Short Fiction

Every story we write shows the writer where he or she needs to improve. The short story, The Last Friend, has been sitting in the tomb (my writing drawer) for several months. While the reader of this blog could page back and find information on this story, let me save you some time by sharing a brief synopsis here. The story centers on two characters: One is an African American woman who has signed a major recording contract and is about to leave The Lou (St. Louis) behind. The other character is a man who goes by the initials of AZ and has kept a secret from her. He is the angel of death and he has been tasked with taking her life before she leaves. The story is written in first person with two points of view, which alternate back and forth.

The challenge I was and am faced with is making the voices of these two characters distinct. What I want, and what a writer should be able to do, is have the dialogue read without having to say who is saying what. This does not always work as I remember reading some works where I would get lost in the dialogue and have to spend time figuring out who is who and who said what. Never the less, that is a goal and it has proven to be quite daunting as of late. I hope to have this story out sometime soon, but I need to work on making these voices clearer .

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates to blogs and stories that I write.

Some who will read the title of this blog would immediately say, if not comment, yes to the question. Maybe they are right. I mentioned in a previous blog that I was considering posting my short fiction on my website regardless of and acknowledging the fact that the story will not be eligible to be published in a lit magazine or eligible for most contests. After a lot of thought, I have decided to take a different track. Here is what led up to this decision.

I had been exploring blog casting audio dramas, but I don’t believe I have the necessary resources to tap into at this time. With that in mind it was not a far leap to posting serialized blogs…so starting sometime next year (early, if I can do it) I will begin posting four stories in 12 episodes. Each month will come with a new episode in each story. One week will be crime drama, another, horror, a third will be fantasy, and the fourth will be in science fiction.

I will keep this blog up to date with this idea and watch for four new blogs that will be connected with this site.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on my stories, blogs and events.

Over the past months, I have asked the eternal question that every new writer seems to ask: “Should I focus on short fiction to get a start or should I work on novels.” The answers are as unique to the individual as to the times in which the writer lives. After talking with some authors who know the industry well, I have finally come to my conclusion for me. I am going to continue to write short fiction, but it will not be a focal point in my writing.

The market is changed where small fiction is getting harder and harder to publish and fewer people seem to want to read it. More focus is being put into the longer works and that is where I shall be putting my focus at now. Do not misunderstand me, short fiction is still important. It teaches the writer to find ways to be brief in their story and to keep things tightly written. It must never be neglected. While I will still send pieces off to contests and attempt to be published, I am more likely now to self-publish my short fiction on my website while I work on my longer pieces.

Please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

A while ago in this blog I discussed a problem I faced in regards to what to do with The Indebted. This dystopian story as originally designed to be a short story and turned into a novella. Sadly, there is not much of a market for novellas, and while there may be romance in the idea of a starving artist—romance only goes so far. For those who have never heard of The Indebted and to save the reader from having to page through the many blogs to find its reference: The Indebted explores the dark side of the “Green Powered” world and global economy.

When I started rewriting this story I came to a standstill as I wrestled with the question I posed before: What to do with a problem like a novella. I set the story aside to let myself think about it. After months, I have finally decided that the work (which is also a tribute to all those who have survived concentration camps and like prisons) deserved to be explored in a longer piece than a short story. I have decided to rewrite the story as a novel.

This means I need to take the story and replot it as a novel. I plan to have this novel written by the end of 2010. Please watch these blog pages for one dedicated to The Indebted in the future and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for more information on the articles, blogs, non-fiction books, stories, novels, and poetry I write.

I think I have spent my entire adult writing career asking the same question over and over again: Where should I place my focus, long or short fiction? If you look back at earlier entries on this blog, you will see that question asked frequently. The answer to this question is almost as individual and life searching for a writer as the whole human condition of existence is. There are several reason why I struggle with this question. Of course, the first reason is simple: I write long fiction better. But what are the other reasons?

Short fiction writing is as important to a novelist as understanding grammar is. Short fiction teaches the writer to be brief. Writers are like lawyers, we get paid by the word (generally speaking). Without the structure of plot in a short story, every novel could rival the length of War and Peace, without the tightness of control over the unfolding plot. Point in fact, the unfolding plot would instead become a wandering plot without the understanding of plot that short fiction forces.

Another reason is that short fiction gives faster feedback. A part time writer (aka, any of us who write and work a full time job doing something else, is part time—no matter if you put more work hours in on story writing than you do at the bill paying job) will spend months or years working on a novel. During the whole process, they do not know if they have had a successful story or a big dropping bomb of a story. Short fiction gives you feedback faster.

A final reason is that in short fiction you lean the craft. It is in no way faster or easier to get published in short fiction. In fact it has been my observation and I have heard that it is a shared point of view that short fiction publishers really are looking for writers who are established. This is a chicken and the egg situation for us who are still emerging writers.

Because of these and other reasons, I will continue to focus on both short and long fiction.

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates to my blogs, articles, stories, and poems I write.