If you want to lift your short stories above the mediocre there are many things you can do. One of these is to be original in your story and in your characters. Readers like something different in their plot and eccentric characters can be a big draw whether you are writing commercial or literary fiction.
Three of us commercial fiction authors – Rosemary McCracken, Madeleine Harris-Callway and Sharon A. Crawford – who write both crime novels and short stories will be discussing why and how we do it. We will cover how we get story ideas and how much is from real life and how much from imagination. A couple of us have series characters in some of our short stories and in our novels, so we will discuss how we deal with time lines. Is it difficult going back and forth from writing novels and short stories and what the heck is the difference in how you write each?
Then there is marketing your short stories. Each of us has unusual ways we market our books (both the short stories and the novels).
And this panel will not be just the three of us talking. We are open to lots of q and a.We want to get a real conversation going on short story writing. Here are the details about this upcoming panel being held by the East End Writers’ Group Wednesday, June 29, 2016.
Making Your Short Stories Sparkle and Sell
Do short stories come from real life, imagination, or both? How do you market short stories? For June’s East End Writers’ Group meeting join fiction authors Rosemary McCracken (shortlisted for the 2014 Derringer Award), Madeleine Harris-Callway (finalist for 2015 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel), and Sharon A. Crawford (author of the “Beyond” mystery series) for a discussion on writing and marketing short stories. Copies of authors’ books available and there will be networking and food at 9 p.m.
Time and Date: 7 p.m. to 9.30 p.m., Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Location: S. Walter Stewart library branch, 170 Memorial Park Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
I am doing a guest blog post on Rosemary McCracken’s blog Moving Target about libraries and how they were and are important to me in my writing career, then seguing into this upcoming panel which is held at a library. There is a serendipity for me about this library branch. You’ll find this and more when my post is up on Monday, June 27 at Moving Target.
Meantime you can check out the panelists:
Rosemary McCracken http://www.rosemarymccracken.com/
Madeleine Harris-Callway http://mhcallway.com/
Sharon A. Crawford http://www.samcraw.com
Cheers.
Sharon A. Crawford
That’s my short story collection – Beyond the Tripping Point – book cover at the top of this post. If you click on the book cover, it will take you to my author profile on amazon.com
Sharon A. Crawford author 