Authors Electric

  Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I didn’t start out writing in the short fiction forms. I began by seeing if I could write a novel. I did. It went through numerous rewrites, had professional editing twice, and was longlisted in a Debut Novel competition. It remains unpublished. I became tired of the rejections  so I turned my attention to the shorter fiction forms.  It took a long time for my stories to become publishable but I wasn’t surprised. I’d been reading plenty of sensible writing advice and still do. You are warned learning to get your work up to publication standard does take time. I saw this as fair game (and again still do). I did find quickly one advantage to writing short stories was I could get far more written in the time it took me to write my novel, edited, reworked, edited again etc. I was also able to get feedback on the short stories which I used to help me improve.  That eventually led to my first story in...

Image Credit:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. I write short stories (1500 to 2000 words usually) and flash fiction. Flash has taught me never to fear  editing. When you’re working to a tight word count (1000 words maximum for flash), you don’t fear cutting adjectives, wasted words such as that, very, and actually, or of thinking of better ways of wording things. I like the impact of short fiction. You get the undiluted “punch in the gut” effect quickly (and even more so with flash fiction). Inventing characters is my favourite aspect of storytelling so writing the short form means I must do that all the time. Win-win there, then. I like being able to write a story, edit it, get it out there, move on to the next story, and just keep that going. Writing the short form has challenged me to write and submit work regularly. It has also got me into the habit of writing to deadlines and it is encouraging to see there are plenty of short form competitions. ...

A year ago I wrote a rather contemplative blog post about a new venture I’d embarked on – editing an anthology of short stories by a dozen authors inspired by the subject of my own two books , namely King Richard III . Demonized particularly by Shakespeare (following St Thomas More and other writers keen to pander to the dynastic requirements of their Tudor overlords), King Richard wasn’t of course much like the grotesque portrait that’s long been painted of him – and many modern writers are keen to provide their own take on his life and character. My blog post can be found at https://authorselectric.blogspot.com/2018/11/dotting-is-editors-role-alex-marchant.html and focuses in particular on the process of editing other people’s fiction writing – something that I found very different from the more practical style of copyediting I’ve long practised in my day job. But it was a process I enjoyed – together with collaborating with a number of other authors with similar in...

   Stories To Make You Smile is the new anthology put together by the Coventry Writers' Group. It's their fourth collection of members work. The first being Coventry Tales 1 which also took first place in an anthology competition, winning the group, I believe, £250. Then came Coventry Tales 2, and Christmas Tales, and now this one. As you'll gather from the title, it's a look at the lighter side of life with this collection. Writing can be quite a solitary occupation so it's nice to meet up with fellow writers and work on a joint project such as an anthology. After writing our first a few years ago, we staged a performance at a local theatre, with wine and nibbles as an added incentive; and performed stories, plays and poetry to a full house. We've also done book signing events at the city centre library and in Waterstones. Now that it's fairly easy to publish as print on demand, producing an anthology of members' work is a logic...

Ali Bacon  writes and performs short stories Much ink is expended and tears shed over choosing the title of a novel – that perfect hook to grab you more customers – or any customers. But what about a short story? I used to think those weird and wordy titles appearing in the shortlists of writing competitions were a bit of an affectation. Do we need the title to be almost as long as the thing itself? However, having read submissions for a number of short story events and as co-judge of a local short story competition (yes, I am knee deep in short stories!) I am revising my opinion. A short story, by definition, has to pack a punch in a restricted number of words – in the case of flash fiction even fewer words. Not using the title to contribute to that punch seems like a wasted opportunity and although I haven’t ruled out any story because of its title (yet!) I’ve been disappointed by the number of short stories that fall short in this respect. Still available! But w...

One of the great things about the self-pubbing revolution is the re-appearance of many out-of-print books and the opportunity to get reacquainted with past favourites without breaking the bank by having to pay through the nose for battered seen-much-better-days secondhand copies … Equally exciting, is when the enthusiastic response to the re-appearance of those books then leads to some terrific new fiction being produced – Caroline Akrill’s The Last Baronet being a great example of this. Like many other readers, I was a huge fan of her teenage and Young Adult fiction during the seventies and eighties, and rather sadly assumed that since then she had more or less given up writing activities. Well, the good news is that she is not only back, but on top form – and at least a part of the reason is down to self-publishing. To cut a long story short, a couple of years ago, after finding that her books weren’t available as eBooks I contacted her asking (well, demanding really) that she...

To my great shame, and my almost certain loss, I have never read Thomas Hardy, but yesterday, feeling low, I took myself off to see "FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD" at the Phoenix cinema in East Finchley. This proved to be one of the most visually stunning films I've ever seen, its images of the English landscape like a Nineteenth Century Book of Hours. The actual plot is extraordinary, with its peak moment coming about three-quarters of the way through (well that's my analysis, but others may differ). I have often meant to draw a plot graph of books that impress me, as I'm sure many of you have. The (sadly, late) Ruth Rendell orchestrated plot lines like a symphony. I often likened her novels to music, and even painting - Paul Klee 'taking a line for a walk' springs to mind. Very recently, I've taken on a brief for fifty word stories aimed at four/five year olds -  the length of a medium-sized email (or, in musical terms, a VERY short exercise piece for...

I have been editing magazines and anthologies for some years now, most recently for the award-winning Alchemy Press . I have also written stories for many other publications so, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, I’ve looked at slush from both sides now . Okay, not quite the same thing, but you’ll get my drift… I was a panellist at Writing West Midlands event on ‘Getting Published’ recently, and the panel was asked why editors and anthologists seldom gave feedback on submissions. The cold hard truth is those editors simply do not have the time. If you do get feedback consider it a bonus because generally speaking is does not happen. Novelist Kate Long, whom I shared the panel with, came up with the best answer I have ever heard when she said 'It’s not their (the editor) job' .     As a writer I’ve had my share of rejection slips, and always taken it as a sign that the editor received stories they preferred over mine. Whenever I receive that ‘red slip’ I suck it up and mak...