Puzzle-Pieces: How to Create a Short Story Collection

When the movie "Dangerous Minds" came out, starring Michelle Pfeiffer, it made a big splash because it was based on the true story of a teacher who worked in less than idea circumstances. Similar tales had been put into cinematic glory before, but not in the same way or with the same conviction.

What few people realize was that not only was the movie based on a true story, but that the true story had been compiled into a book as a collection of short stories.

It's not so much that the collection of short stories was overwhelmingly popular - it wasn't - and it wasn't even that the collection formed a cohesive novel. In fact, the author prefaced her book with something to the effect that it wasn't in chronological order but rather as a series of recollections. She had simply, piece by piece, put together details of her students and her life as a rather unconventional teacher.

The literary world favors a novel. Many editors will not even consider short story collections. Dangerous Minds is not the only collection on the shelves, though - for authors in love with the short story, there is hope.

The Short Story Jigsaw

Author Paolo Corso published an amazing collection of short stories. This short story collection revolves around a dying mill town where Corso's Italian-American family found work. As a literary piece, the short story collection is beautifully written, cohesive and allowed readers to follow some really entertaining characters. When Corso began trying to sell the collection though, the most promising response received from an editor was: "We normally don't buy story collections, because they're harder sell than novels. Yours has the advantage of being thematically linked."

What Corso discovered was that the phrase "thematically linked" would sell a short story collection.

The trick to selling short stories as a collection, then, is to look at the short stories as a jigsaw puzzle. Each short story in your collection has to form a piece to the overall puzzle.