ABSTRACT
Not everyone studying literature wants to do creative writing, and short fiction is only one kind among others. But creative writing has become an increasingly significant feature of literary studies and indeed the humanities in general. Even if you plan never to write short stories or produce any other sort of creative writing as long as you live, this chapter may nevertheless be of some interest. In particular, we hope that it might stimulate and provoke further thinking about the nature of fiction, its purposes and possibilities. Every writer has a different way of going about his or her business. What Bennett and Royle have to say about how to write a work of short fiction may be, at least in certain respects, quite different from what others might say. Take us, if you like, with a pinch of salt. What follows is a polemical A–Z for writing short fiction.
