#Short stories to write movie
#Short stories to write free

“This is how we play the game: pink means kissing red means tongue. “Girls, At Play” by Celeste Ng (Bellevue Literary Review) “Sweetness” by Toni MOrrison (The New Yorker)Ī prelude to Morrison’s book God Help the Child, this is the story of Bride’s mother, and her rationale for raising her daughter in a loveless home.

If you need help figuring out where to start with Zadie Smith’s books, check out our Reading Pathway guide to Zadie Smith. This was my first time reading Zadie Smith because I’d always heard mixed reviews, but if her longer fiction is anything like this short story, I’m in love. “The Embassy of Cambodia” by Zadie Smith (The New Yorker)Īfter you read “The Devil in America” read this story and see if you can find the parallels. Luckily, I own “ The Complete Cosmicomics“, so I can continue reading Calvino’s magnificent short story collection. A story about the people of Earth deciding to throw away the Moon. It’s either Zadie Smith’s “The Embassy of Cambodia” or this story that is my favorite on the list… I can’t decide. “The Daughters of the Moon” by Italo Calvino (The New Yorker)

#Short stories to write movie

I had no idea that the movie The Arrival was based on one of his short stories. I was shocked by how good and complex his writing was. Oh, you’ve never read Ted Chiang? Well, you must go out now and read this story and then read Stories of Your Life and Others and his new collection Exhalation: Stories, which comes out in May. And if you like this short story, Binti: The Complete Trilogy was released in February! “Exhalation” by Ted Chiang (Lightspeed Magazine) Okorafor is a wonderful storyteller, and if you’ve never read her books, this would be a great place to start. “Spider the Artist” by Nnedi Okorafor (Lightspeed Magazine) New York City is ready to be born, and must be led into the world by a reluctant midwife. Jemisin (Tor)Ĭities, once they are old enough, must be born. This ties present day police brutality towards African Americans to post-emancipation America and a family of freed slaves that are living with the Devil that followed them from Africa. I told you it was chilling! “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor) It takes twelve hours of torture before the prisoner dies. The machine inscribes the prisoner’s crime onto their body until they die (kind of sounds familiar if you’ve read the fifth Harry Potter book). A man known as the Traveller is visiting a foreign penal colony where he is shown a special machine used to execute prisoners.

If you’ve never read any of her work I would start here. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’ConnorĪnother story with an ending that you won’t forget anytime soon. This used to be my favorite short story, and I might only think that because I read it when I was a freshman in high school and I remember being shocked by the ending. If I’m interested in an author, but don’t necessarily want to read a whole book, I look to see if they have any short fiction available that I can read first. The stories on this list that are not from any of these publications, I found through simple Google searches.

#Short stories to write free

Tor of course has some great free stuff, and you can find most of the classics through Gutenberg. I also like Narrative Magazine, which will ask you for an email, but their stories are free too.

Like a music playlist I create to match a mood, I create short story playlists to break a book slump, or to sample a bunch of different authors’ writing.Īs to where to find great stories, The New Yorker stories are generally best, but require a subscription if you read too many in a month. (Editor’s note: this post was updated in August, 2021, with current links to all stories.) When I have no idea what to read, I find a bunch of free short stories online, save them onto the Pocket app, and read them as if I’ve compiled my own short story collection.