Why Short Stories?

So, as you can probably tell if you’ve perused my website a little bit, I like writing short stories. I have more of them out right now than I do novels. (Another one releases in a few days)…

But anyway, I wanted to formally put out to the public what these stories are supposed to be. Or at least try to explain the logic behind them.

So, after I wrote Eyes of The Grave, my novel, a consistant comment I kept getting on Twitter was that people wanted to know more about the slightly mysterious and cruel uncle Viktor mentioned in the story. And that caused an issue for me, because as the series progresses we will get a tiny bit more on Viktor but probably not the answers my readers kept asking for. Which in turn made me what to fix what felt like a plot hole.

Viktor is after all a serious character in the history of The Devereaux Witches, despite being dead in Eyes of The Geave. He has his own very harrowing story to explain why he did what he did, but thats all shoved down deep inside my head. Just like 100 other life stories of Witches I never planned on writing about.

But people wanted more Viktor, so I thought about it and thought about it and thought about untill I realized a short story was the only way to get it out. I didnt have enough time or umph to write him his own novel, so I chose a short piece that would explain one of the more powerful moments in his life and give us a little insight on another project Ive got brewing in the background.

And thus Curse of The Crow was born.

But after Curse, I started hearing about other characters. Like Poppet, and I knew Poppet had one hell of a story too, and I wanted to write it but how could I write it without giving too much away that would ruin Eyes of The Grave? So I thought about it and…thought about it…untill I got into a Buffy discussion with someone and I remebered the mummy’s hand deja vu episode. And it hit me. What a great way to introduce Poppet’s world, her best friend, and the magic of my world.

And so came Déjà Vu.

And an addiction to writitng short pieces that I could use to build my world and tell all the side stories I had buzzing in my ears.

Smoke is probably one I shouldn’t have published. It doesn’t spoil anything for the series but it comes soooooo close it makes me anxious. But I wrote it and it was too much fun not share.

Now the latest one coming out in a few days has ZERO Spoilers. Because it in fact centers around a brand new Devereaux mentioned once by name in Eyes of the Grave. Eden.

Which, funny story, Eden wasnt originally planned. She was born out of me forgetting to edit out the name drop in Eyes of the Grave. The Eden mentioned was actually meant to refer to the main character of my current WIP. But I forgot and then changed that character’s name.

Someone suggested that I go back and edit it out, but instead my brain decided that Eden existed. So now she does and she is just as weird and powerful as her cousins. But you’ll have to read it and find out why!