“The best advice I can give on this is, once it's done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before. If there are things you aren't satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that's revision.”

English author, contemporary

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, audio theatre, and screenplays. He is known for works that move easily between page and screen, including The Sandman and novels such as Good Omens, Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, and The Ocean at the End of the Lane. His career spans comics, fiction, and adaptation work. Several of his stories were brought to the screen, including Coraline and American Gods, and he co-created the television versions of Good Omens and The Sandman. His writing ranges across fantasy, myth, and modern storytelling in different forms.