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TINY BOOK, TINY TALES
‘My second book, 100neHundred – acollection of 100 x 100-word stories, took several years to write,’ writes subscriber Laura Besley.
‘From 2015 to the end of 2021, Morgen Bailey ran a free-to-enter themed 100-word story competition for up to three entries. I did this more or less every month and over time I amassed significantly more than a hundred.
‘In early 2021 I decided to put this collection together. First I had to choose which stories to include. Automatically added in were those which had placed in competitions or been published in journals, which made up about a quarter. The other 75 stories were the ones I thought the best of the rest. Then the hard work began: how to order them? I decided to group the 100 stories into four sections – Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer – thinking it would be easier for the reader, and easier for me too. I assigned each story three or four attributes based on theme, form or feeling, such as: historical, quirky, dialogue-heavy, relationship, happy, sad, motherhood. That allowed me to strike a good balance throughout each section.
‘By the end of February 2021 it was ready and I sent it to Arachne Press, a publisher I’d worked with before. To my delight it was accepted, but due to Covid-19 publication was delayed for the foreseeable future. In September 2021 I got the green light and that’s when the really hard work started: the editing.
About 25 stories were rejected from the manuscript, so in a fervour I set about writing new ones. It was a very intense, but thankfully productive, couple of months. There were also varying degrees of editing to be done on the remaining 75 stories, from the odd word to a more significant overhaul. And each story had to be exactly 100 words long.
‘Finally in May 2021 100neHundred was published.
The publisher organised an online launch event and a blog tour. It was a busy couple of weeks, but hugely enjoyable and I’m extremely happy to say that my tiny book of tiny tales has been very well-received.’