They say you need to practice with short stories before you dive into writing a full novel, and I’m not sure I agree with that. I’ve always thought I don’t have it in me to go with short stories.
I can’t help it, as soon as I sit down and begin to type, thousands of ideas pop up in my head about how to have the story progress, and blocking it at a normal short story length is too hard for me. I tend to rush things too much if I have to keep it short, and it’s almost painful to cut out so many things I’d like to write.
That’s curious, because on the other hand, when I talk I tend to use as few words as possible. I guess it’s because of shyness and introversion combined, but I’m a different kind of narrator depending on the medium I’m using.
Still, last year I measured myself against the Build Your Own Book challenge by NinjaWriters and came up with 31 short stories, all tied together by one thing: they were named after one famous song I enjoy. The challenge more or less confirmed something I already knew about myself, but it was a lot of fun.
Yes, I had fun coming up with all those stories. Some of them are good, some of them not so much, some of them could potentially be expanded into a book and some of them are self-contained. I have collected them into an ebook (you can download the ebook for free on this page), but I’m going to post here the ones I like the most, together with a bit of context.
Under the Bridge
This is the only story for which I chose the title after I wrote it. I just had to tell it. I’ve been delivering pizzas myself for a few years, and last year I saw a video on Facebook about a delivery guy from my hometown whose delivery was stolen by boars.
Yes, in my hometown there is a huge colony of boars living on the riverbanks: so far they’ve been pacific (except for that poor delivery guy), but after seeing the video I couldn’t stop wondering what could happen if the boars understood how scared we are of them.
The Kids Aren’t Alright
Have you ever wondered what do kids mean when they talk to each other giggling? It all sounds gibberish to us, but maybe it has a meaning for them, and it is studied on purpose to exclude the adults from whatever they’re saying.
Fear of the Dark
This is a first casual attempt at horror by me. I’ve always loved a good old horror story about ghosts and grudges from the past, but, believe it or not, I’ve never written one before it.
Master of Puppets
Here we go again, another short story brought back to you. I have to admit this one was a little darker than the others, but I think stories are meant to send a message. And some kinds of messages are better conveyed through a darker story.
This story means a lot to me, because even though it’s just a story, the theme is quite an actual one. Time changes, and stories change, no matter how hard traditions and oppressors try to keep us down.