{"id":463,"date":"2018-04-18T13:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/katrina.effexhost.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/18\/wordsmith-wednesday-how-to-write-short-stories-and-use-them-to-further-your-writing-career\/"},"modified":"2018-04-18T13:30:00","modified_gmt":"2018-04-18T13:30:00","slug":"wordsmith-wednesday-how-to-write-short-stories-and-use-them-to-further-your-writing-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/18\/wordsmith-wednesday-how-to-write-short-stories-and-use-them-to-further-your-writing-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordsmith Wednesday : How to Write Short Stories And Use Them to Further Your Writing Career"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"Wordsmith<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nNow, learn the master key for writing great short stories, and the strategies for using them to advance your writing career <\/div>\n

\nAs most writers will tell you, the hardest fiction form to master is the short story. To be successful, a short story needs to have “emotional wallop,” and in under 7,000 words.<\/p>\n

Not easy to do.<\/p>\n

In this book, #1 bestselling writing teacher James Scott Bell explains the essential ingredient for a successful short story, no matter the genre. He shows how any writer\u2014whether planner or “pantser”\u2014can use this key to unlock infinite story possibilities.<\/p>\n

And turn readers into fans.<\/p>\n

Which is part of the strategy for short story writing today. With the coming of the digital revolution in publishing, short fiction presents possibilities beyond a one-time sale to a literary journal. Writers can use stories to increase discoverability, grow as a writer, generate some side income, and get back in touch with the sheer joy of writing.<\/p>\n

This book uses examples from the best stories by undisputed masters of the craft, including Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, John Cheever, Stephen King and Irwin Shaw.<\/p>\n

In addition, five complete stories are included to show you the master key in action.<\/p>\n

Once you’ve been through this book, even once, you’ll be well on your way to crafting short stories that readers love\u2014which will build your fan base and boost your long-term writing career.<\/p>\n

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
\nIf you’ve been around a while, you’ll know that I used to write a lot of short stories. Then, Nick pulled me into working on The Tether and it’s been a couple of years since I’ve written anything of my own. I thought that maybe short stories might be a good place to get back to my own work so I picked up this book.<\/p>\n

The Good<\/u>: There are some great tips about what makes a good short story and for those not familiar with Kindle Direct Publishing, there’s a pretty decent walk through on how to get your books into e-book format and up on Amazon.<\/p>\n

The Bad<\/u>: Over half of this book is made up of short stories. When I bought the book, I was expecting a lot more information on actually writing stories. The author takes a bit of time to actually work up to what he considers the “key” is and then doesn’t really expand a lot on it. The book feels like a series of one or two blog posts that a bunch of filler was added to so that it could be marketed and sold as a book.<\/p>\n

The Summary<\/u>: For $3.99, I really expected more out of this book. I will take the blame for not realizing just how much space 5 short stories do take up in a book of this size, but I also feel that when a book states that it’s about writing short stories, more than 47% of the book should be about that topic. Did I get anything out of it? Yep. Did I get enough? That I’m just not sure of.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a><\/div>\n

PS If you got this far, I’m going to give you a tip. If you’d like to know the “secret” to good short story writing, head over to Goodreads<\/a> and read a few of the reviews. It will save you $3.99.<\/p>\n

If you like what you’ve read here, please share it with others using these buttons:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now, learn the master key for writing great short stories, and the strategies for using them to advance your writing career  As most writers will tell you, the hardest fiction…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-book-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifewithkatie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}