A Novel Idea: The Short Story

Launching a banner week

What a difference between writing a novel and a short story!

As many of you know, I am a long-form writer. I have been accused of hating white space, figuring that I must have missed something if there are yet three blank lines on the page. I have managed to curb my Tolkien-like desire to write this sentence:

Darcy and Elizabeth fled into the woods and sheltered beneath an ancient oak, long twisting branches stretching taloned fingers skyward, snatching the sun’s rays before they could reach and warm the forest’s loamy floor. (34 words)

Rather than:

Darcy and Elizabeth fled into the forest’s dark reaches. (9 words)

The latter sentence tells you what they did and where they hid, while the former sentence immerses you in the feeling of their hideaway. The shorter sentence may serve modern sensibilities to get to the point. The longer one, however, explains what entering Mirkwood might mean.

Writing in the long form is a luxury. While a novel is defined as a book of over 50,000 words, my work leans more toward Austen’s cardinal 124,000 for Pride and Prejudice. Emma is a monster at 163,000. Rest easy, dear friends. The Lady paled by comparison with Victor Hugo. Les Misérables weighed 568,751 words, beating War and Peace by 1,000!

For me, a novel is designed to transport readers into a universe where they exist, albeit unseen, alongside the characters, running over the beach when they do, hiding in fear at the same time, spinning across a chalk-design covered dance floor, or exulting in the sentiments of newfound love. That takes words and description, anathema in the publishing world, where (unless you are already an established best-seller) it seeks a 90,000-word cap—a relic from hardcopy publishing days. So, another advantage of self-publishing

I see writing a novel (or even a healthy novella) akin to a bricklayer building a house—laying foundations, squaring the layers, scooping and carefully using the right amount of mortar, and framing windows. By the end, the roofers and carpenters arrive to build the trusses and lay the boards for the roofers. With the slates laid, the house is finished.

That does not excuse flabby or repetitive writing. How often have we seen the same explanation of something forty pages after the first time it was mentioned? Understanding how to avoid pitfalls is part of a writer’s craft; the ability to sense flow and meter, while reserving the right to make up words or gently bend reality.

A good novel assumes the reader knows something about what you write, not everything. They may have seen a spy movie or read a thriller. They are familiar with the forms (why do the teenagers always run and hide in the barn?). The author takes that foundation and builds a new story, speaking their truth.

A short story—under 10,000 words—must assume the reader knows everything in the background, or at least enough so the new tale can be told without substantial exposition. Returning to the house I described, rather than building it, in a short story, the reader approaches the finished structure and peers through a window to observe the tale.

I recently published a short story—about 4,700 words—that forced me to toss away many of my predilections to expose readers to the air, smell, and sound of the world through which the characters walk. They know the Canon and the world of Austenesque fiction. Even then, I had to avoid dropping them into the unknown. I had to give my readers the clues they needed to understand Jane Austen’s final destination in The Last Gift.

Miss Dashwood—she is that because she is on the Longbourn side of Oakham Mount—becomes the amanuensis explaining the reason Jane’s Austenesque universe exists: solipsism.

Elinor’s hand slid across the seat to capture Jane’s. “The answer is as simple as it is astounding.

“This is a world filled with your creations. It exists because you imagined it and wrote it.

“ ’Tis a gift the Old One gives to every author, that the fruits of their labors take form and flight in a universe all their own.”

Her blue-gray eyes bored into Jane’s brown. “This all rises from Herr Kant’s philosophy of solipsismus—solipsism—the idea that a person living it defines their reality.

“A crusty American author—I will not grace him with the appellation of gentleman, although he was a naval officer—named Robert Heinlein gave it literary meaning. He called it World as Myth, which argues that writing fiction creates a universe where that story is reality.[i]

“Thus, Jane, this place found life because you wrote it.”

As an Austenesque author, many “standards” find their way into our stories: balls, misunderstandings, prideful arrogance, poorly informed prejudice, and romance. The Last Gift is, however, a story from Jane Austen’s point of view. Some items must be referential. Jane Austen will not be swept off her feet, but Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood reveal, in an interesting way, that they have married their loves. There is no ball, but there is a party.

There are also Austenesque Easter eggs—references to what Austen never wrote, which we cherish. There is the lake, and a reference to a gentleman cooling himself after a hot ride. On my behalf, I threw in “The Old One.” Lucy Steele has been written out of existence.

However, if one can write something out of existence, might it not be possible to further write something into it, even though the author now rests on another plane? That is the question we must all ask ourselves...and which Jane Austen answers in The Last Gift.

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The Last Gift is available as an e-book on all Amazon platforms worldwide and in Kindle Unlimited. I look forward to your reviews.

The Last Gift Amazon USA

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Please enjoy this excerpt from my current Work-In-Progress Ghost Flight: A World War II Pride and Prejudice Variation. ©2025 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction Prohibited. Published in the United States of America.

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Chapter Thirty-six

Baker Street, London, Tuesday, 9:30 A.M.

Richard Fitzwilliam shook off sleep’s muzziness as he answered the Twenty Committee’s summons. The morning train from Bedfordshire and RAF Tempsford gave him another hour or so of kip, but it had been a short night. His Lysander touched down only four hours earlier. Being in France, even for only a few days, was exhausting. Fitzwilliam wished he had seen Darcy, but after giving the new radio to Eileen, he exited from a field outside Lille. He had barely taken time to shower before he fell into a deep sleep, interrupted too soon by an Aircraftman bearing a cup of tea, a bun, and the message flimsy. A cold douche and shave were all he could manage before being sped to the

Rockets from the XX Committee—known by a select few as Double-Cross—were reserved for only the most important news. Britain’s counterintelligence wallahs had spent years perfecting the disinformation channels they used to feed the Abwehr. These had proven so good that they knew, from German communications discerned through other means, the Germans implicitly trusted information sourced from what they believed to be several well-placed agents throughout the country. Little did Jerry Hun realize that every German spy landed in Britain had been captured and turned or dropped to the bottom of a Cornish tin mine.

Something big must be up.

After passing muster with the sentry, Fitzwilliam climbed the stairs to Room 306, one of SOE’s favorite haunts, although Double-Cross had seconded it for this meeting. He knocked and waited. The door was pulled open, and a dapper man, well-known to Fitzwilliam, set the tone for their session. “Ah, Preacher: so good of you to come running when you heard twenty bells.”

All right, then, no names: just an SOE operative and a friend from Naval Intelligence. “Yaas,” Fitzwilliam drawled, “I usually require more beauty sleep than four hours.

“How are you holding up in Room 39, Monsieur 17F?

“Listen: I will break my jaw if I keep calling you by that ridiculous alphanumeric nonsense you in the Andrew insist on using. No sense of style whatsoever: at least we in SOE select our work names with some panache.”

The man in the dark blue suit smiled. “You mean like Jeeves?

“These walls are about two feet thick. The Edwardians built to last. I wager Jerry could drop 250 kilos right down the chimney, and the boiler would probably belch kraut fumes. Nobody will overhear us.

“Thus, I have no objection, Richard, if we drop work names and pretend to be one of Miss Austen’s heroines and allow the use of Christian names.”

“In that case, Ian, it is very good to see you again. I hope you are holding up under that old tyrant. Not many would do what you do,” Fitzwilliam replied.

Lieutenant Commander Fleming smiled indulgently, knowing that SOE’s Buckmaster also had a legendary temper. “Oh, his highness is all right. You must remember he hates timewasters and nest-featherers.

“Speaking of that, let’s not shillyshally about.

“We have become aware that someone in Canaris’s retinue is interested in one of yours. Our intercepts people put their ears up yesterday evening and tuned in Wilhelmshaven. They pulled in a request from Paris via Berlin and routed by the Abwehr to one of the Twenty Committee’s pets.

“They quizzed him about an Irishman named Fitzgerald, William Fitzgerald.”

Fitzwilliam’s face froze, and his eyes widened as Fleming continued. “We know that William Fitzgerald is on your books. You turned the Jermyn Street forgers to building paperwork for his legend late last year, although you did lean on a mutual friend in Dublin for a bonafide passport. If I am not mistaken, he went feet-dry through Stockholm and Copenhagen in February using the field name Jeeves.

“I am sorry I twigged you about that before. It was at the top of my mind.

“Whoever is asking knows quite a bit: like that Fitzgerald was injured by my brethren steaming the Western Approaches. He arrived in Deauville to collect on an inheritance.”

The two men were comrades, if working in different organizations. Fitzwilliam was neither coy nor cute. “That’s the cover we had arranged with one of our French agents—Adrien—a working lawyer who held the paperwork on that legacy. Fitzgerald is a distant cousin of one of our Special Duty VCs—Will Darcy.”

He looked knowingly at Fleming who dipped his head, shaking it. “And I thought the Admiral would choke when he read my Trout memo back in ’40. Some of my suggestions were audacious—although not too, given that Cholmondeley came up with the old body off the Spanish coast disinfo.”[ii]

“Now you have given a posh funeral to a posthumous VC and earl with a sprinkling of royalty so you could drop a cuckoo in Fritz’s nest in the form of a distant Irish cousin. Distant, my delightful Scottish arse, you inserted that shell we both knew at Eton, Will Darcy. How original, how wonderfully novel,” he hooted.

Fitzwilliam tipped his head, accepting the praise. “Well, thank Darcy’s father for giving us a platform. He bought the bequest back in ’26, but with the death of Darcy’s mother, Uncle George never updated his solicitor and forgot to put it in his will.

“I have found that the best tales are spun around a kernel of truth, something I learned from an old playmate.

“But enough of the past. We can canvas techniques another time at the club. Let me bring you up to speed.”

Fitzwilliam offered an edited version of his trip to France—no need to spend time on Agent Rose and her radio. He explained that the relationship between Jeeves and Madeline had been escalated into a romance to allow them to meet without causing speculation beyond that of the titillating sort. With the invasion looming, Buckmaster felt it best to clear them from the destruction zone. Wedding bells thus had rung for Mademoiselle Lopinat and Monsieur Fitzgerald. Now, with Irish passports and Berlin-endorsed travel documents in hand, the couple will embark on a belated wedding trip to Switzerland.

The colonel concluded, “I may have been barely in time if the Abwehr is sniffing around. At least they do not know what he looks like, although that is no comfort. I gave him Madeline’s papers early Saturday with the order for them to close up shop and get to Bern.

“You know Darcy. He feels responsible for Madeline, and now that we have ‘officially’ placed her under his protection as his wife, there is nothing he will not do to ensure that young woman reaches the land of chocolate and snow.

“I hope he has managed to find a way to get to Paris. With the lifting of the prohibition against bombing French trains and rail lines, travel west of the capital will be dicey. However, most missions are concentrated within forty miles of the coast to keep Jerry's reinforcements away from invasion sites. Get on the other side of Paris and closer to the German border, the less destruction and danger there will be.

“That’s why we did not opt for egress through Copenhagen and Sweden. Harris’s boys have been raising merry hell all around Hamburg and Bremen.

“Mulhouse is as far away as you can get from actual fighting in Europe. They can take a streetcar to the Swiss border and Basel from there.

“What now, Fleming? We have them on the move, at least I hope so. Knowing Darcy, he spent the day meeting with his French contacts, closing up La Ferme, and getting all dependents out of the way of Jerry’s attentions. Shortly, Fritz will be too busy to care about them.”

Fleming dug into a pocket and pulled out a disreputable-looking pipe, which he scraped and refilled with tobacco. Lighting it, he filled the room with an aromatic cloud. His eyes turned inward. After about five minutes, he carefully laid the pipe in a stained brass ashtray. “My first inclination was to ignore the Abwehr request; let them think their agent came up dry. However, we must give them just the right amount of sugar to set them haring off on the correct wrong track.” He rolled the last sentence’s opposing adjectives about his mouth like an aficionado enjoying the accent notes of a rare cognac.

“We have a Nazi sympathizer in Dublin—someone we planted years ago—do a bit of reader’s theater. We’ll call him O’Brien. He has been helpful to us when Berlin asks one of our doubles about Irish affairs. O’Brien made all the right noises in his fellow travelers’ ears, seeking information about a particular Irish smuggler who recently dropped out of sight.

“When yesterday’s request came in, we waited until the correct response window for the agent—dead since 1940—before advising Berlin that the question will be put to a trustworthy Dublin contact.

“This is a medium-to-low priority item, so waiting until tomorrow’s packet to answer will not be seen as unusual. Too long might cause some whiskers to quiver. Forty-eight hours in the German bureaucratic state is natürlich.

“By the time the agent looking underneath Darcy’s skirt, it will be Thursday, giving Darcy a five-day head start.

“The game is deeper than a one-level deception, confirming Fitzgerald’s legend. Our agent also sends a dispatch to his party handler in Berlin using the diplomatic pouch. However, he communicates directly with the SD through Bormann’s crowd. The Sicherheitsdienst believe him to be a dedicated Nazi.

“But this is a left-hand, right-hand situation. The Abwehr knows him only as one of their agent’s contacts in the Republic. The SD knows him as their man in Eire. There is no way either will reveal their sources to the other. Himmler’s people despise the Abwehr, and Canaris’s military types return the compliment. The SD will undoubtedly confirm or offer information when it serves their purpose, but they will be thoroughly confident that it is solid gold truth.

“Neither knows he is working for their rivals, let alone us.

“The written report to the SD—which they will receive in about a week—will be nearly identical but also will advise them that the Abwehr was asking. Even if the Abwehr tries to force the issue and press for a more active investigation, the SD will stand by their man, convinced he is a fanatic delivering sterling. They’ll pooh-pooh every attempt to examine more as a waste of time and resources. They can make it stick because the security police hold more cards and have an unexpected ally in this interdepartmental squabble: the Foreign Office.

“Von Ribbentrop knows who holds the whip hand—Himmler and his minions. His signature is all over Jeeves’s and Madeline’s travel documents, so little Joachim will happily take the SD’s side if anyone in the Abwehr becomes difficult. Adolf loves to play his princes off against each other so he can make the final decision.”

Fitzwilliam was astonished at how quickly Fleming had solved the conundrum that had left his stomach sour and acid burning in the back of his throat. He was about to say so when a knock sounded at the door. The commander looked at him, and Fitzwilliam raised an eyebrow.

Fleming pushed a hidden button that buzzed the latch, and a severe-looking, bespectacled young woman, hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck, entered. She clutched a buff envelope to her chest like a shield, the only indicator that she believed she was entering a free-fire zone.

Smiling, Fleming introduced her. “This is Miss Pettigrew, Kathleen Pettigrew. She is ‘C’s’ personal assistant, which explains why she, amongst all in the intelligence establishment, has the gall to knock on Room 306’s door when the red light is lit![iii]

“Her presence in Room 306, since ‘C’ is SOE’s master, tells me Miss Pettigrew is here for you.”

The lady replied in a rich alto filled with smoky heather and heath’s grace notes. “Ever the flirt, Monsieur 17F, such talent I am sure you have employed to charm the knickers off WRENs and WAAFs.

“However, begone Satan! The Kirk has your number, and, I am sure, so does ‘C.’ I am immune to your blandishments, and I only agreed to enter your lair because I have business with Preacher.”

“I can see that our naval friend has been thinking. He is usually one to smoke cigarettes, but when he wants to weigh beans and bacon, he resorts to the foul weapon of choice is a pipe.” She theatrically fanned the envelope to disperse the cloud hovering over the desk.

Pettigrew turned on the colonel. She did not wag a scolding finger at him. Still, her raised eyebrows above her glass’s rims left Fitzwilliam mentally standing in the nursery scuffing a toe in the carpet as Nanny dressed him down for a malfeasance against propriety and the Matlock earldom. “You have led us a merry chase, Preacher. We last had you landing at Tempsford ten hours ago. Thank you for condescending to let Colonel Buckmaster know you had returned.”

“Yet that miscreant,” she tipped her head toward Fleming, “spirited you away on the dawn train. Since then, we have been checking under every hedge between Bedfordshire and London for your ravaged corpse, dumped there by fifth columnists.”

She shook herself to purge the image. “However, travel warrants, especially those that turn milk runs into expresses, are pretty things. They jump to the top of the pile, blinking and blushing. Orders dispatching Royal Navy staff cars with WREN drivers are only slightly less eye-catching, especially to, ahem, trained intelligence officers.

“Once ‘C’ interrupted my breakfast in the canteen at Seven O’clock and put me on the case, I quickly salted your tail despite the Navy’s best efforts to obscure what they had done.”

Pettigrew held out the missive to Fitzwilliam. “Sign the chit to show you received it. The other gentleman is cleared for the information.”

Fitzwilliam cadged Fleming’s Waterman and initialed where he must. He handed the slip to Pettigrew and thanked her as she turned away and left the room.

He removed a single sheet after breaking the wax seals securing the flap. Running his eyes over the message, he whistled. “This is absolutely a ‘good news, bad news’ situation. Which do you want first?”

Fleming shrugged. “Hit me with the good, old man. That way I’ll have something to hold onto when the torpedo breaches the magazine.”

Richard enjoyed Ian’s affection for naval allusions. “This is a decode from Madeline from Saturday, her first transmission time, around half-eleven or five bells in the first watch for you in the Wavy Navy.[iv]

“The good news is that Madeline identifies this as her final transmission. I assume that means she and Darcy were preparing to leave Sunday, the 28^th. The Abwehr sent its inquiry on Monday. That’s twenty-four hours right there for our people.”

Fitzwilliam fell silent. Upon Fleming’s prompt, he continued. “The bad news could be awful, although Darcy and Madeline’s lead might mitigate it. Stones that might have hidden something now will be dry holes.

“We know the Abwehr agent assigned to the case. You know him because he escaped your net six months ago. But Darcy and I know him intimately, as he knows us.

“An eyepatch is not much of a disguise, especially to someone with whom you grew up. If he and Darcy collide, the game will be up.

“It’s Wickham, Fleming, George Wickham. That bastard has a penchant for turning up in the most inconvenient places with the worst timing.

“He could be why a Gestapo bullet makes Darcy’s posthumous VC and earldom real.”

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[i] See Heinlein’s 1980 novel The Number of the Beast.

[ii] See Operation Mincemeat, classified for decades, which used a corpse carrying “war plans” to divert the Germans from the Sicily Invasion in 1943. Fleming had suggested something of that nature in a memorandum to Rear Admiral John Godfrey, the Director of Naval Intelligence.

[iii] Kathleen Pettigrew was Sir Stewart Menzies’s (MI-6’s ‘C’) personal assistant and seen as a primary inspiration for Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond novels beginning with Casino Royale (1953).

[iv] The Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) was referred to as the “Wavy Navy” because its rank rings were wavy rather than straight, as in the regulars. Fleming ended the war as Lieutenant Commander Ian Fleming (RNVR).