Milo James Fowler writes short fiction. I mean short. No, even shorter than that. He's really good at it and has published a great deal. I asked him to discuss this skill for brevity.
* * *
Small
Packages
I used to be verbose.
When I was a kid, I wrote 300-page novels and never felt the
need to revise. I was having way too much fun for that.
But revision is important. Cutting and polishing are very good
things.
So's a writing challenge every now and then.
When I started Write1Sub1
in 2011 to follow in Ray Bradbury's footsteps (writing and submitting a story a
week), I couldn't halt the ideas once I opened the floodgates. While I didn't
have time to flesh them all out into full-length tales, some were so evocative
that they stood well enough on their own, despite their brevity.
Once I discovered microfiction and sci-fi/horror-flavored
haiku, it was like the heavens opened and I saw into the glorious beyond.
Microfiction—6 word stories, Twitter fiction, 6 sentence stories, drabbles—became
a new creative outlet for me. I started jotting down mini-stories that could
later become full-fledged tales of their own, and I brainstormed other ideas in
a more poetic form through haiku.
Then I sent them out into the world in search of good homes.
Some of my favorite micro and haiku publications are Trapeze,
Scifaikuest, Cuento,
and 101 Ficton, and I've enjoyed
sharing my byte-sized tales with their readers. What writer doesn't like being
published?
But I also appreciate the challenge—particularly with drabbles
and haiku. 101 Fiction
publishes 100-word stories with 1-word titles. Cramming a Captain Quasar tale
into 100 words has been a lot of fun, and as far as haiku goes, I'm a stickler
for the 5-7-5 syllable count—not because it really matters anymore in English
language haiku, but because it provides me with a higher hurdle to cross. Next
month, I'll be the featured poet in the winter issue of Scifaikuest
with 11 of my haiku included in their print publication. I'm super stoked and
can't wait to get my contributor's copy in the mail.
Will all of my micro tales and haiku eventually become
full-length stories of their own? "Identity
Thief" started out as a haiku and became a short story available from
Musa Publishing. "Grandpa's
Bluetooth," published by Liquid
Imagination, started out as Twitter
fiction. Maybe the rest of my small packages will evolve in like manner;
maybe not.
I'm okay with that.
I don't have to be verbose all the time, after all.
But I can keep challenging myself to make every word count.
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You can learn more about Milo James Fowler on his website.
You can purchase Maikro, his collection of haiku and microfiction, on Amazon.
