December Stories

  

I've had two short stories published this month. I'm not saying that's either important or interesting, except that I needed a topic to write about today, and I happened to realize that in a sense it is sort of interesting, at least to me. Because those two stories were (1) different from each other in almost every way, (2) published in two extremely different kinds of publications, and (3) written the very same week, many months ago.

The first of the stories was "Celebration Day," published on December 6 in Von Stray's Crimestalker Casebook and edited by Andrew McAleer. This magazine is a rebirth of the old Crimestalker Casebook from twenty-plus years ago (also edited by Andrew), and is something I've been looking forward to seeing ever since I first heard about it, last year. I had already published a couple of stories in the former version of the magazine (in 1999 and 2004), and I remember it as a good experience. I also remember enjoying all the other stories that appeared in its pages. Andrew's a great editor, by the way.

"Celebration Day" is short, 1800 words, and is set in the rural South in no particular time period. (That unmentioned date is not as important as you might think; there are many areas in the Deep South--some of my favorite places, actually--that can seem, at first glance, almost unchanged over the past fifty or sixty years.) Summarywise, the story takes place in only one room of one farmhouse, over a period of no more than twenty minutes or so, and involves only two characters: a husband and wife. The situation is simple: hubby has come home unexpectedly in the middle of the day because the boss of the plant where he works didn't show up to unlock the place. Even more strange is that several other workers have gone missing as well. The reason, of course, is the story's mystery, and the center of the plot.

The other story, "Eight in the Corner," was published on December 14 in Issue #224 of Black Cat Weekly, by editor and publisher John Betancourt and associate editor Michael Bracken. This story, my 20th in BCW, was also a finalist for the 2025 Al Blanchard Award, so Michael kindly agreed to have the publisher wait until after that November announcement to run the story in Black Cat Weekly.

At 3300 words, this story is almost twice as long as the other one, it features more scenes and more characters, it's sort of a coming-of-age story, it's set in Boston in the mid-1950s . . . and it was published in a print magazine (BCW is an electronic publication). In fact, its only similarity to the first story is that all the action happens at one place--in this case, an old neighborhood pool hall.

The protagonist of "Eight in the Corner" is a ten-year-old boy named Billy Coleman, who spends most of his after-school and weekend time in the poolroom, watching the grownups's games and and listening to them talk and dragging a little wooden stool around to stand on so that he can play too, alone and eager to learn. In this story Billy winds up learning more, though, than how to play pocket billiards. He learns a life lesson, and from an unlikely teacher: a young stranger who arrives at the pool hall to challenge a local expert, who also happens to be a ruthless crime boss with a past that's linked to the stranger's. FYI, the title of this story has a double meaning: the pool hall's name is The Corner Pocket, often shortened to just The Corner, and there's a total of eight people in the place at the time of the final and fateful game.

The fact that these two stories bear almost no resemblance to each other isn't surprising to me, because--as I said--one of them was written right after the other. And if I remember correctly, never in my so-called writing career have I ever written stories back-to-back that were in any way alike. Why? Because I don't think that would be much fun. One of the reasons I like writing short is the freedom to write stories that are far different from each other. That keeps the process interesting, to me. Switching things around--different plot, different kinds of characters, different settings in both time and place, different POVs--keeps me from getting bored with all this. Or at least I guess it does, because I'm not. 

A note of explanation: I practice what I suppose is a literary version of chain-smoking. Ever since I began writing for publication in the mid-'90s, I've usually started a new short story as soon as I write END on the previous story. I'm not saying I always start typing it then, but it's in my head and I start thinking about it. And I'm also not saying that's good or bad--that's just the way I do it.

 

How about you? If you're a writer of short fiction, do you consciously try to vary the kinds of stories you produce, especially the ones that are written back-to-back? Would you instead rather stick to one comfortable type of story for most of your writing? Or does it matter to you? Are you more concerned about what certain markets, themed anthologies, etc., might be wanting at the time? (I can see how that could override other preferences.) On another subject, do you usually write stories one after the other, lighting the new one off the butt of the last, or do you take a break between projects, in order to recharge? If so, how long a break? Do you ever work on more than one story at the same time?

Ah, well. Different strokes. Whichever ways you do it, keep it up.

I always need new stories to read.