Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Short Stories Make Western Duets by Paty Jager



Not only is the reading public liking short stories but I've found I enjoy writing short stories. When I first started writing, I struggled to get enough words for the historical westerns I wrote. The first two had a lot of unnecessary scenes because I was trying to make them long enough. Eventually I learned about Goals, Motivation, and Conflict. Once those entered the equation, my books started filling out and becoming the proper length for novels.

Then along come Judith and Sarah asking me to be part of this group blog and eventually the Free Reads blog. The first couple of Free Reads I wrote for the blog went over the required word limit and I had to put the rest of the story on my own blog. Now, I'm better at coming up with and writing a short story.

And then what do I do? I am now adding/lengthening the Free Reads I've written for the Genre-ista blog and ones that I had as free reads on my blog or website and packaging them as Western Duets. Volume One came out earlier in the year with Shanghaied Heart and Last Stand for Love

Last week I released Volume Two: Heart of Gold and Fireworks and Fancies. Heart of Gold is a Valentine Story I started on the Genrista's free read blog and finished on my blog. It has been enhanced from the original story.  Fireworks and Fancies was a free read through Wild Rose Press and is a short story about a secondary character in my book Doctor in Petticoats.  The story was lengthened and more emotion was added. The original had to be a certain lenght. Now that I don't have any length restrictions, I can add in elements that were left out before due to the requirements.

Here is the blurb and cover for Western Duets- Volume Two

A novella with two short historical western romance stories

Heart of Gold
A mysterious valentine and a missing child bring school marm Jenny Wolcott and Sheriff Evan Carey together, however a father hell-bent on teaching the town and his young son a lesson threatens to keep them apart—forever.

Fireworks and Fancies
As a Judge’s daughter, Celeste Tarkiel is politically savvy, and more than slightly impressed with Representative Jeremiah Folsum. She’d tell him so, too, if he ever quit avoiding her.
The way Celeste flirts rankles Jeremiah. Yet, her keen mind and beauty holds his interest—perhaps too deeply. Especially, when he learns another man is prepared to ask for her hand in marriage.

Buy links: Kindle    Windtree Press  Nook  Kobo 

Award winning author Paty Jager is a member of national and local writing organizations. She not only writes the western lifestyle she lives it. With fifteen novels and several short stories published, she continues to have characters cavorting in her head . 

You can learn more about Paty at her blog; www.patyjager.blogspot.com  her website; http://www.patyjager.net or on Facebook; https://www.facebook.com/#!/paty.jager , Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1005334.Paty_Jager  and twitter;  @patyjag. 

6 comments:

Judith Ashley said...

Congratulations on your Western Duets! Heart of Gold is one of my favorites ... well, to be honest I love all the short stories up on Free Reads. May sales rocket!!!

Diana McCollum said...

Good luck on sales, Paty! I love the name Western Duets! The stories sound like fun reads.

Paty Jager said...

Thank you Judith and Diana! When I saw how many short stories I had I couldn't let them go to waste and came up with the idea. Someone else had already made use of New Dime Novels, so I went with the Western Duets.

Sarah Raplee said...

These are wonderful stories that will delight your readers! What a great idea!

Shobhan Bantwal said...

I hear short stories are once again becoming quite popular with publishers and readers, so I wish you lots of sales!

Paty Jager said...

Thanks Sarah, I hope they are well received.

Hi Shobhan! Thank you! I'm hoping I may have finally hit a trend.