“A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.”-Edgar Allan Poe
What are your thoughts, fellow short story writers?
Is your philosophy at odds with Poe’s?
Let me know in the comments!
“A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.”-Edgar Allan Poe
What are your thoughts, fellow short story writers?
Is your philosophy at odds with Poe’s?
Let me know in the comments!
This gallery contains 11 photos.
Here’s an excerpt from my seasonally-appropriate short story, Beyond the Boneyard Gate. It is featured in the October issue of The Paperbook Collective.
“I open them on the inhale. Smoke laps against my prickly face. A bright orange dot glows from the statue like a pulsating beacon, growing and then receding with each pull of breath. His breath. Moonlight glances off of a face whose features are re-forming before me, as stone becomes flesh and sinew. I pant, voiceless, and do not scream again.”
The Premature Burial by Harry Clarke, 1919.
“THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.”-The Premature Burial, Edgar Allan Poe
Ligeia by Harry Clarke, 1919.
“I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia.”-Ligeia, Edgar Allan Poe
The Black Cat by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894-1895.
“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief.”-The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe
The Cask of Amontillado by Harry Clarke, 1919.
“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”-The Cask of Amontillado, Edgar Allan Poe
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Cover illustration by Gustav Doré, 1884.
“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary”-The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe
The Fall of the House of Usher illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, 1894-1895.
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singular dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher.”-The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Allan Poe
The Tell-Tale Heart by Harry Clarke. From Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe, 1919.
“True!-nervous-very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”-The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe