that list links to where they are first mentioned, but there’s often further discussion).

This is fairly short post, but I’ve made up for that with a recent long post on List stories — how they work, what they offer.

Fascinations and encroaching interests this month include:

• how to take parts of a large story in order to make a short one
• how to keep short stories short
• monologues
• shapes that echo themes
• changes in climate change fiction

Background and related posts:

• This project is me studying story structure in real time (and often working my way back to well-known maxims from first principles! See Story Shapes — Three-Mood Stories for detail.
• How I select these stories.
• Each dot point is one possible three-mood shape — one way of reading the shape of the story. I use “mood” very broadly.
• Previous posts are under the short story reading notes category (all the 2022 posts are linked here).

And so, to begin…

List Stories: How they work, what they offer

This post is about short stories written as/around lists. It is based on notes from my short-story reading posts. (For background on the three-mood story structure, see Story Shapes — Three Mood Stories.)

Outline of this post (it should link to the relevant section):

• What is a list story?
• What makes a list into a story?
• A writing activity
• Some things lists can do (to a story)
• Some notes on specific stories
  • Advice stories
  • A numbered list
  • A list with its own structure
  • The metaphor-list
  • Using external structures to modulate distance
  • Fainter list structures
  • Sub-structures
• Some three-mood story shapes
• Patronise the arts

I hope to write a shorter version one day.

2022: The Short Story Reading Project (also an awards eligibility post)

This year I read and analysed over 400 short stories — mostly (although not solely) science fiction, fantasy, and horror. If you are nominating for various awards, I’d love to have this considered for relevant non-fiction categories.

Here, for ease of reference, are links to the monthly posts, along with some more general descriptions of patterns I was noticing.

• Story Shapes — Three-Mood Stories (background)
• January 2022
• February 2022
• March 2022
• April 2022
• May 2022
• June 2022
• Purgatorial stories — hallmarks and patterns
• July 2022
• August 2022
• September 2022
• Short stories — rites and rituals and structure
• October 2022
• Some ways to retell a fairy tale
• November 2022

I took December off, but am looking forward to starting again.

It’s been a fascinating and fun project. I’ve learned so much about reading as a writer, and drastically increased the number of stories as was reading. It’s also led to more writing (and drawing), and I’ve given several workshops and a paper on short stories, with more to come.

November 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my November 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post (that links to where they are first mentioned, but there’s often further discussion).

A short post this month! I was travelling for most of it, and also preparing and giving a writing workshop on short stories at World Fantasy, and an academic paper at the WIP conference at UQ. However, it is still a relatively long post, so the rest is below the cut…

Text Journal publication — Retelling Tales

My short piece “Some Ways to Retell a Fairy Tale” has been published in TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses!

It began as a series of observations about retellings that I’d encountered in the short-story reading project, but quickly grew into its own… direction? reference guide? invocation? invitation? litany?

October 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my October 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post (that links to where they are first mentioned, but there’s often further discussion). Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…

(Also, I’ve hurt my arm, so this is even less tidied than usual.)

Short stories: Rites and rituals and structure

As part of this year’s short story reading project, I’ve been noticing the strong structural and structuring pull rite or rituals exert on stories.

Structurally (and that’s how I’m talking about them in this post), rituals can be a way to first summon a story and peel apart a world, and then at the end to stitch through many layers, to mend and make new. And of course ritual brings with it layers of language, formulation, knowledge, history, time, family, the numinous brushing the physical, a way of altering the world or being acknowledged and changed by it, and (rendered bureaucratic) all the ways that can be made soulless.

This post is lengthy… (among other things, after the initial draft I injured myself in a way that made editing very difficult).

September 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my September 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post. Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…

August 2022 Short Story Reading Post

This post is a roughly tidied version of my August 2022 tweets about short stories. There’s a list of all stories at the very end of the post. Also, as usual, this post is long, so the rest is below the cut…