@Emmacox #SundayLitQ
Q3. Does writing short stories benefit your longer works?

Yes, I think it does.
Some of the shorts I write are exploring ideas that form part of the world-building for the longer works.
It's also good practice at word-smithing. Word-choice matters more when you're writing a short, so it makes you pay a bit more attention to the words you use and how you use them.

@Emmacox #SundayLitQ
Q2. What are the benefits and drawbacks of writing short stories?

- The obvious benefit is that it's a lot less work than a novella or novel, so you can write many more of them;
- It may be easier to get short stories published than longer works;
- They allow you to explore ideas that you either can't or don't want to write into a longer work.

On the negative side:
- payscales for published short stories can be really terrible (where you'd have to have several published every week to earn a modest living)
- crafting a good short story can be hard. Not every idea works in short format.
- for me, personally, I always want to explore ideas further, so many of my short stories are up around the 10k word mark, and I've had a "short story" idea turn into a 90k word novel.

@Emmacox

Benefits:

1. It's much more economical to explore an idea (or part of an idea) through a short story than through longer forms.

2. You can churn them out if you need to.

Drawbacks:

1. The idea might be too big to properly explore.

2. A lot of people hate reading short stories - even when they're provided gratis.

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@Emmacox #SundayLitQ
Q1. Do you write and/or read short stories?

Both. I sometimes come up with an idea for a vignette or scene that just suits the short format well - where nothing more need be said.
I also sometimes write shorts relating to the novels that I'm working on. Scenes that don't fit within the novel - ones that occur shortly before, or after, or from a POV that isn't featured in the novel. A kind of 'bonus features', as it were.

I've read many short stories, too. I grew up reading compilations of shorts by some of the greatest sci-fi and fantasy authors of the 60s, 70s, and 80s (our local library had a good collection), and I still enjoy reading them.

@Emmacox I do both, although they're not my preferred format.

I write short stories to scratch itches or to fill out gaps in my world building or character development. Sometimes I write fanfic, but that's usually to scratch the aforementioned itches.

I read them to see how the market is - what's being published - and to gauge trends. It's rare that I find anything especially engaging (anyone seeing my reviews on my blog or bookwyrm will quickly discover how picky I am) , but it has been known to happen. I almost never read fanfic, mostly because it's nearly always a first (only) draft and fucking awful. I've been banned from fanfic channels for mentioning writing is rewriting.

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@Emmacox
#SundayLitQ
Q4. Which of your characters is a team player, who is competitive, and who is a sore loser?

Team player: Constable Doyle
Competitive: definitely Isabel
Sore loser: also Isabel; she just cares so much about things!

@Emmacox
#SundayLitQ
Q3. Do certain characters play mind games on others?

This is the other game that Jimmy is good at. 😆 He's too well mannered to indulge in mind games often, but if he finds someone he particularly dislikes he is not above a bit of light psychological torment. Just writing a scene about that now, actually.

@Emmacox
#SundayLitQ
Q1. Which games do your characters play as a pastime?

Isabel and Dr Archer grew up playing chess together a lot, and still do on occasion. I think Jimmy is a casual cards player.

@Emmacox #SundayLit

#SundayLitQ 6. How does your characters aspirations and fears affect the conflict in the novel?

Character aspirations and fears *create* the conflict. If they desired nothing and feared nothing, all the background conflict in the world means nothing.

@Emmacox #SundayLit

#SundayLitQ 3 Do all stories need conflict to work?

Well I typed out a long answer and then the page refreshed and lost it all, so I’ll just say:

To me, brought up in the western storytelling perspective, yes. Even in cosy slice-of-life (though conflict in those is often so low as to be utterly boring to me).

A perspective that suggests that while conflict is baked into western storytelling structure, it can be absent from the storytelling structures of other cultures:
https://artofnarrative.com/2020/07/08/kishotenketsu-exploring-the-four-act-story-structure/

And a rebuttal:
https://mythcreants.com/blog/the-myth-of-conflict-free-story-structures/