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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Thinking About Short Story Options

Most of us are still waiting for our digital short stories that were winners to appear on the Twin Trinity Media site. It just takes a long time for all the mechanics to happen. Eventually, I will have three stories there, in addition to six that were good enough to be chosen for books.

Meanwhile, there is one lonely story that didn't make the cut for an award. Of course, I think it's a fine story... just didn't appeal to the judges that month for one reason or another. One possibility is that it's pretty straightforward and has a happy ending. The theme was "hope," and I didn't try to twist that in any way.

I've looked up lists of the seven virtues, and found: four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, restraint or temperance, and courage or fortitude, and the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. So, this makes me think about ideas like a group of seven stories based on these themes. These stories would be uplifting, no nasty twists or angst-laden endings. Hopefully, however, they would not be trite.

Not all of my stories have happy endings. In fact the two first stories that will be up on Twin Trinity are darker. But recently, I seem to be inundated with stories with more questions than answers, bleak endings, and tragedy. Maybe I'm just ready for some positive input.

Of course, the question is, would anyone buy these? I'm not sure how much credibility I have as a short story author until some of them actually come out on TTM.

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