A couple of years ago I was mentoring young writers in a short story event. The idea was to write a complete story in 750 words exactly. It's a tough challenge and I've found that once you try it, you'll come up with several stories. I wrote a series of three stories testing my writing skills. #1 was written in first person, #2 was written in second person, and #3 was written third person perspective. So far none of my readers picked up on that, and beyond that I challenged myself in other ways, #1 was a mature romance, #2 was a lesbian romance, and #3 was a May/December romance, I've never tried any of those and it was a fun challenge.
But #3, Saturday Evening, struck a chord with me. I wanted to explore my characters further, so I started writing, and I told other writers of my plan to expand the story into a full novel. One of my writing friends challenged me to "Go darker than you normally do." So I did. And now I have a murder on my hands, a grieving family, and a scarred veteran seeking revenge.
https://bookapy.com/s/1385/loves-last-kiss