7 Day Story Writing Challenges: A Brief Guide to Writing Gangster Fiction
This guide is all about gangster fiction. What it is, tips for writing it, and a list of gangster stories you can read online for free. We also discuss the difficulties, limitations, and pitfalls of writing in this genre. This guide is a must-read for anyone assigned gangster fiction in a 7 Day Story Writing Challenge, or for anyone wanting to explore new or unfamiliar literary genres!
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What is Gangster Fiction?
For the purposes of our 7 Day Story Writing Challenges, we’re defining gangster fiction as any story that is set in the world of organised crime. Your story can take place anywhere, at any time.
Difficulties, Limitations and Pitfalls of This Genre
We think some people might decide that this genre is not for them because they lack knowledge about organised crime groups or they don’t like writing about violence. If you don’t want to write a violent story, you don’t have to! You can write any kind of story using the world of organised crime as the backdrop. You could write a love story, a family drama, a comedy gangster story, a story about a mob boss taking his son to the zoo. Don’t be too quick to decide you can’t attempt this genre!
Top Tips for This Genre
Our advice would be to first decide what kind of story you want to write. Do you want to write a story about organised crime or a story that just happens to involve a gangster or gangsters? Think about other genres you could combine with the gangster genre. Next, we would suggest doing some research. Where and when would you like to set your story? Don’t forget to consider the theme of the challenge.
Gangster Short Stories you can Read Online
‘Johnny Mnemonic’ by William Gibson
‘Vice Grip’ by Matthew A. Goodwin
(You can read ‘Vice Grip’ by downloading a free sample of the Kindle book to your smartphone or tablet.)
‘Dolan’s Cadillac’ by Stephen King
This website has a list of other gangster short stories you can read online or downloading free kindle previews.