Melody Writes

Photo by Courtney Baucom on Unsplash     This year, I tried to shift my focus from novels to short stories and journal about them, with mixed results. I read more short stories, but fell off of the journaling. I found it was slowing me down, and if my journal wasn’t handy, I would put off reading the stories. Eventually, I decided to just enjoy the short stories as they came and not worry so much about journaling. That said, I do want to highlight ten of my favourite stories this year. I am limiting this selection to magazines, newsletters, and free online, not anthologies. This is also by no means an exhaustive list of my favourites, just ten that stayed with me. Listed roughly in the order I read them, I think. 1.  The Grit Born by Frances Ogamba - January 2024 - The Dark A lonely woman, Egoabia, learns about a company called Rebirth which will send special powder that can be moulded into a child. This story was unsettling the whole way through with a brillian...

  In high school English class, one of my teachers taught me that short stories are about single moments or one event/time in a character’s life, as opposed to a novel which covers a whole span. Before that, I struggled with the concept of a “short” story, but using that advice, I was able to write a story focused around one event and received one of my highest creative writing marks in high school. To this day, I keep that piece of advice in the back of my mind when I write short stories.  It may not be a perfect piece of advice, because of course stories, even short ones, consist of multiple moments and events, but the way I use it is to remind myself that short stories should focus on one major thing and not try to encompass too much. The idea being to keep the stories simple - at least in terms of plot or concept. Too often, I try to over complicate my short stories and have to rein myself in. I tend to want to have too many characters or too large of a setting. Like in my...

Before you read today's short story reflection post, you should read Ursula K. Leguin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and Isabel J. Kim's "Why Don't we Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole?" as this post has heavy spoilers for both. Plus both are brilliant.    Short Story Reflections: Omelas Sometimes a short story is a lovely little distraction, and other times it hits you so hard you have to sit back and recuperate. That is how I felt when I read Ursula K. Leguin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas". The message was simple and brilliantly crafted to leave the reader uncomfortable and reflecting on their own circumstances. Omelas is a seemingly perfect place where everyone is fed, content, and happy. Children have idyllic childhoods and adults never have to worry. When new people come, or children come of age, they are taught the truth: all of this happiness depends on the suffering of one child. This poor child is kept in a...