Easy to say, hard to do
Guest post by MARK BURROW
With the Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025 being open for submissions until the end of June, I’ve invited some great proponents of the short story to offer their insights on the form.
Today’s guest post comes from Mark Burrow, whose story No Thief I greatly admired in Issue 1 of Frazzled Lit.
I realised the shorter format could do something special in the summer of ‘93. I’d bought Charles Bukowski’s collection, ‘The Most Beautiful Woman in Town,’ and I was floored by the pace and directness of Kid Stardust on the Porterhouse. This was what I’d craved—working class lives. Descriptions of manual labour. The take it or leave it humour. That mixture of pub chat and ragged poetry.
I fell victim to the Bukowski syndrome, foolishly attempting to write like him. I copied his stories line by line, hoping for the magic to rub off. I once went for a curry with mates and got so drunk I started trying to talk like Bukowski, putting on an American accent.
A low point.
And then there’s James Kelman’s collection, ‘Not Not While the Giro’… Blimey… Yes, he was largely talking about Scotland and, more specifically, Glasgow, but for me the lives he captured could be transposed to the estates, pubs and workplaces of where I’d grown up in South London. Rereading him today, I’m struck by the dignity of his working class characters. ‘Not Not…’ was and remains a proper thunderbolt of a book from a truly great writer.
I admire writers who tell simple stories about ordinary people with raw honesty—Frank O’Connor. Breece D’J Pancake. Laura Hird.
It’s easy to say. Hard to do.
I’m fifty-one and still finding my way. I generally like to keep the beginning and end of a story as close together as possible. I rarely use adjectives and tend to veer towards the show-don’t-tell approach. Everything for me is about characters driving a story forward. I’m not overly fussed by a killer opening line, but the best endings – for me – allow the story to continue in the reader’s mind. I’m not a fan of tricksy revelations or dramatic twists.
Still, you want to know who I’m jealous of at the moment? Jacko Pook. He has a banger of a tale called Digested in the Hunger anthology published by Urban Pigs Press. It’s about a young woman with an eating disorder who works in a fast food restaurant. It’s broken into small sections, similar to diary entries, except each part relates to the ticket for a food order:
171
Dble Cheese.B + Plain wings
Had my break without vomiting. World spins on a stomach, pedalled by the urge for food and sex and success. These are the components of all our diets… Chef Piotr loves this song. I want to pull my own ears off.
The clever structure and sardonic tone capture the narrator’s fragmenting character perfectly. I read an interview with Pook and he said it’s his first published short story. It’s a brilliant concept and a seriously good tale from someone with talent to burn.
As for tips and advice, all I can offer with confidence is this: adopting the accent of your favourite writer won’t improve your short stories.
If you want an exact formula for writing a popular story, I’ll point you in the direction of this four-minute’ish clip from the mighty Kurt Vonnegut:
Happy scribbling!
Mark Burrow has published a novella, Coo, which is about an alcoholic turning into a pigeon (Alien Buddha Press). His stories have appeared in titles that include Frazzled Lit, AEOS Magazine, Punk Noir Press, Underbelly Press, Hunger (Urban Pigs Press), and Slut Vomit II (Outcast Press). He lives in Brighton in the UK.
Feel free to drop a comment with your thoughts on this post!
The Frazzled Lit Short Story Award 2025, judged by Irish author Nuala O’Connor, is open for entries until June 30th, 2025.
Nice. Well said, Mark. Writers like Kelman, Bukowski, and Welsh showed me I could write in my own voice and gave me confidence to write in the lingo I knew.
Enjoyed that, now to read the story.
Love the Vonnegut video!