AtoZChallenge 2015: Q is for Quickie

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AtoZ Challenge 2015 Wittegen Press QAtoZChallenge 2015: Q is for Quickie

Our theme here at Wittegen Press for this year’s AtoZ is ‘why’, specifically, why have we, as authors, written the titles we have. And, each day, the book we’re talking about will be FREE. And today you have both of us talking about our Christmas short stories, Stockings.

Okay,  so maybe we’re a bit out of season, but you can save these stories for a stormy December night if you want to :). These stories were written as another thank you to our readers and are quick dips into the universe of The Haward Mysteries.

[Sophie] Personally I find short stories much more difficult to write than novels. Packing a whole plot into a few thousand words challenges my natural verbosity and it’s good for me! Writing short helps me practice with words, makes me really concentrate on making sure I have the right ones in the right order, there’s not as much room for manoeuvre in a short story as there is in a novel. There is also a quicker payoff for me as a writer in a short story, since I’m not spending months crafting chapter after chapter, it can be a matter of a few days and I have something to share with others. So that’s why I like quickies 🙂

[Tasha’s Bit] I don’t have such a problem writing short stories as Soph does (side-eyes her twin), but I can see why they can be daunting. I love writing them, but it’s about packing everything in without information dumping or leaving too much out and it can be a fine balancing act.

For short stories I like to write fast, edit slow, where as with novels sometimes I write slow and edit slow 😉 . Quickies as we have christened them, can actually be quite exciting to write. Sometimes I have no idea where the story will go until it gets there. That’s the fun part.

So you like to read/write short stories?

 


FREE Book Offer

The Haward Mysteries - Stockings Two Christmas Short Stories by Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-DrakeStockings by Sophie Duncan and Natasha Duncan-Drake

There’s no need for a code, this book is permanently  FREE, so just follow the title link above for all the download options.

In one story meet Remy and Theo as six year olds trying to meet Father Christmas and in the other see them come to terms with being the guardians of Blackwood during their first Christmas as such.

The Haward Mysteries is a set of Contemporary Fantasy, short stories and bargain priced novels full of magic and mystery with a side of CSI thrown in. Follow the Agatha Christie style whodunits of the novels, delve into the artfully rendered sorcerous science of the magical crimes and explore the enchanted world of the Haward Twins as they face supernatural trials in both their professional and private lives.

Stockings was released in Dec 2011 as a Christmas gift for fans of the Haward Mysteries, check the tags for more in the series.


 Our other AtoZ blogs: Tasha’s Thinkings | Sophie’s Thoughts and Fumbles| FB3X (AC)



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Curse of a Banshee
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8 comments

  1. I do enjoy reading short stories though I don’t read them like I used to. I also used to write a lot of short stories but don’t do that as much either. Wow, I guess I’ve been kind of slacking on this.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

    1. I’ve found these days I’m much more into short stories than I used to be – I think eBooks have really broadened the length options.

  2. It’s hard for me to write short stories or flash fiction with all-new characters. I have to use my familiar, pre-existing characters. Although my third-favourite writer, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, wrote masterful short stories, as did my fourth-favourite writer, Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev. They packed so much into such a short length, even within their longest short stories.

    1. I find the fun of short stories sometimes is exactly what you find hard – creating characters just for the couple of thousand words, n’ere to be seen again (well unless the impulse is impossible to resist ;)). I have to admit to never having read either of those authors.

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