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As a budding writer, I was mesmerized by the shorter stories from authors like Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe and Flannery O’Connor. I admired the way their prose kept me hooked turning each page, my pulse quickening as I neared the conclusion. I liked that I could be spooked by a piece of work that didn’t take me a week to read. And many of these stories I was drawn to the most featured crimes of passion or people committing unexplainable acts of violence.
One of my favorite short stories I’ve written came to me after touring The Ringling Museum in Sarasota, Florida while on vacation. One display made me pause—it detailed the events of a 1944 fire in Hartford, Connecticut that killed more than 167 people. I woke up the next morning and felt compelled to open a new document and begin typing a fictional first-person account of a child who survived the fire:
I don’t remember exactly when the first hints of smoke hit our nostrils, or when Mother and Father realized we were in trouble. Father scanned the crowd until he spotted the grotesque orange and red flames shooting up one wall of the tent. Soon, screams of “FIRE” were reverberating throughout the crowd. The band stopped playing. Throngs of people thundered up and down the rows of metal bleachers while trying to figure out the quickest exit. I clutched Mother’s arm as she tried to talk to Father over the mayhem. First, we tried to make an exit to the right, became trapped, and reversed our course. We couldn’t get down the stairs of the bleachers fast enough and were crushed from behind by the people trying to force their way through the crowd.
I’ve been inspired to write two other short stories based on real-life events. They’ve placed in various contests through Writers Digest. I find it easier to complete these shorter stories of suspense because they are condensed versions of haunting tale, and you only have a short amount of time to hook the reader. You don’t have to be Alice Feeney to come up with heart pounding piece of fiction.
In addition, I’ve grown more adept at writing short and haunting stories in the non-fiction arena as well with my true crime podcast, Missing in the Carolinas. Many of these are stories I’ve found simply by searching historical documents such as police reports and newspaper archives. These shorter podcast scripts are even more frightening because they feature events that occurred in real life.
Do you love reading and writing suspense and dream of creating your own twisty piece of work? Do you want to write a short story, poem, or essay that will send chills up your reader’s spine but don’t want to commit to a full-length novel that has become the bread and butter of writers like Lisa Jewell, Riley Sager, or Ashley Elston? There are markets that would love to take your polished pieces, whether driven purely from your imagination or inspired from real-life!
I'll be teaching participants how to write their own short, twisty suspense in a live Zoom workshop on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026 at 2 p.m. EST. The webinar will be recorded for anyone who cannot attend in person. To learn more or sign up, visit this link.
Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer, true crime podcaster, and judge for WOW’s quarterly flash fiction and creative nonfiction contests. Learn more at FinishedPages.com and MissingintheCarolinas.com.
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