Do you write short fiction but long to s-t-r-e-t-c-h those tight little 55ers, flash pieces, and short stories into longer, publishable work? Do you have binders full of short pieces with characters you’d love to flesh out? Are you dying to tell the rest of these stories? If so,The Short and Long of Itis for you! Award-winning short fiction writer Paul Alan Fahey shows you how to expand and adapt your brief creations into longer, more satisfying stories, plays, novellas, and novels pitch perfect for publication in the e-age. This book will help you practice expanding your short fiction. Through detailed examples and hands-on exercises, you’ll learn how to: Adapt 55 fiction into flash fiction;Adapt flash fiction into short stories and plays;Adapt flash memoir into personal essays;Write a tight logline;Develop a story theme;Build three-act structure; andDevelop characters and enhance backstory.So grab a copy today and start writing longer stories tomorrow!

The Short and Long of It

The theme is the core, the heart, the moral, or center of your story and expresses some aspect of your worldview as a writer. Themes enrich characterization, deepen your story by adding subtext, and often suggest plot points and events.


Here are a few themes from my stories and novellas:


His Inamorata—You’ll never get away from me.


A Little Death—Pride goeth before a fall.


All I Want for Christmas—Timing is everything.


Kindred Spirit—The sins of the fathers are visited upon the children


For the first novella in my Lovers and Liarsgay wartime romance series, Bomber’s Moon, I chose “journeys end in lovers meeting” as its theme; you might remember this line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.


TIP: Favorite books, films, and familiar quotations are treasure troves of universal themes.


Chapter 15