I’m not a very prolific writer of short stories. In the past five years, I’ve completed some thirty-odd shorts, including flash fiction. That’s in the ballpark of 15,000 words a year. Not a heck of a lot.

There’s a reason for that.

My mantra is: Don’t repeat yourself.

It’s a compulsion. Every single short story I write has to be very different from those I’ve already completed, whether in technique or genre. I want to learn something new from every piece I write. So I hop from traditional horror to avant-garde wordplay to crime to literary fiction, whatever feels interesting to me at the time.

This comes with a downside. If it looks like a story I’m planning will end up being too similar to an earlier piece, I lose interest in it and go back to the drawing board. I can’t even guess how many short stories I’ve started but then scrapped.

But why not? The short story, as a form, is perfect for experimentation.