Seriously! I have a few ideas I'm kicking around that would make neat stories, but as you've seen with Becoming Robin when the creative juices start flowing they Do. Not. Stop.
I've had authors here tell me they wish they could write novel-length works, but I have the exact opposite problem, in that I can't sit down and write a short story. I'm a sucker for detail and drawn-out plots, extensive narration and dialogue.
Am I a lost cause? Should I just stick to writing angsty coming-of-age drama? ;-)
Just kidding about that last part, but I would welcome any advice on future writing to ah... "tone it down", shall we say :-D
Mama's little babies love shortening
To produce shorter stories, try using a different writing technique. Instead of diving in at full detail, write a general outline, listing each of your plot points. Then break those plot points down into scenes you want to describe in detail. If you have too many of those for a short story, decide which ones you're only going to summarize instead.
If all of your story ideas ...
... beg for the longer treatments, indulge them. *grin* Eventually your muse will deliver a tale or two that feel right as short stories, and you'll write them that way because it's what those ideas were meant for. I've written one novel here that started as a short story and just took off and ran away into a full-length book. I've got a bunch of ongoing stories I'm developing over long periods of time (mainly because writing TAKES time, as you've discovered), and a bunch of short stories I wrote because the concept felt like it needed to be a short story.
Write what you love to write and hang on to every idea the muse tosses your way. Story ideas don't expire - and they're too valuable to tailor to fit a short story format if you can turn them into the longer works you're obviously so good at creating. *grin*
In other words .. you GO, girl! *hugs*
Randa
My Findings on Writing Short Stories
I have found that my greatest success in writing a short story comes when I force myself to write it as a short story. This requires that I stop myself from doing much world development or character development. I cannot allow myself to be the all-knowing creator of my world, who has thought about all the possible twists and turns. I am also likely to only succeed if I write it way quicker than I usually write, which usually equates to a day or a weekend.
I need to do this, because I don't particularly enjoy the writing experience. I enjoy the world, character, story, and scene creation, gaining much of my own selfish benefit from something I think up well before it is close to being published. Therefore, if I allow myself, I spend all my time dreaming up new ideas and getting no closer to making an existing one real.
Any good story depends in
Any good story depends in part on the readers imagination. This is more important in shorter tales. Somehow, one must convey surroundings or personalities in a few words or a sentence or two. Word choice becomes critical (this is where a thesaurus comes in handy). Slight changes in phrasing can "sink" or "sell" entire sections of the tale. Staging of characters, and their timing must be carefully tweaked. Characters, like words, should be few. Scenes must be kept to a minimum. Some shorts occur entirely in one scene (I'm preparing to publish one such soon). IMHO, shorts are all about conveying the maximum amount of imagination by using the least amount of information.
Because each word is more important in a short, so are cleanup passes. I feel that the shorter the story, the more cleanup passes one must make. For example, my story "The Duana Experiment", was written in eight days. I then went back every week or two and did another cleanup pass, fine-tuning the phrasing, rewriting paragraphs, and tweaking the plot. When I was finally happy with it, it was published, FOUR months later (I was working on other pieces at the same time). This may sound excessive, but that one story is far and away my most popular piece.
Another suggestion is to study some shorts by your favorite authors. See how they conveyed much with little.
And finally, you might find a way to incorporate those ideas in a longer tale. One of the great things about writing is that the possibilities are endless.
Good luck,
- vessica b
Set yourself a target
to get the first draft written in (say) three days. You can always refine it later.
In the past I've suffered a much worse problem than you - verbosity to the point where the story never gets finished. Only by setting a strict time limit have I been able to finish and publish any work.
I love this community :-)
I've said it before, many times, but I have to say it again. I love this community.
Between the wonderful advice here, and the comments on Robin that I've been able to take to heart and put into becoming a better writer, to the way no one's told me to shut up yet when I go off on a tangent griping about crap nobody else has a reason to care about.
Thanks everyone. This is a huge help :-D
(image courtesy of free-clipart-pictures.net)
Zoe - Just a Thought
How many times have you found out later that that short story you've loved for years was really a chapter in a novel. Perhaps what you need to do is plan to write your normal story, but make each chapter a story complete in itself.
If you fail in you attempt to write a short story, it will do nothing but make your longer story better.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
That's a toughie...
And, without looking at any other comments (yet) I'll add my two cents. (At the price of things, you know how little that's worth.)
The basic tools are the same in a novel and a short story. However, the way you use them is different. In a short story, you don't try to flesh out dozens of characters or solve all the world's problems. Oh, I'm not saying characterization isn't important or that the stories are light.
Some stories are limited enough in scope that they're quickly told. Others take a LOT of words to tell. Look at the ideas your muse gives you. If you want to try your hand at a short story, pick one that doesn't "feel" like a novel when you look at it. Draw yourself a little outline of the things that need to happen to fill in the story. Look at this, does it still feel like a short story? If it does, then maybe you're ready to try it out. If you want to "keep" it a short story, though, you need to curb your desire to go off onto tangents.
If you start a story that you think'll be a short and it starts stretching. You've two choices - and I'd suggest you enlist help from a respected editor to decide. You can "cut" stuff to keep it short or make the decision that it's actually a longer piece. I ran into that with "The Reluctant Bridesmaid". Believe it or not, it's about twice as long as I originally planned, but I think it's better with the details. Also, looking at it, I don't think it'd have been any better had I doubled it's length. Maybe a bit here and there, but no great extension.
I've written a few short stories and two novel length stories (okay, one's in progress). I've also edited people's (non-TG primarily) novels and short stories for the last decade or so. My experience is that it's far more difficult to write a satisfying short story than it is a novel.
Good Luck, and give it a try.
Ann
A quote from Amadeus
"Your story has too many words". Then which word should you remove? If a story is meant to be long than that's what it is, and if it's meant to be short, then it will be short. Don't worry about the length but the message, Arecee