Cut Short

You write very well, but your endings basically aren't there. They are the equivalent of "And then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up." The endings for the first two stories are what is known as "tomato surprise" endings. Just something happening completely out of nowhere to end the story.

You need to work on your plotting. But don't get me wrong, I read the first two stories. You've got the skill it takes to write.

Hi Clare

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to check out Twisted Tongue. Yeah, I know short stories aren't where the money is, but I thought it would be a good idea to put up bite-sized stories for people to try out; I think a short stories section would be great on Authonomy - sort of like a singles chart as opposed to all albums...

I've read the first 3 - I liked "Kitty" the best. (The name of her cat jarred a bit, I don't know why.) These are good stories - have you ever read Twisted Tongue magazine? It might be a possible market for your stories.
I like short stories - there's not much of a market for them as a collection, though, unless you're an established author like Stephen King or Peter Robinson. It might benefit you to consider splitting them up, going for competitions (Dark Tales run them regularly) and magazine publication instead.

Hi Gavin.

I like Cut Short. I agree with what others are saying, it is indeed good to have a collection of short stories on the site. Have a spin on my shelf!

Best wishes.

Michael Ashley Torrington. Author, 'Kristin.'

Good to see a short story collection on here. There don't seem to be too many. Good opening story. Nice twist. Your dialogue contains some good taglines too.

SP - thanks and of course I don't mind! I really enjoyed the first story in Red Poppies and will post feedback soon. Don't think I pointed you towards Old Habits Die Hard, is it good?

JamesE - yeah I think you feel the same way about the story as I do! You don't sound overly negative at all, I really appreciate your comments.

Have added this to my shelf by the way, as it deserves a few more comments from others...

My comments on 'Faith's Reconstruction'

Firstly, I liked the opening, it seemed quite a subtle way in...
The line about looking into a dead woman's eyes is good, especially on
rereading.

I can see why you had your own doubts about the ending - it seems
a bit obvious, the only twist possible in a way, and I kind of knew it would be
the guy in the red lumberjack shirt. Also the ending seems quite brutal and undeserved -
I don't know why this bothered me (given the nature of some of my stories, it's downright
hypocritical!) but in this case, it did.

Sorry if these comments sound overly negative - I did like the story, although not as much
as the others of yours I've read so far. James.

Thanks for the comments everyone...

EarlGrey - thanks for the feedback, good to get constructive criticism! I know what you mean about that line, it's trying a bit hard, isn't it? I might do a rewrite of this story when I get a minute.

SPMiskowski - I'm glad you liked the stories, and really liked your description of my stuff as "not exactly horror but horrific in its depiction of the human psyche strained beyond capacity" - I hadn't thought about that before as an overarching theme, but if it's there I'm certainly happy with it! If you liked The Room, check out the script version I've posted on Authonomy - it's the same story fleshed out to an 80 minute film, and I found you could do a lot of things in a script that you couldn't do in a story and vice versa - I recommend it as an exercise. Sounds like I might like your stuff too - I'll try and look soon, promise!

JamesE - "sagaciously" and "emboldened" arose out of the fact I only had 100 words to use in the original story, and I wanted as many polysyllabic ones in there as possible! You're right about short stories, I think authonomy could do worse than flag up short story collections. I always like to hear a couple of singles before I buy the album, and the same logic could work here. Can't remember why I changed the name of Breakfast at Midnight (I tend to do that with my stories a lot, even if I didn't have the guts to rename The Room as Rear Windows 98), but I think I was tailoring it for a specific magazine. I'll have another look at that hair colour part when I'm doing my rewrite. I'd quite like to do a straight 'slice of life' story, but I always seem to be drawn towards having a twist at the end. The Misfortune Teller comes close to that, but I couldn't resist a little reveal at the end...

Thanks again guys, I'm getting frustrated that I'm not on the internet more - I'll need to make more time to be on here interacting with everyone.

Okay, my comments on 'Breakfast At Midnight' - firstly, you say the original title was 'It's Not You, It's Me'. I think I prefer the original to be honest.

I liked this story overall, the twist was good, mainly because I wasn't expecting any twist (I thought this was going to be a more Carver style slice o' life). It's generally well written - the only paragraph I didn't really like was the one just after he'd asked her about her hair colour. It seemed a bit telling rather than showing her reaction, and telling twice at that. Otherwise, v. good.

Excellent - more short stories. I think they work really well on this site.

Have skimmed through and read What Was In the Cellar - very good. Obviously hard to comment in loads of detail as it is such a short short-story, but it works really well. A bit like The Prestige in the twist stakes (although I didn't see it coming, here or there!) And yes, expanding this tale with explanation would be a mistake... Was not sure about the use of the words 'sagaciously' or 'emboldened' - they seemed to jar, but that may just be me.

Have book-maked to read more. Good look with them.

Breakfast at Midnight -
'The chubby waitress...' - how about 'The waitress delivered her line whilst scratching her ear, and with some chewing gum tucked away awkwardly in her mouth.' Two reasons - 1stly chewing gum + gazing out of the window + scratching her ear = slightly overdoing it. Next you'll be telling me she has a New Jersey accent and dreams of oneday being a film star... Also with the scene setting you've already 'shown' us that she's bored, so don't then go on to 'tell' us - hence I suggest chopping the 2nd half of the same sentence.

I love the exchange between Lisa & Leather Guy - can picture the scene v.easily.
OK, finished...I found this story very enjoyable. The dialogue was smooth, v.natural, and the menace in the handsome stranger came through with clarity.

I'll put you on my watchlist,

E

1 – It’s Not You, It’s Me

I wrote this a few years ago, and it was an attempt to do a kind of straight ‘slice of life’, quasi-romance story with a twist towards the end.

2 – Faith's Reconstruction

I quite like the way this story’s written, and I really like the lead character, but part of me absolutely hates the ending. Which is strange, because the ending was the initial idea that led me to write the story.

3 – Kitty

I’d been reading a lot of the old EC Comics horror books when I wrote this. It was rejected by Weird Tales for having too many loose ends, but personally I like the fact that nothing is explained. It’s just, in the words of Homer Simpson “a bunch of stuff that happened”.

4 – What Was in the Cellar

This one I originally did in 100 words for a competition, and then fleshed out a little bit more. There’s no back story or resolution, but as with Kitty, I like that the story is just about one scene of insanity impinging on an every day life.

5 – The Misfortune Teller

I wanted to try an old fashioned private eye story here. I set it in my home town, of course; primarily because I know it so well, but also because Glasgow has more than its share of mean streets, yet seems to be slightly underrepresented in crime fiction. The supernatural elements just butted in as I wrote.

6 – A Job Worth Doing

Inspired by a mildly disturbing Channel Five documentary, which featured an interview with a man whose job it was to repair lifelike sex dolls. The secretive and offbeat nature of the job got me thinking that it would make for an interesting protagonist in a thriller.

7 – The Room

This is probably the story I’m most proud of, although I wrote it about 8 years ago now, so I don’t think the writing’s as good as it could be. It’s the one people respond to most when I show them, anyway. I didn’t start out intending to write an Internet Rear Window, but it kind of turned out that way. I’ve written a full-length screenplay based on this story, which is also up on Authonomy.

8 – The Luckiest Corpse in the River

Can't remember where I got the idea for this one, but it seemed like such a good setup for a mystery that I was surprised I hadn't seen it used before.

9 - Her Favourite Colour is Death

This is the only time I've set out to write a completely dislikeable protagonist. The working title was 'A Good Start', which is probably more elegant, but if I only have time to read one story, I go for the one with the overblown title every time.

10 – Pavane

This is a writing exercise: my ‘Dick and Jane’ story, which will be familiar to anyone who’s read and been inspired by Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’. It’s not great, but I had fun writing what is basically the third act of an early nineties ‘psychotic wife/husband/lodger/babysitter’ movie.

11 – Spacious Three Bedroom Flat

Another micro story. This was my entry for the Waterstones ‘What’s Your Story?’ competition. I’d been househunting when I wrote this, and wondered what it would be like to see a completely honest estate agent’s blurb. Even better: a completely honest blurb for a haunted house…

12 – A Living

This was the first story I wrote when I decided to try writing. I entered it for the Get Britain Reading prize. It didn't win, but they published in the Sun Book of Short Stories and I got a trip to London. I still see the book occasionally in libraries, which is cool.