Comedy Shorts – Four Short Stories

And here she is – the author herself! Robin Storey! (Cue cheers and loud applause)

Lovely to have you on the show, Robin. Just a few questions on behalf of your fans. Did you come up with the idea for an anthology of comedy short stories and then write them?

Not at all. The stories were already written, but not doing anything much, just lounging around in the Short Stories folder on my computer, eating pizza and watching Netflix. So I decided it was time they earned their keep.

Why did you choose those particular stories?

They all have a common thread of an element of humour, albeit subtle humour for the most part. Two of them are crime, (Sleuthing for Beginners and A Girl’s Best Friend), one is fantasy (A Peaceful Death) and the other has a romantic subplot (The Muse). So I figured there was enough variety there to keep readers from being bored.

Sleuthing for Beginners and A Peaceful Death were short-listed in short story competitions, but had the sulks because their moment of glory was over before it even started. So to appease them I included them to give them some exposure.

What is it you enjoy about writing short stories?

Because most of my time now is spent on the marathon of writing novels, I love the sprinting exercise of writing short stories. It’s a refreshing change of pace to be able to see the ending as soon as you start writing. The discipline of short story writing is excellent training for novel writing – it teaches you to be economical and succinct in your word choice, to focus on the story at hand and not get side-tracked, and to write in such a way that readers can read between the lines without you having to spell things out.

Short stories are as much an exercise on what to leave out as to what to put in. It’s a real art that only comes with practice.

Will you be publishing more short stories in the future?

The short answer is yes. But I don’t know when. I have plenty of ideas for more – finding the time to write them is the challenge.

Thanks for coming on the show, Robin. I'm sure all our audience will be off now to snap up your book of stories - cheap at half the price! (Cue cheers and applause).