How to Write Short Stories: Collections

A collection is a group of short stories from a single author gathered and curated into a full-length book and sequenced in such a way that the reader gains more from the experience as a whole. It’s like a music album, where there might be some bigger hits that the whole audience will enjoy, and then some more unusual pieces that true fans will love.

My first collection was A Thousand Fiendish Angels, three stories inspired by Dante’s Inferno and linked across three generations by a book made from human skin. However, it is too short to be a full-length book, which makes it hard to market, and it’s also very specific in terms of theme.

So, in September 2025, after more than a decade of writing short stories, I did a Kickstarter campaign for my first full-length collection, The Buried and the Drowned. It contains eleven short stories that take the reader from the volcanic shores of Iceland to the silent depths of the South Pacific, from the catacombs of history to the frontiers of genetic science. The stories explore the thin veil between our world and the next, between myth and reality, science and the supernatural, and they all share some aspect of the title theme.

Why publish a collection?

I’ll be honest with you: It’s not for the money!

The small market for short story collections also means that many traditional publishers won’t publish them unless the author is very well known with a big enough audience to make it worthwhile, so most collections are independently published.

Short story collections are usually only for super fans and it’s best to treat them that way, so go beyond just putting all the stories into one ebook and basic paperback.

My Kickstarter campaign for The Buried and the Drowned was primarily for a beautiful, signed hardback edition with green foil, sprayed edges, and custom end papers as well as photos of my research, a ribbon bookmark, and head and tail bands, which make the hardback even more long-lasting. The campaign also included the book in the usual ebook, paperback, large print, and audiobook editions, with the latter narrated by human me, rather than my voice clone.

Each story has its own author’s note, and there’s also a foreword and even a poem I wrote that underscores the theme. I am proud of the stories, and I am super proud of the beautiful physical book which I can hold in my hand and say, ‘I made this!’ Since many short stories are only published in digital form or maybe in a magazine or mixed anthology, it is worth doing a collection so you can celebrate your own body of work in print as much as anything else.

So how do you put together a collection?

Find the thread or the theme

A random group of stories can be disjointed to read, so you need to find the thread or the theme that links your work somehow, even if it’s only tangential. Your author voice will be the same regardless, but if you have a lot of stories, you may need to leave some out if they don’t fit the collection as a whole.

It’s also a good idea to consider writing some new stories once you’ve decided on the theme and the title, in order to give existing readers more of a reason to buy, and to deepen the theme even more.

I wrote two new stories: The Black Church, on the theme of the buried (and included here in appendix 3), and Between Two Breaths, which echoes the drowned elements. I opened the collection with those two and then ordered the following stories based on an intuitive sense of how a reader might enjoy them. I had the collection edited and I was open to changing the order based on feedback, but it went ahead as I designed it, with each story followed by its own author’s note.

If you’re struggling with the order, don’t agonise over it for too long. You don’t need an elaborate architecture. You just need to be deliberate about the arc of the whole. That said, as a reader, I myself never read a short story collection from front to back. I usually read the first story, but then I jump to whatever looks interesting.

A good example is AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan. Although there are two authors, the stories are written by Chen Qiufan and the essays on the inspiration and possible future are written by Kai-Fu Lee, so it is an original mix of fact and fiction on the theme of an AI-enabled future looking into the decades ahead. Browsing the table of contents allows a glimpse of possibilities from the impact of computer vision to artificial intelligence and consciousness, from brain computer interfaces to universal basic income. I chose to read the stories in the order of my interest in the fact behind the fiction, rather than the curated order of the authors.

So, consider your theme and your collection order, and then trust the reader to navigate their own reading journey.

Editing and production

It’s likely that your stories have been edited already, but the collection as a whole also needs at least a full read end-to-end by someone new, as you will be so close to the work that you can’t see it anymore. Some things only show up when you put the work together, whether that’s repeated passages across some author notes, or a bump in the flow between two pieces, or even a chance to strengthen a quiet echo or highlight a connecting theme if you want to re-edit some stories.

As I included two new stories in my collection, my editor did a mixed job with full edits in some sections and then more of a proofread on the rest, with comments on the order. You can find editors who specialise in short stories who might be able to help with a collection. Just be upfront about what you need and your timeline.

Your title and cover may also be a challenge since they need to reflect the stories as a whole, but again, keep in mind that this is likely to be a book for your fans rather than something you are pitching to unknown readers. Lean into your theme and what you love, and if you need help, there are tips in chapter 4.1 about how I used AI to help with my title.

For the practicalities of publishing, check out my book Successful Self-Publishing.

Questions:

• Why do you want to produce a collection?
• What’s the thread or the theme that links your stories? Could you leave some stories out and/or write some new ones to enhance the theme?
• Which stories will headline or anchor the collection, and which ones are deep cuts?
• How will you edit the collection?
• If this collection is for your super fans, what would make the physical book something they might treasure?

Resources:

• The Buried and the Drowned — J.F. Penn
• A Thousand Fiendish Angels — J.F. Penn
• AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future — Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan
• “Writing and Publishing Short Stories and Poetry with Joanna Penn and Orna Ross” — The Creative Penn podcast, September 2025: www.thecreativepenn.com/CollectionsHowTo
• Kickstarter for The Buried and the Drowned: www.kickstarter.com/projects/thecreativepenn/the-buried-and-the-drowned
• List of editors: www.TheCreativePenn.com/editors

The complete short story The Black Church and its author’s note are included in the ebook, paperback, large print, and audiobook editions of this book. You can also read the story and note free at JFPennBooks.com.