286. Writing Short Stories to a Theme with Patrick Barb

Author and editor Patrick Barb tells listeners what goes into making a collection or anthology around a theme, how to assemble short stories thematically, and the dos and don'ts of writing to a theme.

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Visit Patrick's website:
http://patrickbarb.com/

Grab a copy of his short-story collection, The Children's Horror:
https://www.northernrepublic.co.uk/books/childrenshorror/

Check out Patrick's anthology recommendations:
Howls From the Dark Ages: https://a.co/d/ja4F9E8
Collage Macabre: https://collagemacabre.com/

Transcript

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Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Have you ever considered writing a themed short story collection or perhaps pitching one of your stories to have it included in a themed anthology? Patrick Barb is here to help answer how you can do this and other questions. He'll be providing us with his expert guidance on how to write to a theme and how to also edit and assemble a collection of short stories around it. This is, "Writing Short Stories to a Theme."

Jennia: Well, it is such a pleasure to have you here!

Patrick Barb: Thank you. I'm happy to be here! I'm happy to talk a little bit about these theme story collections and anthologies.

Jennia: Great. Well, would you like to start by telling us a little bit about you and what you write?

Patrick Barb: Sure. I'm Patrick Barb, as Jennia has said, I am a writer of weird, spooky, and dark things. Short stories, novellas, short story collections. My most recent collection was The Children's Horror: First Episodes for Doomed Adults from Northern Republic Press. And that is a themed collection based on children's TV shows of horror and weird fiction. I've also published another collection called Pre-Approved for Haunting, and the novellas, Gargantuana's Ghost, Turn, and the novelette, Helicopter Parenting in the Age of Drone Warfare.

Jennia: I feel like that one should be an impulse buy just based on the title.

Patrick Barb: A lot of people seem to dig the title. I was—you know, one of those moments where, as a writer, when you're like, "I think I've got a good title for this." And so far it seems to be working.

Jennia: Well, I think that's just proof that it works. And I've heard about some authors who do that. They'll start with a title and then go from there, which feels a little bit like writing to theme.

Patrick Barb: Yeah. You know, and I try to... I think the title is so important in any sort of writing you're doing, but especially in fiction and short stories, in particular. Like, if you can get the right title, that's as important as the first sentence in terms of, like, hooking the reader and bringing them in to the story.

Jennia: I completely agree. And that actually is jumping ahead a little bit to a question I had, which was, how do you come up with a title? So if we want to start with that more macro view, we can start with the title first. And then how do you pick a title that's going to encompass all these stories without maybe relying too much on alluding to only one of them?

Patrick Barb: That's a great question, because I, you know, with The Children's Horror, that collection, the title is—It's also the title of the opening story, which is kind of a frame story in the narrative of the collection. But I also wanted something that spoke to, what is this about? And I hope it gets to the theme in a way that is very direct. It's children's things, and it's hard. So you know what you're getting into. The one question that came up when I was working with my publisher on the name of the collection was, are we worried that people are going to think that this is a collection of stories for children?

Jennia: Ahh.

Patrick Barb: —It's very much not. The content is more adult, so to speak. And so that is where "The Cursed Episodes for Doomed Adults" part came from, because that was able to get a little bit more of the thematic elements and the tone as well. These are sort of twisted versions of popular—Any parents out there will recognize some of the, "Maybe kind of, like Pokémon, but not quite. Or kind of like Paw Patrol, but not quite" sort of stories and the inspirations for them. So "the cursed episodes" and the "doomed adults" lets you know, this is for adults. This is for grownups. Don't let your kids pick this off the shelf unless you want to pay for therapy down the road. Hopefully not. So, you know, that's what we were looking for. Just something that encompasses what the theme is and is also evocative in a way. It'll draw the reader in, and you want to know more. Hopefully this works in this case.

Jennia: I'm glad that you brought up the use of a subtitle, too, because that's something that we do see used pretty often. But it also just helps sharpen who that audience is and make it clear to them. Because I'm sure we've all heard horror stories about someone who sold their book to someone who maybe really wasn't part of their audience, and then the backlash they received, whether that's an angry email or a low-star review, and it's not necessarily because it was a bad story or bad writing or any other list of things that can go wrong, but it's just that that person really wasn't in their audience. And so, yeah, the importance of the title and then in your case, also the subtitle.

Patrick Barb: Yeah. And, you know, I worked in publishing for 13 years before going freelance and focusing more on my writing and in the role of an editor, where I was acquiring and developing book titles. And what you learn is how much copy matters. Thinking about, like, what are the first 25 words in an Amazon description? And how you really need to think about how you're describing the work that you're sharing with people. And so I think that really helps, and I think it's a good exercise for writers in general, is to just think about, if you have a title, a subtitle, and then the first 25 words to describe your book, and that's it. What are the words that people are going to be searching for? What are the words that are going to really encapsulate what the book is about? And so that often is something that I'll do when I'm writing copy or pitching something—pitching something to a publisher, let's say. Or even just describing it to audience, like, just trying to get readers to come to the project. It's just thinking about getting it into that shorter space. And how do you describe it.

Jennia: Which is really what we're doing with the short stories too. How do we take this maybe grand concept or idea and then cram it into the shorter word count without losing anything?

Patrick Barb: Yeah, you know, exactly. I think when you get a short story anthology call, or, you know, you're putting together a collection. And in this case, I just had this idea of wanting to do these sort of horror stories based on kids TV The reason why was because I, during the sort of height of the pandemic, when I was home with my kids—who at the time were four and one, one and a half—and just home with them watching TV all the time, they're watching kids' shows and getting entertained that way, thinking about, "Okay, well, what if these were, like, for me? What if this was something that I would enjoy?" And that's kind of where that came from, was wanting to use that theme. So every story selection became, okay, "How can I cover that idea, but in a different way?" And collection is much harder, I think, than a themed collection, because you're one author you don't want to repeat yourself, right?

Jennia: Yeah, exactly!

Patrick Barb: —Whereas in anthology, you are one author who is submitting among many. And then it falls to the editor, I think, to make sure that they're not getting the same types of stories or the same sort of beats. It's just a fun, creative exercise, no matter what side of the table you're on—

Jennia: Mhm.

Patrick Barb: —because there are a lot of options. And what you'll find if you are putting together a collection or putting together an anthology is that there are so many different ways that you can approach a theme while still being true to it.

Jennia: Talking about approaching a theme. How do you do that differently when you are a writer compared to when you're the editor for one of these collections?

Patrick Barb: That's  great great question, because I think as a writer I want to tell the best story possible. And I'm focused more on the micro, the small unit, which is the short story—

Jennia: Mhm.

Patrick Barb: And so when I looking at a theme for an anthology, not only am I thinking, okay, what's the story that I can tell that is a werewolf story, let's say? Or like, you know, what's the story that I want to tell that fits the parameters? But then there's also the second consideration, I think, that writers make, which is, how can I tell tell the best Patrick Barb story? Like, how can I write a story that is true to my themes that I write in and things like that? And so then it becomes a question of, okay, where's the overlap? Another thing I look at as a writer is you don't necessarily want to have the first idea be the one that you use for a themed anthology. Because a lot of times you are going to get people who are doing that exact idea. A lot of people are going to have the same idea. So then it becomes a question of, okay, what's the second or third idea I have? What's the way I can do this differently? How can I twist this in a way that is unique? Whereas as an editor, you are making those considerations, but you're also thinking about, okay, what do people expect to see in this collection? Like, if you're going to have a werewolf anthology, you better have some werewolf stories. In this werewolf anthology, you better have some fur and some claws—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes.

Patrick Barb: You're going to have a full moon. You need to have it. I know it's cliche, but you need to have it somewhere. Now, can it be presented in a way where it's, like the moon itself is a werewolf? I don't know if that's a weird, you know, who knows? (laughs). But, like, there's something that you can do that's meeting expectations but also turning them in a different direction—

Jennia: Oh yeah.

Patrick Barb: —I think. That is often what you're looking for as an editor is hitting the right beats with the story selection. And then you add on sort of the pacing of the stories, the order of the stories. The same goes for when you're putting together a collection, right? You want to think about, okay, what do we start with? What's that opening story that people are going to read in your collection or the anthology you're putting together? And then, okay, what's the second story? The second story is that moment where you tell people, "Okay, the first story wasn't a fluke. I know what I'm doing. Hopefully. Stick with us." And then you want to figure out through there to the end, what's that last story that people are going to read if they're reading from beginning to end and they're going to say, "Wow, that was great. That was a fantastic experience from page one to page 200" or whatever it is?

Jennia: When you're choosing the first story for one of these story collections, and again, whether as the writer or the editor, what are some things that you think it's integral to keep in mind? How do you set that scene and the tone for the reader without just rehashing the sort of same old, same old thing?

Patrick Barb: I think you really want to establish the kind of tone, first and foremost. More so than maybe the character beats or the kind of plot beats that people expect. So, for example, with my collection of Children's Horror, it starts out with this frame story, which is set in an elementary school, and you've got some weird things with kids and some body horror, but also just some general sort of strangeness. Which I think really kind of gets to the types of horror that are included in the stories in the collection. There's some gross out stuff, but there's also some weird psychological stuff. There's some, like, cosmic horror. So it lets people know, okay, this has all these types of horror in this weird fiction, weird horror collection. And once that's established, then you can kind of go into slice of a slice with the different stories. And, "This is more of a quiet story. This is more of a loud, bombastic story." With an anthology, you know, it's a little bit different because it's not maybe necessarily—you know, you're not having an opening story, so to speak. In the case of the collection, had an opening story. But with an anthology, you might have, you know, what is the quote unquote "best" story?

Jennia: Ohh.

Patrick Barb: You know, I think putting together an anthology—I'm actually working on editing an anthology right now—

Jennia: How timely (laughs).

Patrick Barb: —Yeah, it's called, And One Day We Will Die. And it's strange stories inspired by the music of Neutral Milk Hotel, this indie rock, folk, psychedelic band. It was in the 90s and the 2000s. And the stories cover everything from horror to science fiction to fantasy to kind of alternate history. There's a lot of different genre, subgenres that are being tackled there. And all the stories are great. I don't like to pick favorites among my story children, but you also want to come out with something that is the clearest connection, I think, to the theme. And so there's a story that starts out this anthology... You can feel the music behind it, right?

Jennia: Ohh, love that.

Patrick Barb: —You can feel the music of the band inspiring the story. And it also ends that way as well. A story that is rooted in music. It is not about Neutral Milk Hotel, the band, but the story has a band in it. And I thought, you know, having those as bookends, thinking of it that way, was a good way to kind of open and close this anthology. You know, whether or not I succeed, we'll find out when the book comes out in November. But that was kind of where I started from.

Jennia: I love the idea of bookends because that's even something that we see given a lot as writing advice for opening and closing a book as a whole. Not just a short story collection, but any book. You know, that referencing back in some way that is new to what was opened with. So it only makes sense when you explain it like that. And as soon as you said it, I thought, "Oh, well, how reasonable." That's just very logical.

Patrick Barb: Yeah. I mean, as I've sort of worked on these longer projects and short story collections and anthologies now, from the editorial side of things, you really start to think about the short story is one unit, right?

Jennia: Mhm.

Patrick Barb: —And then the collection is its own thing. So when I'm putting together a collection, I've said this before, but I think there are some stories that can only exist in a collection. By which, I mean, I've had stories that I've tried to sell to other markets. I've had stories that I've tried to get in other anthologies or get in to online magazines, and things like that, that just haven't sold, for whatever reason. And I still have faith in these stories. And then I find that they work best in a collection because you have the context of everything that has come before in the collection—

Jennia: Oh, interesting.

Patrick Barb: —Somebody can read the other stories and say, "Okay, I see thematically what he's going for here," what their aim is. And then I've had stories like that have received positive feedback and reviews and things like that, and I was, like, "Well, where was this, you know, six months ago, two years ago, when I was trying to sell this story?" But that is just part of it. Sometimes stories need to exist as a part of a whole.

Jennia: That kind of reminds me of window dressing or one of those elaborate displays you see in a store where you might hone in on something and think, "Wow, I really love this tchotchke," or whatever it is. But as soon as you take it home, it just looks bland and boring and out of place. That you need everything else surrounding it a really prop it up and give it that context.

Patrick Barb: Exactly. That's a perfect metaphor for it.

Jennia: Well, I'm glad I just thought of it then (laughs).

Patrick Barb: Cheers!

Jennia: So when you're thinking of a theme, how do you avoid either going too narrow or too broad? And how can you identify when this happens?

Patrick Barb: Yeah, I think, you know, when you're talking about a theme for a collection or an anthology, you want something that isn't going to either narrow yourself as an author or narrow the authors that you're working with if you're in an editorial position. I mean, there are instances where people have a very specific theme. I think an example of a recent bizarro, weird collect—anthology that came out that was all stories about Nicolas Cage. And that's so very specific. But he's also a very eclectic actor, so I think

Jennia: Yes (laughs).

Patrick Barb: —there's a lot of room to work with. And there is a challenge. There is something to be said for, like, having a very narrow theme.

Jennia: Mhm.

Patrick Barb: But you are going into that project limiting how many people you're going to get submissions from. You're limiting how much variety you can get out of it. I think, you know, a great writer can take a small theme and come up with ten different stories. At the same time, I do feel like there are some times anthologies that go too broad. And it just depends, like, there's like, ghosts. Okay, that's a lot of ways you can go with it, and there's a lot of choices you can make. The range is such that you have to really decide what's my focus in terms of, like, the tone of the stories? Like, is this a YA collection? Is this a, you know, is this more for adults? Is this weird? Is this extreme horror? What have you? Like, you're trying to figure out, like, what that focus is. You have to narrow it down some way.

Jennia: I think it would also be harder to market something with a broader theme just because it's also now on you to show how you stand out from—like you were saying—there are so many anthologies that cover x, y or z—

Patrick Barb: Mhm.

Jennia: —and I'm even thinking about romance. You know, we niche down all the time. So instead of just saying it's an anthology of romance stories, well, maybe it's an anthology of historic romance stories that take place at Christmas. You know, you have to stand out in some way and show what makes you different. And I just feel like if you try to apply this really broad theme, it might be really hard to then find your audience and again appeal to them in a way that feels like this is something new.

Patrick Barb: Absolutely. I mean, it just—There's so much, and so you need to find a way to stand out, and the way you stand out is to have something unqiue and have a unique perspective, and then also back it up with quality material. Good stories. If you're putting together an anthology, good authors, names that people recognize, but also some new names. I liked hearing from new voices. I loved, you know—working on this anthology right now—getting to select stories from authors that I had never heard of was such a great experience because you're getting new voices. And the authors that we invited, I know what to expect from them, and they knocked it out of the park. But when you don't know who the author is and you read their work and you see, okay, this is a great new take on this theme that I've presented to them... It's such a wonderful feeling, right? It's like you're bringing in something new, and if it's new to you, it's likely going to be new to the readers as well.

Jennia: Ohh, good point. Yeah... Well, how obvious do you think the theme should be to the reader? Should they be able to pick up on it immediately in every story? Or do you think it's okay to make them work for it a little bit to see how it's present?

Patrick Barb: I like making them work for it a little bit. I do think that there—you know, when you're putting together a collection or an anthology, there are opportunities to get across what the collection or anthology is about. We talked about this. The title. The copy that you're writing. Maybe you have a foreword by an author that works in this space or somebody who writes similar types of stories, but maybe didn't have time to necessarily contribute a story to the anthology. And then I do think the first story, as we said, needs to kind of hit the theme pretty directly. In the case of my collection, I have this story that is, after you get through the frame story, there's a story that's very much Pokemon inspired, let's say. And it hits a lot of the character names, but twists them in a way that won't get me sued, hopefully. And I wanted that story to start off because I wanted people to say, "Okay, I get the connection. I get the one to one."

Jennia: Uh huh. Yeah.

Patrick Barb: —But then as you move on and you're in the middle of your collection or your anthology, I feel like that's the time when you can play around with things a little bit. There is your—if your audience has gotten that far to the middle of the book, they trust you now, and you can do things that are a little different—

Jennia: Mhm.

Patrick Barb: —You can maybe do a kind of horror-romancey type of thing as your twist on the My Little Pony story or something like that. You know, once you have that trust, you can do a lot.

Jennia: That ties in so well with earlier comments in the conversation about choosing the story order and even how that will impact the flow of one story to the next. So what I'm hearing is, if you want to be experimental or a little bit avant garde with your stories, wait until the middle.

Patrick Barb: Yeah, well, you know, you can start with it, but you're making a very bold move there, and it can be alienating. And I, you know—writers talk about not reading reviews, but we all take a look at them from time to time. We all sort of see what people are saying. And I think there are some times when people will get a book if they're not familiar with your work or, you know, they're coming to it fresh. And if you have something that is very bold, you're going to—maybe somebody's going to love it. You know, there's a good chance somebody's going to love it. There's also a great chance somebody's going to hate it. And my thing is, I want as many people to read my books as possible that are open to it—

Jennia: Mmm.

Patrick Barb: —And I also don't want to alienate people, so I want to kind of give them this experience of saying, "Oh, okay, here's something a little familiar for you. If you like this, well, wait till you see what's up ahead because it's going to get crazier, it's going to get weirder," and then go from there. And then kind of leave them on a story that is going to make them feel like, "Okay, I've read this full collection or anthology, and I've had a great experience with it." That's where I'm looking at when I'm putting together the order of the stories. So there's a lot of—there's just a lot of little elements that go into place, and you're trying to put that mixtape together in just the right order.

Jennia: I think twist on theme is another important conversation to bring up just really quickly, especially for those who are writing their own short story collection versus contributing to an anthology. And that is, how do they make sure that while they're fitting each of these stories to a theme, that they're not going back to the same twists or even the same general concept over and over? Because I could see that happening, especially because, again, if you maybe have limited yourself and let's say you're writing about only Nicolas Cage and you've decided to only write about Nicolas Cage's personal life (laughs). You know, I could see that happening where you just become stuck.

Patrick Barb: Yeah. When I'm writing a collection versus editing an anthology or, like, being somebody who's submitting to an anthology, you do have to, like, consider, what angle am I taking to the theme? You know, how am I doing something different? And I think that also comes from just being aware of the rest of the table of contents.

Jennia: Mmm.

Patrick Barb: —So, like, once you've written a couple stories, you know what those stories are. You can now say, "All right, I'm going to set aside all the stories where the werewolves are in the swamp," or something like that, and "Now it's going to be stories about werewolves in the city," or something like that. You are aware of what has come before. Nobody is putting together a collection in a vacuum (laughs) unless something really horrible has happened and you have just no short-term memory and you just lose whatever the last story was, you forget about it. You're going to know what they are, you're going to remember, and you're going to be able to kind of shape it that way. And again, it's about shaping that reading experience. So not only is it [a] twist on theme, but I think mood and tone are so important as well. So if you have a bunch of sad stories, not necessarily need to mix it up with a happy story, but something that is a little bit different in terms of, like, maybe it is a happier ending, let's say—

Jennia: Just throw in some good old ennui (laughs).

Patrick Barb: Yeah, that's—or melancholy, or something like that. Those are different ways to kind of shape it. It's not just the theme, it's how it's handled. And also things like first person versus third person perspective, past tense, present tense. There are a lot of different ways and very kind of, like, granular elements that you can say, "This is a first person story. I'm going to follow it up with a third person story because that's going to be a different reading experience."

Jennia: I love that you said that, because I really think that makes it feel a lot easier, even to the author just knowing that they don't have to come up with this giant, huge, like, 180 from what they've been doing. That it could be as simple as something like using a different setting or changing the POV.

Patrick Barb: Yeah, I mean, those are really simple things. Sometimes you just need a good take on the theme. That's simple as that. I mean, it's simple to say, harder to do.

Jennia: Yeah. Well, it's still wonderful advice... Well, before we end, are there any themed short story collections that you would recommend to listeners if they're looking for one to pick up?

Patrick Barb: Yeah, there's actually a couple that I would recommend. First one is one that I'm in, so I'll—you know, full disclosure there—

Jennia: (laughs) Hey, go for it.

Patrick Barb: Howls From the Dark Ages. It's from the online writing community, the Howl Society, and it is a themed anthology. They do one every year. In this case, it was all medieval horror. So it's a little mix of dark fantasy and alternate timelines and horror. That's one I'd recommend. Another one is Collage Macabre, which is one came out, I think, last year. It is all art horror. So for all those art students or wannabe art majors out there, these are all sort of twists on art and horror. And that is a great collection, I think, because you think about, like, making art and horror, and then it has stories that are about acting, painting—obviously—statues, graffiti. They take it in so many different directions and so many different kinds of art, ways of theater, just different ways to define art. And I love that not only are the choices of art different in this anthology, but it's also the types of horror. There are some body horror, there is some weird horror, there's cosmic horror. There's just all different types. So I think those two collections really stand out to me as being ones that are kind of exemplary of writing to a theme and coming up with different ways to handle that theme, essentially.

Jennia: Well, thank you! And I'll make sure that we have both of those linked in the show notes.

Patrick Barb: Fantastic!

Jennia: Thanks again!

Jennia: Well, thank you for listening. And please be sure to check out the show notes for additional information, including the links to those books that we just mentioned. And then please join me next week when Angela Yuriko Smith will be visiting. And she's going to be defining the word "authortunist" as well as giving us tips on how you can be one. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave a rating or review wherever you download or listen. Thanks again!