Short stories

[shewhomust]

matociquala sees it like this:

I hit upon a metaphor today that pleased me. Writing short stories is like watchmaking. Every bit must be finely machined, take up no more space than it needs to do its job, and move precisely in counterpart with all the others--and it must be necessary.

Novels have room for cuckoos and dancing waiters and great big decorative pendulums and so forth.

Val - I beg her pardon, V. L. McDermid says, and I paraphrase from memory, that a novel comes from seeing or hearing or learning something that makes her think: "Oh, that's interesting. I wonder what would happen if...", from applying or twisting or developing an idea. But with a short story, the idea is the short story. You don't speculate about it, or apply it, you nail it down fast. And only when you've nailed down all four corners do you peer under the groundsheet to find out what you've got.

All together now, children:

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays,
And -- every -- single -- one -- of -- them -- is -- right!