I just finished my second ever short story. The first, expanded from a prompt at my in-person weekly writing group became a selkie story called "Waterbourne". It's fairly short, somewhere in the longer-than-flash-fiction, but shorter-than-the-average-short-story length. This new one is a 5K post-apocalyptic scifi story called "Vestigial".
It's strange and a bit disturbing. Frankly, I'm not sure where it came from. Hubby just finished it and he didn't see what I saw in it. His feedback was interesting, but I thought some of his criticisms were related to the inherent differences between a short story and a novel. There are some elements of the world of this story that it cannot explore adequately. Not in a short story format. The story has to focus on the main character's journey through a single event. Yet, he was not as drawn into the character's journey as I had hoped.
I trust my husband as a reader. The plan is to let the story sit for a week or so, then read it again and start the revision process.
I am again astounded by how difficult the short story format is. Give me a novel any day. :) Much easier.
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