150th Fiction Special: Delving Into The Archives

When the Fiction team was compiling the stories for our 150^th Fiction Special, we’d often discuss amongst ourselves the stories we planned on shortlisting.

That way, we could find suitable replacements if we had too many stories of a certain genre or theme.

Story length proved the biggest obstacle for the team. Many of the stories we read were simply too long to fit our page templates.

But with perseverance — and a love for reading — we found a fitting mix of stories to fill 148 pages.

You can read the final 36 stories we chose by ordering the 150^th Fiction Special from the DC Thomson Shop.

I love how the shop page describes the Special as reflecting “women’s lives, hopes and dreams over the past 150 years”.

The Unpredictability Of Romance

I think some readers can be put off by romance stories if they find them too implausible to be true.

It’s funny that romance stories are ridiculed, yet people are happy to “buy in” to science fiction and fantasy.

Maybe romance enjoys a higher benchmark for quality, or readers judge those stories on a more personal basis.

Whatever the reason, we strive to capture the human heart.

Looking at the range of stories we picked for the 150^th Fiction Special, we found that women’s roles in family and society had noticeably changed over the years. But falling in and out of love was just as unpredictable in the 1800s as it is nowadays.

And in my mind, that makes for good reading.

For the past 150 years, our stories have always put the reader first.

Not only their beliefs and feelings, but their “hopes and dreams”, too.

Order your copy of the 150th Fiction Special at the DC Thomson Shop.

For a limited time, you can order both of our Anniversary Specials for just £10.