In yesterday’s post, I discussed how I wrote a series of short stories a few years ago, each in a different genre, as well as stories in different subgenres of speculative fiction. This process of experimentation helped me to find the genres I was most drawn to, those I found easiest to write (not necessarily the same thing), and also learn that I did have a personal style that would out in whatever I was writing—something that can be either positive or challenging, depending on what I want to achieve with a writing project.

Another benefit of deliberately setting out to write a range of different stories was that it allowed me to experiment with other aspects of writing beside genre. A major one was ‘voice’—not my voice as an author, but the ‘voices’ of different characters speaking through the story. I deliberately played around with this, using first person singular (I) in some stories, third person singular (he/she/it) in others. (And yes, there is an “it” story—one I must rework sometime because writing it was fun.) I also used male and female point-of-view characters to tell different stories, and in the longer stories, multiple point-of-view characters. And found that having more than one point of view character does tend to make your story longer, but offers a lot of potential in terms of differing “slants” (imagine headlights slicing across a darkened landscape) onto the evolving story.

Another aspect I experimented with in these stories was deliberately choosing a word length and crafting the story to fit. This is good discipline, although it led to some frustration with stories that really needed to be bigger to work well—but also a great feeling of satisfaction when I crafted a story that “ripped it” in the word length.

I do think that intensive period of deliberate experimentation was very useful to my development as a writer and is something I may well do again in future, if not necessarily in the same some form. And of course I am always experimenting/learning as I go with my writing—‘pursuit of the art’ is not a static process. And there is no formula or recipe to be relied upon, only the principle of allowing the story the freedom to reveal itself and the best ‘form’ for telling it effectively.

I also said yesterday that ” … not all the experiments are going to see the light of day! Or should see daylight, even.”

In terms of my series of nine short stories, written to explore the new, the following 5 have seen the light of day:

The Brother King (legendary history/first person point-of-view/male protagonist/stream-of-consciousness style) was the fourth story written and the first to be published. It was shortlisted for the 2005 Raymond Carver Short Story Award and subsequently published in Carve e-zine (Volume 6, No. 5), September 1, 2005. The following year The Brother King was anthologised in The Best of Carve Magazine, March 2006

Cold Cass (contemporary realism/first person point-of-view/”flash” fiction) was the eighth story written. It was selected out of 900 submissions for publication in Home: New Short Short Stories by New Zealand Writers, (Random House NZ) October 2005

The Walk Home (modern history/ghost story/third person point-of-view/female protagonist) was the third story written. It was shortlisted for the Aoraki Short Story Award 2005-2006, Highly Commended in the South Island Writers’ Association Biennial Short Story Competition 2007, and broadcast by Radio New Zealand’s “Nine to Noon” show, July 2008.

The Glory Well (hard scifi/third person point-of-view/male protagonist/novelette) was Commended in the Writers of the Future Competition (USA) in 2007

The Fountain (modern history/supernatural elements/third person point-of-view/female protagonist) was published in Tales for Canterbury (Random Static) 2011

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You can read Cold Cass and The Brother King on my website (click on the titles to read.) You can take a “peek inside” The Fountain here, or read it, together with many other wonderful stories by a range of national and international authors by purchasing Tales for Canterbury, here. (Remember it’s a fund raiser for helping rebuild Christchurch after its year—to date—of earthquakes.)