Writing A Short Story Is A Little

What If You Believed That Everything In Life Was Like A Prize? What If You Thought Of The World As A Big Random Drawing, And You Were Always Winning Things, The World Offering Them Up With A Big Grin, Like An Emcee's: Here You Go, Hollis. Here Is A Motorcycle. Here Is A Little Boy Who Loves You. Here Is A Weird Experience, Here Is Something Bad That You Should Mull Over Because It Will Make You A Better Person. What If You Could Think That Life Was This Free Vacation You'd Won, And You Won Just Because You Happened To Be Alive?

A Novel Requires A Certain Kind Of World Building And Also A Certain Kind Of Closure, Ultimately. Whereas With A Short Story You Have This Sense That There Are Hinges That The Reader Doesn't See. I Would Say That All Short Stories Have Mystery Naturally Built Into Them.

A Lot Of Times In My Short Fiction There Isn't Much Dramatized Scene - There Are A Lot Of Short, Interconnected Bits, Snippets Of Conversation, Continual Action, And So On. I Frequently Rely Pretty Heavily On Voice.

You Can't Count On Notoriety Lasting Very Long, And There's No Way To Predict Whether Anyone Will Care About Your Books Or You In Three Years, Let Alone Ten Or Twenty.

A Conclusion Is Simply The Place Where You Got Tired Of Thinking.