Thread: Finish up...

I want to write short stories but I can never find a way to compress my ideas...what works for you?

For me the best short stories are not a collection of ideas, but a single, usually quite simple, idea that reveals itself fully in the ending, what people refer to as the twist in the tail. It is finding a destination and heading for it along the shortest path worth taking. Try reading a few of Kipling's shorts, there are other authors who write excellent short stories, but the underlying structure is there to be observed in his, well for me anyway.

Also Eudora Welty, whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few times while at university. She commented on a short story I had written, saying, 'It's really not that bad. I've seen worse'. I recommend 'A Worn Path' and 'Why I live at the P.O.'.

A favourite of mine since I first read it in high school is Conrad Aiken's 'Silent Snow, Secret Snow'. Also Thomas Mann's 'Mario and the Magician'.

As with all writing, the key is reading.

As with all writing, the key is reading.

But critical reading gaza, and one's ability in that direction can be enhanced by tips of what to look for. I think it is this that Eli is looking for, that he wishes to write short stories implies that he has read a few.