"You are not paid by the word, you are paying by the word" - I love that. I feel the same way about short films. I always wanted to start with a punch, in the middle of the '3rd' act, no time wasted. The best thing about short films/stories might be their constraints.
Sadly, I don’t remember encountering a short story that was exactly what I was looking for.
The ones that come to mind now are
- ‘Sun - 40 tales of the afterlife’ by David Eagleman for the bitesize thought experiments
- Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life’, ‘The truth of fact, the truth of feeling’ and ‘The Great Silence’
- Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Dog Star’
- the illustrated short stories of Jon Klassen, like ’We found a hat’ and his trilogy collab with Mac Barnett: Triangle, Square, Circle
- Shaun Tan’s work, both illustration and writing - so simple and profound, like nostalgia for something you never knew or a half remembered dream. I especially liked his ‘Tales from the Inner City’ and ‘Rules of summer’, which is only illustration.
I’d love to hear a list of recommendations from your readers.
"You are not paid by the word, you are paying by the word" - I love that. I feel the same way about short films. I always wanted to start with a punch, in the middle of the '3rd' act, no time wasted. The best thing about short films/stories might be their constraints.
Sadly, I don’t remember encountering a short story that was exactly what I was looking for.
The ones that come to mind now are
- ‘Sun - 40 tales of the afterlife’ by David Eagleman for the bitesize thought experiments
- Ted Chiang’s ‘Story of Your Life’, ‘The truth of fact, the truth of feeling’ and ‘The Great Silence’
- Arthur C Clarke’s ‘Dog Star’
- the illustrated short stories of Jon Klassen, like ’We found a hat’ and his trilogy collab with Mac Barnett: Triangle, Square, Circle
- Shaun Tan’s work, both illustration and writing - so simple and profound, like nostalgia for something you never knew or a half remembered dream. I especially liked his ‘Tales from the Inner City’ and ‘Rules of summer’, which is only illustration.
I’d love to hear a list of recommendations from your readers.