“You fundamentally do not understand the concept of brevity.” — my 6th grade English teacher, the first time I was asked to write a book report in my life.

I could tell you a story about literally anything. Keep you entertained until I literally died of thirst. But what I couldn’t do, Reader, was make a story short.

This is no real surprise to anyone who’s ever had a real conversation with me. Or a meeting.

I’m autistic. Something I didn’t “officially” know until 2020. But I always knew. Anyone who wasn’t completely blind probably could have figured it out.

I don’t have a concept of time passing unless I’m legit watching a clock.

I get hyper-fixated on what I’m working on and forget to do basic things. Like eat or drink until my throat is so dry it hurts to swallow.

My phone has to alert me that it’s bedtime. Otherwise, my husband will come down at quarter to 5 AM and still find me typing away on my MacBook on the couch with our cat snuggled beside me.

But in November 2022 I decided to challenge the limitations others had placed on me. And that I had then placed on myself.

Mainly, that I couldn’t write short things. An idea that had been firmly placed in my head by that English teacher back when I was 11. A teacher whose scathing commentary on my book report of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes had stuck with me since 1996.

(Seriously though, who says that to an 11-year-old?!)

So how did I challenge myself?

It started with my weekly Dark Fantasy Boys Love project They Come at Night which ran for 38 weeks. Then I wrote a few short stories I’m adapting for my story collections. Then there were a few more featuring my characters Ash and Night for Fantasmical 2023.

And then last year I was presented with the greatest challenge of all, the Fantasy and SciFi Writers Alliance’s short story contest and their 3rd prompt. The Prompt: Supernatural VS Humankind in 1,000-5,000 words.

And that was it. That was all I was given to work with. Tell a whole story in 5,000 words. I’d done it before but…only once.

I told myself I was doing it just for the challenge. Just to prove to myself that I could. I never expected to actually win.

But I did!

My story The Mirror of Avarice claimed 1st place in the Supernatural VS Humankind contest and earned a spot in the Versus anthology that released at the beginning of this year.

And I guess it just goes to show you…

We all have things we tell ourselves we can’t do.

Limitations we’ve placed on ourselves or let others place on us.

But what if you took those limitations, crumpled them up, and threw them in the trash? Or better yet—the recycler?

How much could you accomplish, Reader?

Could you write in that genre you adore reading?

Or maybe write that lengthy fantasy epic you’ve been dreaming of?

Or what about writing that sweeping romance across the stars between those two boys, like me?

You’ll never know until you take those walls others put up before you and smash them into little pieces.

Who knows, that thing that once seemed utterly impossible—say writing a short story—you might actually be good at.

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Well, I’ve got to get back to working on these short story collections, Reader. Until next time, this is your friendly neighborhood storytelling Kat wishing you a wonderfully creative week.

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Your cohort in storytelling,

Kat Vancil

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PS 👉 Fun Fact: Sadako Sasaki was a real person and her paper cranes have been donated by her family to places of significance around the world. One of which is the USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor which I visited in 2002 while competing with my high school’s concert choir.

(This is us on the deck of the WWII battleship Missouri in Pearl Harbor. I’m the redhead second from the left with the sunglasses on her head.)

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Footnotes: Stay motivated to finish your novel Caroline Donahue, MA I'm an American writer, writing coach, and podcaster living in Berlin. I've hosted the award-winning Secret Library podcast since 2016, am the author of Story Arcana: Tarot for Writers, and have helped dozens of students complete their novel drafts and revise their books with my courses Dream to Draft and Next Draft. Subscribe​

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