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Manisha's avatar

I have had a short story titled, “The day after ‘and they lived happily ever after’” noodling in my brain for a few years. Maybe today is the day I WITD with it. Thank you for the inspiration.

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Emilia's avatar

That sounds like a good title and story start. I'd read the story if I saw it in a magazine or collection.

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Harvey Stanbrough's avatar

Exactly how I felt.

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Emilia's avatar

The provotically strange stories have been my favorites so far :)

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Emilia's avatar

“short stories have a happy (for now) ending.”

I was thinking about two stories I thought were short, but need a novella length to be told properly. In the first one the characters meet in prison, fall in love, and escape.

The second one is after the meetcute and prison escape. The two characters are figuring out how to fit their lives together. They're very much in love so that isn't a problem, but they talk past each other, assume things, and learn new details about each others pasts.

The characters are also antagonists in a fantasy caper series set here in Finland. So the novellas are also backstory and help me write the characters better. It's more fun than a character sketch and serves the same purpose.

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Harvey Stanbrough's avatar

"It's more fun than a character sketch and serves the same purpose."

Absolutely. It's always better to learn about the characters on their own terms (just as we do with new people we meet) rather than forcing anything on them and "deciding" who they should be, how they should act, etc.

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