How do you keep short stories short?
I love to write, but my stories are always very very long. Its only a hobby of mine, but I would love to be able so finish one every once in awhile. I have all these ideas but can’t ever seem to finish one.
So how to you tell the story throughly but keep it from turning into a novel?
And about how many pages should the average short story be?
- Smartie_Pants
Tags: Love, Novel, Short Stories, Short Story, Throughly
June 10th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Know when to stop writing (even if you’re tempted to continue on and on and on), and… limit the detail. Begin where the story begins… don’t begin a few weeks before the story begins, that’s distracting.
June 11th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Well my favorite part of a short story is thinking about everything that isnt there. Almost like making up part of the story, based on something you’ve read.
but what i would say is to develop your character and setting and plot very fast, have the climax and then a fast falling action.
leave out insignificant details.
oh! and you can also just go back to things you’vee started and shave it down and start it up again.
June 12th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Short stories don’t have to be short. They’re just not as long as your average novel, which I would say would be between 25,000 to 50,000 words.
So don’t worry about length. My last short story was 16 pages double-spaced, and it was pretty condensed. I’m not sure how long yours usually are, but just write until the story’s told. The trick is to keep at it!
If you think your short story ideas are too long, you could always try just stretching them into novels. Nothing wrong with that.
June 15th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
Keeping a story short is one of the more challenging aspects of writing. You don’t have to give up an idea just because you keep a story short. Mine tend to be very short, three to four pages is typical, but much of what has been built into the stories is what has not been said. This lets the reader become an integral part of the story, versus the author telling them every last possible detail, and thus narrowing down all the possibilities that the story has to offer.
If you have a character you can simply describe them by giving a name such as Sue, but is it really vital to say what color hair they have. All of the characters in my stories have been deliberately left nameless due to the fact that once you name a character the reader will no longer be able to imagine what that person’s name might be.
If you have a character that has an ongoing relationship with someone, is it vital to describe what they ate when they were last together.
If you have a series of ideas that can be expressed as short stories you might want to consider linking them together into a novel, versus writing a novel. The best example I can think of for this technique is “The Martian Chronicles” by Ray Bradbury.
You’ve never finished a short story, but you might find that you can link them together will relatively little additional effort to create a longer piece of work. Along this line, in addition to having my stories published, I’ve derived stage plays from them. The audience members have always enjoyed the lack of information and this has led to each audience member seeing a unique theater production that they had a vital role in creating. What they saw resulted from my writing and their interpretation of it, and I think you could do the same.