I love short stories. I always have, horror especially. As much as I may love horror movies and novels, it’s usually images and lines from short stories that keep haunting me — Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, Bradbury’s The October Game, Lovecraft’s The Outsider …. I could go on and on.
It’s no real surprise, then, that I’ve spent most of my writing career creating short stories, many of them collected in the anthologies Counting From Ten and Slices.
Why do I love writing them so much? Elizabeth Twist asked me the same thing:
“What draws you to the short story as a form? As a writer of horror and dark fantasy, what are the advantages of writing shorts as opposed to novel length works?”
Horror is such a concentrated emotion that I think it works better in short, sharp shocks. You can take a relatively simple idea, a few clear images, and express them in a very direct way. I think the short story lets you take more risks — and puts your characters at more risk, as well. Novels rarely kill everyone. Whereas in a short story, you have no idea who’s safe, or if anyone is. Also, in a short story, it’s all right to leave the reader with questions, to not explain or explore all of its dark corners completely, which I think can create a wonderful sense of unease ….
If you’d like to try some of my fiction, here are some links to the individual stories I currently have online, including the latest free short story. (If the free story link has expired, check back on Friday — I try to have a free short story available every week.) Let me know what you think!
While you’re waiting patiently for the October 1st release date for PERMANENT DAMAGE, here’s another free story to tide you over. As always, please pass this link around to your friends, and if you like it, posting a short review would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Don’t have a Kindle? Get one here, or download a free Kindle reading app for your PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet!
Lullaby for Two VoicesSarah loves her two twins, bright and laughing Josh and dark and troubled Kyle, more than anything in the world — but the day that she will have to pay the price for their strange birth is coming ever closer …. Free from September 14, 2012 through September 16, 2012! Download now » This short story originally appeared in the collection “SLICES,” available now. |
 |
|
|
|
|
An unreliable narrator, MICHAEL MONTOURE ( montoure@bloodletters.com )
is an indie writer of horror and dark urban
fantasy. His
obsessions include hidden truths, secret dealings, and the changing and
fragile nature of our own pasts. He is known as much for his
spoken-word performances of his fiction at Seattle coffeehouses and
conventions as for the stories themselves. Currently working as a writer
and producer of the webseries Causality, he lives alone with
a gray cat by the edge of Echo Lake, Washington. ( Twitter / Facebook
/
Google+
)
|
“Slices,” the first independently published horror fiction anthology by Michael Montoure. Kindle version, $2.99. Print version, $12.99. 
|
 |
“Counting From Ten,” originally issued as a small-press antho by Michael Montoure, now in its Tenth Anniversary Edition. Kindle version, $2.99. Print version, $12.99.
|
 |
“Permanent Damage,” the new dark fantasy and horror anthology by Michael Montoure. Kindle version, $2.99. Print version, $12.99.
|
