Short Stories
Catherine Humphreys
Sorry I couldn't make the last meeting - unfortunately I had
Valentine's Day cupcakes to finish! :( Otherwise you lot would have
got some cake as well!
Anyway going back to topic at hand...this may seem like an odd
question to ask after attending a few meetings and having been writing
(on and off) for a couple of years now. But I'm still kind of stuck on
how to go about writing a short story. I'm not a very concise person,
especially with my writing so most stories end up being much longer.
The issue that I have is having a story that has a beginning, middle
and an end with enough action and fleshing out of characters so that
the story is good :) So basically everything to do with writing a
short story ha ha.
Also because I have two longer stories floating around in my head, a
topic is currently eluding me :(
Any help would be appreciated, thanks :)
Catherine
Hakim Cassimally
If you find you prefer writing a longer story, don't worry, sometimes
it's harder to write something shorter! Was it Mark Twain that wrote
"Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a shorter
one"?
Feel free to bring a longer piece in instead. If it's longer then you
should probably post to DropBox (or email it) so we can get chance to
read it first. I guess if it's much longer than 3000 words, you could
split it so that people don't have to read too much in one go?
Oh, we're also happy to discuss ideas/plots too, if you don't actually
want to discuss a finished piece of work.
Or if you're looking for a story prompt, there are plenty from the
group archives. For example:
* the Dragons Den meet an entrepreneur with a very unusual invention...
* a robotic choir
* kittens! vampires! unicorns with guns!
* something inspired by a Lyttle Lytton competition entry. For example:
"This is a mystery about a murder I committed." from
http://adamcadre.ac/10lyttle.html
Hope that's any help!
Hakim
On 16 February 2012 12:23, Catherine Humphreys
Sean McHugh
A short story is very often like a song - it is a series of pictures conveying a mood, rather than a narrative with a plot.
Craig
I’ve been lurking and I can’t help but chip in. Hope you lot don’t mind. “Hello!” from over here at the Manchester spec fic group!
Catherine, short stories are very hard to write—just because there are less words doesn’t mean there’s less effort involved than a novel or a novella. I’m a novel writer at heart but all the writing on my MA has been based around the short story form. It’s been a lot of hard work for me to pare down my work but I think I’m finally getting there. I used to write 6-10k short stories on average but I seldom write above 5k nowadays.
Now, there’s so much theory and opinion out there that you’re likely to get a dozen different answers from a dozen different people. Short stories can be interpreted and enjoyed in so many different ways! So here’s a few of my own self-imposed tips...
- Keep it short. This might seem obvious, but I often have a word count in mind before I even start a short story (not always) which I aim at. I’m often writing for coursework or a specific market and that involves a strict word count. Other times I go with the flow but I always keep an eye on my word count. Hitting 3-4k without an end in sight is likely to ring alarm bells—not that I’ll stop writing but I might try to tighten the pace a little as I know I’ll be coming back to give the first half of my story a hard edit. I generally avoid going over 5k. I average around 3-4k.
- In medias res. A lot of people say that your first line and first paragraph are important and you should get down to the action as soon as possible. Well, they’re right. Your first paragraph doesn’t need bullets pinging off the rafters or Auntie Eevie sitting up in her coffin during her own funeral service, but it’s probably worth avoiding unnecessary preamble at the start of your story. Otherwise your reader will skim ahead or even stop reading. Now I hear the phrase ‘in medias res’ almost as often as ‘show, not tell’ so you need to treat it with caution. But yeah. Getting down to it as soon as possible is probably a good idea.
- Structure. A lot of short story theory mentions two distinct story types: ‘epical’ and ‘lyrical’. Epical stories are standard start-middle-end stories, often plot driven, perhaps more often genre, with a clear ‘boom’ moment near the end where the story is resolved; whereas lyrical stories are more typically character driven, maybe more literary and generally have a start-middle structure without any clear resolution but a drifting off which keeps the reader thinking after they put aside the story. It might be worth deciding what your style is—or least the style of the story you’re writing at that moment. Will the story have a clear resolution? Or will it leave a lingering sense of, mmm, something. I personally write a little of each, perhaps slightly more lyrical than epical. Both story types generally follow the same rule of ‘rising action’ at the start which starts low and builds to some sort of crescendo that either goes ‘boom’ (epical) or drifts away (lyrical). You should avoid your story stopping and starting. Keep building the action. Avoid stopping to deliver info-dumps and exposition to the reader.
- Characters and point-of-view. Your story might feature several characters, but it should (probably) only be centred around a single person. Try to stick with a single point of view. This isn’t a hard and fast rule—it’s OK if you write the odd story with a couple of clearly defined viewpoints—but if all your stories have 20 different characters and multiple POVs you’re probably writing a novel. A lot of writers worry that they’re not showing the reader enough of what’s going on—actually this is fine, real life is like that. Your reader loves to gossip about what might be going on, reading between the lines and filling in the blanks for themselves. This makes them feel involved. Try to limit yourself to a single viewpoint. This could make a big difference to the length of your stories with you dropping huge swathes of ‘supporting actor/actress’ viewpoints.
- Edit hard. Editing doesn’t just mean checking for spelling mistakes; you should be looking to cut away whatever you can. Start by stripping out the adverbs (most of them) and dropping those commas you popped in when you were pausing mid-sentence. Hack away at anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. Every single sentence should advance the plot, if it doesn’t, get rid (or cut and paste into another Word document for another story).
This might sound fairly brutal. But it’s good for a start!
I’d also recommend ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. I don’t read much King, but this book is pure genius.
Hope I haven’t butted into the conversation too hard. Great to see your group doing so well.
Craig
Catherine Humphreys
thanks so much for answering, you've all be really helpful and I'll
definitely be trying out those techniques.
Haha Hakim, it's me, you know I won't be bringing anything for people
to read! Not at all confident enough for that!
I agree that just because it's shorter, doesn't make it easier to
write - to be honest I think it's harder and requires a lot more skill
to stay so concise and keep the story going.
I actually do have Stephen King's On Writing book but have yet to open
it - maybe now is the time then :)
No, not at all Craig, thanks for butting in, we don't mind, we're a
friendly lot :) And I appreciate the effort you've gone to giving such
an in depth response.
Thanks for the idea of writing a story around a song Sean, that's a
really interesting way of looking at it and I can see how that would
work, I shall give that a try!
I like that quote Hakim, it's a good one :) and so true! Also thanks
for the story prompts, I'll give them a try :)
Hopefully all your help will spur me on to completing a short story
soon
Ta guys
Cat
On Feb 16, 2:56 pm, "Craig" <m...@craigpay.com> wrote:
> I've been lurking and I can't help but chip in. Hope you lot don't mind.
> "Hello!" from over here at the Manchester spec fic group!
>
> I'm a novel writer at heart but all the writing on my MA has been based
> around the short story form. It's been a lot of hard work for me to pare
> down my work but I think I'm finally getting there. I used to write 6-10k
> short stories on average but I seldom write above 5k nowadays.
>
> Now, there's so much theory and opinion out there that you're likely to get
> a dozen different answers from a dozen different people. Short stories can
> be interpreted and enjoyed in so many different ways! So here's a few of my
> own self-imposed tips...
>
> - Keep it short. This might seem obvious, but I often have a word
> count in mind before I even start a short story (not always) which I aim at.
> I'm often writing for coursework or a specific market and that involves a
> strict word count. Other times I go with the flow but I always keep an eye
> on my word count. Hitting 3-4k without an end in sight is likely to ring
> hard edit. I generally avoid going over 5k. I average around 3-4k.
>
> - In medias res. A lot of people say that your first line and first
> paragraph are important and you should get down to the action as soon as
> possible. Well, they're right. Your first paragraph doesn't need bullets
> pinging off the rafters or Auntie Eevie sitting up in her coffin during her
> own funeral service, but it's probably worth avoiding unnecessary preamble
> at the start of your story. Otherwise your reader will skim ahead or even
> stop reading. Now I hear the phrase 'in medias res' almost as often as
> 'show, not tell' so you need to treat it with caution. But yeah. Getting
> down to it as soon as possible is probably a good idea.
>
> - Structure. A lot of short story theory mentions two distinct
> story types: 'epical' and 'lyrical'. Epical stories are standard
> start-middle-end stories, often plot driven, perhaps more often genre, with
> a clear 'boom' moment near the end where the story is resolved; whereas
> lyrical stories are more typically character driven, maybe more literary and
> generally have a start-middle structure without any clear resolution but a
> drifting off which keeps the reader thinking after they put aside the story.
> Or will it leave a lingering sense of, mmm, something. I personally write a
> little of each, perhaps slightly more lyrical than epical. Both story types
> generally follow the same rule of 'rising action' at the start which starts
> low and builds to some sort of crescendo that either goes 'boom' (epical) or
> drifts away (lyrical). You should avoid your story stopping and starting.
> Keep building the action. Avoid stopping to deliver info-dumps and
> exposition to the reader.
>
> - Characters and point-of-view. Your story might feature several
> characters, but it should (probably) only be centred around a single person.
> Try to stick with a single point of view. This isn't a hard and fast
> viewpoints-but if all your stories have 20 different characters and multiple
>
> Hi Catherine,
>
> If you find you prefer writing a longer story, don't worry, sometimes
> it's harder to write something shorter! Was it Mark Twain that wrote
> "Sorry for the long letter. I didn't have time to write a shorter
> one"?
>
> Feel free to bring a longer piece in instead. If it's longer then you
> should probably post to DropBox (or email it) so we can get chance to
> read it first. I guess if it's much longer than 3000 words, you could
> split it so that people don't have to read too much in one go?
>
> Oh, we're also happy to discuss ideas/plots too, if you don't actually
> want to discuss a finished piece of work.
>
> Or if you're looking for a story prompt, there are plenty from the
> group archives. For example:
>
> * the Dragons Den meet an entrepreneur with a very unusual invention...
> * a robotic choir
> * kittens! vampires! unicorns with guns!
> * something inspired by a Lyttle Lytton competition entry. For example: