Historical short stories

I’m at the stage now that I have so many projects gong, nothing is getting finished. I’ve rewritten Best in Show, given it a new title but still need to do a covering letter and a synopsis before submitting to Birlinn. I’ll give it a try. If thye don’t bite,, I’ll do t myself – which will be another bee in my bonnet.

Drover is also rewritten but needs a new title and cover and it’s surprising how long that can take. It should be out in June but Murphy sometimes decides to intervene. Which reminds me of the O’Reilly stories in the short story page. The next episode would be his daughter’s baby. Maybe the widow he marries can become pregnant too and create conflict. I enjoy O’Reilly, things never go quite right for him.

I’ve tried writing episodes of longer works as short stories. It doesn’t work. It’s fairly obvious it belongs in something else and the characters have history. What I am wondering about is if it’s possible to do a historical short story, for example the attempted abduction of James V1, or the bombarding of Eilean Donan castle. I think I’ll give it a try. One idea was to do the Stuarts as a collection of impressions as Bonnie Prince Charlie’s grandson goes around Scotland, visiting the sites. Actually, it could be any tourist, a kind of travel book. Non-fiction. The trouble is, I really enjoy making the historical figures come alive by elaborating and doing faction. The short story of the butler looking for Joseph, to take him to Pharaoh was fun, and who didn’t enjoy Joseph as a musical.