Mark Beasley

Mark Beasley is a British writer who has worked in marketing for many years. He lives in the Surrey Hills, on the fringes of London. Long Drive South - a collection of short stories - is his first work of fiction. He says:

"During my career, I have written or contributed to thousands of documents, presentations and reports - not to mention ads, brochures, websites and so on. It's been a good discipline. No-one ever asked for a document (or presentation. Or report) to be longer. That's one reason that I write short stories.This is the other:

First person at party: 'I'm writing a novel'

Second person at party: 'Really? Neither am I'

(Attributed to Peter Cook).

The stories in my book started life as ideas for novels, but are better (in my view) for being edited down to a much reduced word count. In my experience, inside too many good novels, thrillers and crime fiction, a great short story is struggling to escape from all the excess and often irrelevant verbiage.

In my opinion, the short story format is much under-rated. In today's time-poor world, we all have short attention spans and many competing media options. Short stories force the writer to get to the point, to cut out the filler and - ideally - to find an unexpected twist. The reader is able to read a story in one sitting, without having to remember the characters and plot. Fast food, possibly - but well-produced from high quality ingredients.

My aim is to entertain and amuse, using high standards of written English. Please let me know if I am succeeding."

www.markbeasley.net