Image Credits:- Some images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos. Book cover images are from Chapeltown Books/Bridge House Publishing.
I make a point of mixing up what I read in terms of genre and type of story. So as well as reading novels, I read novellas and, naturally for me, flash fiction and short story collections.
It makes a great deal of sense to read widely in and out of the field you’re working in as reading well can and does inspire your own story ideas. I’ve often found inspiration for stories when reading non-fiction works and other fiction which is not in my field at all.
In my short form field, I like to see what is also out there, what the publishers are bringing out and so on. It is a form of market research.
Above all, I think most writers do write what they themselves love reading. I’ve always loved the short forms of fiction, thanks to having a life long love of the classic fairytales, which show complete worlds in relatively few words.
My Story in Short Stories and Flash Fiction
I didn’t set out to write collections. I was bitten by the short story/flash fiction bug so focused on getting work published online and in anthologies. It was only when CafeLit put out the call for single author collections, I thought I would check to see just how many flash pieces I’d written. By this time, I’d written loads (and even more since!).
It was easy enough to put a collection together and, understandably, I was thrilled with the thought this could be my way in to having a book with my name on the front cover. I was right here. Two books and another on the way later (Seeing The Other Side is due out in May 2026), I was right to pursue this route.
As for short stories, well, they were my break through into being published in print with my A Helping Hand appearing in Bridge House Publishing’s Alternative Renditions back in 2009. I’ve been published regularly online and in print since then and can’t believe where 16 years have gone either!
But when I sent what proved to be my first published story in to Bridge House, I had no thoughts of books of my own at this point. I was just trying to see if I could get into print and was delighted when it turned out I could. My focus after that, initially, was to try to get more stories into anthologies.
Then came the CafeLit challenge to write 100 word stories which I knew I had to pursue which in turn led to their call for single author collections. Having books of my own out there would be another string to my bow and they have gone on to lead to other things coming my way such as being asked to run workshops, having speaking engagements and so on.
One of the after dinner engagements at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick I attended recently was by two performance poets, Emma Purshouse and Steve Pottinger. They gave a fantastic talk as they showed how poetry was and is their great love but they do all kinds of things around it such as giving this kind of after dinner talk, running courses etc.
Nobody was surprised to hear their poetry was their way in but it led to other things and certainly this has been true for me with the short fiction forms.
So I thought I’d look at what does go into putting a collection together and what the joys and challenges are of writing this kind of book.
The Joys of Writing A Flash Fiction Collection
The joys are in being able to collate a number of stories, your best work, and have them appear in book form. There is nothing to beat the feeling of achievement here. From a reader’s viewpoint, there is much to gain. You read the best selection from the author and get a good feel for their style. I’ve often read shorter works by authors new to me. If I like their short work, I am highly likely to enjoy their longer works too.
So reading the short forms can be a great introduction to authors new to you who also happen to write novels. This isn’t quite true in my case but I would still love to have a novel of mine out there one day. It is good to dream!
In re-reading your stories as you work out what to include, you do come across tales you’d forgotten about. The positive thing here is if they make you react, as a reader would, that’s an excellent sign. I want my funny stories to make me smile/laugh etc. The break away from them gives me the distance to be able to judge objectively if they are working as they should.
My initial reaction to them should be the same as that of an independent reader coming to them for the first time. And when you discover the stories are working as they should do, that’s a fabulous feeling and encourages you a lot.
Another lovely feeling is when you know you have the running order right for your collection. I found especially with From Light to Dark and Back Again the stories were easier to group than I had anticipated. How come? Well, I used the mood of my stories to shape the running order and that inspired the book title too.
The Challenges of Writing A Flash Fiction Collection
One challenge may not be an obvious one. I am writing stories all of the time and sending them out to different places (copyright remains with me always so I can use them in collections. I never give my copyright away). So by the time I know I’ve got enough stories to put another book together, I have a lot of tales to go through. That’s fine but as you can imagine, it takes time. Bear in mind I also need to check each individual story stands up to scrutiny too.
Once I’ve got an initial collection together, I need to read it again to ensure the stories “flow” nicely, the running order makes sense and so on. Especially when I write linked flash where the same character can turn up in more than one story, I need to ensure the order of those is correct too. Plus, naturally, there is the usual editing work I need to do before sending it in to my publisher for consideration.
It is true, no matter what you write, you cannot rush any of this. There is a fabulous Facebook meme which says “God give me the stamina and persistence of the typo which made it through 45 rounds of edits!” I always have that in my mind when editing.
It’s funny. It’s also too true to be funny!
Conclusion
The joy of flash fiction collections is they are easy to dip into and are great for when you haven’t time or the inclination to read longer works. It’s my hope also they would encourage reluctant readers to tempt them into reading more of these and then, I hope, go on to read longer works too. I see these things as being a good way to kick start a reading habit.
I have long believed a healthy reading diet includes the shorter forms of fiction as well as non-fiction and novels. So I try to practice what I preach here. In between novels, when I am working out what I want to read next, a short story or flash fiction collection can work almost as an “appetiser” for my next long read and I love that.
The individual stories between them help me work out whether I want to read a crime novel or a historical fiction one next, yet another reason to read the collections.
In the meantime, it’s time to carry on preparing stories for what I hope will end up being my fourth collection and to start thinking about launches for my third. It is lovely being able to think about things like this again, especially given my last one was in 2020, the year we’d all prefer to forget.
Related Posts:-
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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