Rotary Short Story Contest Offers Prize of $500
Submit your original short story for a chance to win $500 and be featured at the Stratford Writers Festival!
Short Story Series: Great Insights
Understand Your Experiences: Part 13 This is the thirteenth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 13: Great short story writers provide great insights. “The power of fiction is that it gives us, as readers, the opportunity to move inside another human being, to look [...]
Short Story Series: Let Your Stories Unfurl
Don’t Try to Solve Problems or Find Solutions: Part 12 This is the twelfth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 12: Great short story writers don’t try to solve problems or find solutions. “A writer doesn't solve problems. He allows them to emerge.” [...]
Short Story Series: Create Compelling Endings
Know Your Last Sentence: Part 11 This is the eleventh blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 11: Great short story writers write great endings. “It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it [...]
Short Story Series: How to Entice Your Reader
Write Great Beginnings: Part 10 This is the tenth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 9: Great short story writers write great beginnings. “The first sentence of a book is a handshake, perhaps an embrace. Style and personality are irrelevant. They can be formal [...]
Short Story Series: Create Compelling Characters
Who Drives Your Story: Part 9 This is the ninth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 9: Great short story writers develop strong characters. “It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I [...]
Short Story Series: A Sense Of Place
Write From Where You Are: Part 8 This is the eighth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 8: Great short story writers recognize the importance of place. “Every story would be another story, and unrecognized . . . if it took [...]
Short Story Series: Write What You Know
Getting At The Truth: Part 7 This is the seventh blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 7: Great short story writers draw from their own life experiences. “The proper relationship of a writer to his or her own life is [...]
Short Story Series: Lyrical writing
Discovering Greatness in Smallness: Part 6 This is the sixth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 6: Great short story writers are also poets. “Lyrical prose makes the words sing, doesn’t it?”-- Silvia Villalobos When American Indian, Sherman Alexie, began writing during his [...]
Short Story Series: Concise and Compact
Discovering Greatness in Smallness: Part 5 This is the fifth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 5: Great short story writers are concise. Get in, get out. Don’t linger. Go on.—Raymond Carver The best short stories are tightly constructed and compacted. They are both [...]
Short Story Series: The Extraordinary in the Ordinary
Discovering Greatness in Smallness: Part 4 This is the fourth blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 4: Great short story writers view the ordinary world in extraordinary ways. “I get [ideas] from looking at the world we live in, [...]
Short Story Series: Write Without a Clear Destination
Discovering Greatness in Smallness: Part 3 This is the third blog in the weekly 15-part Discovering the Greatness in Smallness: 15 Qualities of Great Short Story Writers series by Susanne Carter. Quality 3: Great short story writers don’t plan their stories--they just let their stories flow. “I just kind of feel (the story) out like a [...]