Need some tips for short story writing.

[Alex]

Ok, so I'm trying to write a short story for school (20 pages max) and I have no clue where to start. All of the stories I have written were two to three hundred page practice novels. I figured if anyone could help with my project, its the guys and girls at mythic scribes.

 

[Queshire]

Hmm... I've never written a short story myself, but I hear that they're very different from writing a longer novel... All I can suggest is to think of your story as TV episode, like an episode of Simpsons or Futurama.

 

[JCFarnham]

Three hundred page ... practice novels?! You my friend are a trooper.

Well, short story writing is definitely a different art to novel length fiction. In terms of characterisation you need to artfully exaggerate traits; you have very little time to get build up a decent sense of your protagonist. The same goes for the plot in a way. The way I see it is a short story takes about the same amount of time as one "try-fail" cycle would in a novel, but you still need to remember the following no matter how short the piece is:

Normality --> Protagonist decides to do something --> Meets opposition --> Succeeds/fails --> New Status Quo.

Write it as you would any story, but be conscious of the word limit. Every sentence, word, even letter, or punctuation mark needs to be perfectly placed and suited for the role. You have no time to waste with digressions or rambling.

What I like to do with short stories is jump straight into the action and cut out the initial normality. It makes the piece far more immediate, as a short story should be. That's just me however, read, experiment, see what you think.

EDIT: And yes, I suppose you could view it as an "episode". That might be a good way to look at it...

 

[TWErvin2]

As you suspect, Alex, writing a short story is different than a novel. A short story isn't just a condenced novel, just as a novel isn't an expanded story.

I'd suggest/recommend you plan the story out before writing.

A few ideas based on my experience:

1. The number of characters are limited, and generally only one POV character. You can find examples otherwise, but if this is your first effort you might try to avoid it.

2. Keep the conflict to one issue or concern to be addressed/overcome. A lot of important subplots, while adding depth and such, also add words.

3. Begin as close as possible to the action/main thrust of the story.

4. Select a setting where you do not need to do a lot of world building, if possible. That takes a lot of words. Maybe a fantasy setting wouldn't be the best for the project if you feel you're going to struggle for keeping it under 20 pages.

I wrote an article on word count as a concern when writing fantasy that might be of some use to illustrate the fantasy short story concern: A Challenge in Writing Fantasy Short Stories | Disquieting Visions - paranormal and fantasy realms

 

[Alex]

Honestly, I hadn't thought much sense into that. I appreciate the article, Ervin. So now I must ask, perhaps someone knows of a better genre for short stories?

 

[Queshire]

my first thought is a "day in the life" type story. Just show the normal life of one of your characters, maybe one brought back from one of your practice novels. Of course something interesting has to happen, maybe emphasis how the weird has become the character's new normal?

This is just me, but I suggest a plot first approach, figure out what you want to happen then come up with characters that can reach that conclusion.

 

[TWErvin2]

Honestly, I hadn't thought much sense into that. I appreciate the article, Ervin. So now I must ask, perhaps someone knows of a better genre for short stories?

Write about something you know or have experienced.

I wrote a horror short story based on when I was a counselor at a summer camp, a mystery story about a student getting caught with drugs in his locker that weren't his during a sweep by drug dogs, an inspirational (sort of) one about a church closing up because all of the members got old and died off without bringing in new, young members, things like that.

Write about a camping trip, but have something happen that possibly didn't, about a little kid getting lost at the zoo or--maybe snatched by someone and the older brother has to catch them before the leave the zoo.

For pacing and set-up and such, read and watch how writers of published short stories did it.

It's not impossible to write fantasy/sf or other shorts with world building, just more difficult in the length concern aspect.

 

[Xanados]

I'm in the planning stage for a new short story that will be thirty-fifty pages long. I guess I'm lucky because I'm unemployed, have no limit and all the time in the world...

All I can say really is that it should have the same story arcs as a longer novel. Like the others have said your character should come to a realization at the end. I'm an "architect" I like to plan everything out. For each chapter in my planning document I've written (and will draw) a story arc. This gives you a nice overview.

 

[Lord Darkstorm]

Short stories are stories that are shorter. Fantasy does not preclude short stories. If you want to put in the epic world ending plot line into a short story...well, that might not work. A short story is defined as something between 3k and 15k words, and I think 5k is more the average than 15k. If you are interested in doing short stories, you need to look at a smaller concept to write about. I did one where a man ran into someone he knew between dimensions, and as night was close to falling, the one stopped to help the other since the bad creatures came out at night. The whole story took place in the span of less than 12 hours, but contained what I wanted to tell. While the story did impact the universe the story existed in in general, the other dimensions would have went on as normal if the characters had failed to survive.

Short stories have a more focused concept when you tell them, but they should be more than a day in the life of someone. They should have a full reason for being, as well as an ending.

I think of short stories as a place to play with an idea without committing the same effort to it as a novel.

 

[Kreigsbane]

I have actually spent alot of time lately writing a series of short stories for a pair of my characters. I give them a place, a situation, and a conflict (of course). but as stated above picture and episode of a tv show. I give a background for the character and for the conflict, and so on.