WRITING SHORT STORIES AND ARTICLES

ADELE RAMET
How To Books
paperback, £8:99
ISBN 1 85703 740 5

Review by Jean Currie

Adele Ramet has brought out a new edition of this book. She maintains that articles and short stories have things in common as well as differences. They both need to have a good hook, an end that ties up that beginning and a middle that connects the two. She then describes how to construct an article to ensure you keep to the point, lay it all out logically and write it to the required length.

The book is aimed at the British market but much of the content is applicable elsewhere. In discussing types of articles considered by editors, she gives an example of a magazine analysis sheet which lists the contents - celebrity interviews, health and beauty, motoring, reviews, readers' true life stories and letters etc. - together with number of words/pages and whether or not it is staff-written.

She points out that 'rewriting' doesn't only mean checking your first draft for errors and reducing to length, but also using the content to produce more articles in different styles for other markets. Something that started life as a 'fun piece' with cartoons could become a serious opinion piece or an informative newspaper article.

In the short story section, Adele gives guidelines for markets and themes to avoid. There are two main opportunities in the UK: the small press where payment is small, perhaps no more than an extra copy, and women's weeklies. Readers of the latter are now more likely to be single mothers or women with a job who have to fit in family and home around that, rather than those who have time to devote to cooking, house and family. Stories need to reflect this, with characters and backgrounds familiar to the readers.

Throughout the book there are checklists summarising the chapters and assignments, making it useful for those whose aim is to get more published.

It is available from How To Books, Customer Services Dept., Plymbridge Distributors Ltd., Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY or by email from orders@plymbridge.com