Short Story Mechanics

I live and breathe short fiction every day. Reading submissions for Clarkesworld, running a critique group, and writing my own pieces has me up to my eyeballs in stories under 16,000 words. All the same, I’m still working mostly by instinct (and my instincts, lets be clear, are pretty solid), but am not necessarily always able to articulate why something is or is not working for me.

Perhaps more important than the writing of the story itself, however, has been the breakdown of short fiction into types of conflict, the importance of theme and mood, the use of Freytag’s pyramid, the need for hooks, the examination of setting, and methods to evoke tension, among other topics. Richard has provided personal feedback on every single assignment and will, at the end, read the stories we’ve all crafted and give us some notes before suggesting a place to submit them.

This has been an invaluable experience so far. Do Litreactor classes have high price tags? Yes, they do. But they give you one on one attention from a published author with expertise in their field — and that is worth its weight in gold.

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