I write novels. Seven and counting. (Plus six nonfiction
books, if I include my ghost writing assignments.) I’ve previously written only one short story, for which I received an Honorable Mention as a finalist. Maybe
that didn’t count. It was a newspaper contest for a one hundred word novel. In
the beginning, I thought anyone could string together one hundred words, but it
took me a week to create a draft fit for submittal. Short is
hard.
All of this is preface to telling you that I have written my
first real short story. “Snake in The Grass” is a Steve Dancy
Tale with a twist. I won’t tell you the twist. You have to read it for
yourself. Where? First, you’ll need to wait a few months. The book is an
anthology written by seven top selling Western authors.
Wanted, A Western Story Collection includes stories by Brad Dennison, Lou Bradshaw, Tell Cotten, Robert J. Thomas, WL Cox, James D. Best,
and Duane Boehm.
I’ll let you know when it becomes available. In the
meantime, I’ll leave with a few of my favorite quotes about short stories.
A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it. Edgar Allan Poe
A short story is a different thing all together - a short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger. Stephen King
The great thing about a short story is that it doesn’t have to trawl through someone’s whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. Emma Donoghue
I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn’t like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different way. Stephen Colbert