Novelist's entree into short stories

I've written two short stories I dreamed up fully overnight and remembered in the morning. I just sat down and typed until I had them down. Other short stories I've written then picked at over time until satisfied. I've now had four included in anthologies and one commended in a competition. Others have been published in writing mags.

scheherazade said:

I'm interested to know how your approach to writing short stories differs from how you approach or would approach writing a novel.

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Writing short stories usually takes less time...other than that, I generally approach them the same way. Come up with a concept, develop the characters and plot, and then chip away at the stone until the finished piece emerges.

How much time do you tend to put into a short story before you've got a first draft?

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Different times for different stories. In general, most of them don't take more than a week (in actual writing time). I've had some that only take a few days, and some that take longer.

Have you ever done it in one long sitting, or do you tend to work away at it day by day like a novel?

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I have limited amounts of time to spend writing each day, so most of them take at least a few days.

Do you like to work on multiple projects at the same time (multiple short stories, or a short story while you're writing a novel, or while you're writing other forms, etc)?

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Multiple projects at the same time, definitely...of course, now that I just finished the final draft of my WIP, maybe I'll have more time to crank out some additional short stories.

Do you do anything differently when writing short fiction (eg more/less outlining, different rituals, etc)?

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The only thing I do differently is to do all my chicken-scratch (outlining, character sketches, etc.) on notebook paper, which I stash in a binder when the story is completed. With my novels, I tend to use Word to outline, and use a box of 3x5 index cards for sketches.

I had a writing teacher who says it takes her about a year to complete a new short story, but at the same time she's usually working on a novel (which takes her about 2-3 years) and she may have other short stories on the go at the same time.

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Ouch! A year? I'd think I'd go mad...

Do you have a typical timespan for completing a short story, or do you vary widely depending on the case?

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In general (as mentioned before), no more than a week of writing time. This usually translates into 2-4 weeks of real time, depending on life's circumstances at the time. It also has to do with the story. Some stories practically tell themselves, and some have to be coaxed along...

I'm not terribly good at shorter fiction (even my "short stories" tend to become novellas), so take what I say with a grain of salt...

I'm interested to know how your approach to writing short stories differs from how you approach or would approach writing a novel.

My approach to writing a short story is, if I have an idea that would make for a decent story that's considerably shorter than one of my novels or serials, then I sit and write it. The only difference in my methods is the length of the thing. I might not need to think about the plot nearly as long as I do with one of my serials, but that's only because it's not so long and detailed. So the "thinking" process doesn't take so much time as it would otherwise..

How much time do you tend to put into a short story before you've got a first draft?

I don't do drafts. I write it the way I want it the first time, then, if sometime a few years later I see it needs improvement, I rework it.

Have you ever done it in one long sitting, or do you tend to work away at it day by day like a novel?

I think the shortest amount of time it ever took me to write a story was in one morning; and it was in fact a short story (one sitting to read, I believe). Some others take much longer, but for various reasons--maybe it's longer than a short story and will turn into a novella; maybe I lose interest; maybe I spend time working on something else instead; maybe it doesn't turn out the way I'd hoped and I scrap it for now. Sometimes I might work on one every day until it's done, sometimes there are big lapses. It varies.

Do you like to work on multiple projects at the same time (multiple short stories, or a short story while you're writing a novel, or while you're writing other forms, etc)?

I'm always working on multiple projects of various types, no matter what I'm focusing on.

Do you do anything differently when writing short fiction (eg more/less outlining, different rituals, etc)?

Not really. I just don't have to let the idea gestate in my head as long. Sometimes, I'll get an idea for a short story and will start writing the story that same day; I can't do that with a novel or serial. Aside from that, though, my routine is about the same. I don't outline.

Do you have a typical timespan for completing a short story, or do you vary widely depending on the case?

It varies widely with me, mostly depending on how interested I am in finishing the story versus working on something else.

My question is; when is a short story too long for a short story? That is my main problem, how long is too long? Great answers for the other things though, ..

Thanks

In my experience, it really depends. On the story, on how you feel, that sort of thing.

I've woken up in the morning and had a finished story by 3pm that afternoon.

I've also worked on one story for a month straight.

Sometimes I'm tired, and it's hard to write. Other times, I can't sleep and it's easy to sit down and write until 1am or 2am. Once in a while, I like to write in the morning, before work. Other whiles, it's the complete opposite.

It depends.

IMO, a year is way, WAY too long to work on a short story. I think you'd tend to over think things too much. My advice: write the story, get a working draft, put it away and ignore it for a day or two, maybe a week, then go back and tear it to shreds with a red pen. Fix it, and repeat.

Scriptor: Standard guidelines for story length vary greatly with each publisher or magazine, so checking sub info first is a good idea. However, the breakdown is generally held to be:

Short Story: to 7500 words
Novelette: 7500 to 17500
Novella: 17500 to 40000
Novel: 40000+

And there are quite a few huge differences there too, depending on WHAT you write. For example: Kids Picture books are under 7k, Kids chapter books are usually in the novelette range, and even though YA stuff is edging more and more toward adult novel lengths (40k+), there is still quite a bit of it in the 20k area..... In the ebook arena, you can have publishers calling short stories everything from 5k to 10k, or even some I've seen say a short story is 10k minimum.....

But for all intents and purposes, that's your length guide. A short story is under 10k, etc.

Thanks Heather! That makes alot of sense. Now I can go back and edit those shorts I've got to a decent short story that's within its boundaries ... thanks.. ya'll are the greatest.. really..

How much time do you tend to put into a short story before you've got a first draft?

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About 90 minutes. I write most of my short fiction through the flash challenges at Liberty Hall, where you have 90 minutes from accessing a trigger to write a story based on it. This tends to produce first drafts for me that have a wordcount in the 1K-2K range; they also tend to have a lot of summary, so on the rewrites, they frequently double in length. This approach isn't for everyone, but it forces me to sit down and hammer out the idea and the whole first draft in one sitting. The stories I've written under other circumstances take a wildly variable amount of time, usually spread over a few weeks, but the first draft is usually much better.

Have you ever done it in one long sitting, or do you tend to work away at it day by day like a novel?

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See above. The initial draft comes quickly; it's the revision process that tends to get spread out for me.

Do you like to work on multiple projects at the same time (multiple short stories, or a short story while you're writing a novel, or while you're writing other forms, etc)?

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I've always got a novel on a back burner, seems like, and other shorts waiting to be polished, but I'm both a procrastinator and terrible at multi-tasking. Thus, although there's a list of things to be done, at any given moment, I'm usually completely focused on the one at hand (thus procrastinating on all the others).

Do you do anything differently when writing short fiction (eg more/less outlining, different rituals, etc)?

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Since I don't have a novel published yet, I might not be the right person to speak about the difference between the forms. But since the short fiction usually doesn't have the complexity of plot (few or no real subplots) or the number of characters, much less the depth of description (at least my short fiction is pretty sparse), I don't need a lot of note-taking to keep track of what's going on. I'll sometimes do some basic research, but it's often little enough that I can keep track of it in my head. Sometimes, I'll sketch out the general direction of the story or make myself reminders, and sometimes I don't.

I had a writing teacher who says it takes her about a year to complete a new short story, but at the same time she's usually working on a novel (which takes her about 2-3 years) and she may have other short stories on the go at the same time. Do you have a typical timespan for completing a short story, or do you vary widely depending on the case?

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It may well be that the timespan between me writing a story and having it ready to hit the markets is a year or more -- but that's not continuously working on that story. Most of that time is spent procrastinating on that story by working on others (or reading message boards, etc....)

scriptor said:

My question is; when is a short story too long for a short story?

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Whenever your word count is too long for a particular magazine's guidelines...

scriptor said:

Thanks Heather! That makes alot of sense. Now I can go back and edit those shorts I've got to a decent short story that's within its boundaries ... thanks.. ya'll are the greatest.. really..

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You're very welcome! I'm glad to have helped.

Nutshell: short stories are about one thing; novels are about many things. Thus when I write a short story, there's usually only one big thing going on in it, one big event. Novels, on the other hand, have multiple things going on. Those multiple things are called sub-plots, and they're what give the novel breadth that the short story doesn't have. But then there's also the amount of description that differs, too, in that my short stories are deliberately lighter in this area, novels a little heavier (though the differences, at least in my hands, are probably more minor than I'm inclined to think). Where they really differ is in the amount of ancillary information provided, which both creates the world of the novel and textures it.

Short stories take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to write. Don't think I've spent more than a week on any of them. There is absolutely no correlation between how long it takes to write one and whether or not it sells, nor is there any correlation between first draft readiness-to-go or multi-drafty-ready-to-go-ness, by which I mean this: most of my short stories hit pretty close to the mark in the first draft in terms of length and polish.

Case in point: I wrote a short story one evening while at work. Idea showed up in my head fully cooked, so I wrote it down longhand on the front and back of a single sheet of yellow paper. Slightly less than a thousand words. Took maybe twenty minutes. I typed it up and mailed it the next day. Sold it. That was probably my quickest turnaround.

Novels take a few months to crack out, last one going about four for the first draft, subsequent work taking another month or so. And what was that subsequent work? Added a few things that the first draft left out that, upon rereading, seemed like really good ideas to have included. Mostly, though, this part of the work is rewriting done to (a) clarify the story, (b) strengthen the connective tissue, (c) enhance the various themes that pop up.

Part of my problem, I think, was that I never read enough short fiction to know how to construct a short story.

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Yep, that's a problem. But not an insurmountable one. When next you read, pay attention to, say, half a dozen stories from your favorite market. Better yet, pay attention to what's going on in a dozen of them. Look at what happens, when it happens, what kinds of things happen, and to whom they happen.Voilà, you'll have a pretty fair idea of what that market wants to buy. Oh but there's one more thing, too. Pay attention to how those stories are written, the prose. Some markets go for plain vanilla, others put on high-falutin airs. You want to sell to the markets in which you read, cook up a literary meal they'll buy. Don't send a steak to the beans and cornbread crowd.

Now I'm reading more short fiction and I want to focus on writing short stories to enhance my skills..

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Good idea. If you like exercises, you can work your way through bunches of them mentioned in John Gardner's book, The Art of Fiction, which has a few contrasting how one works in a short story versus how one works in a novel. Might be informative.

scheherazade said:

Part of my problem, I think, was that I never read enough short fiction to know how to construct a short story.

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What's awesome about this is: short stories are short. Shouldn't take you obscenely long to catch up.

This thread has some good'uns listed.

scheherazade said:

True... I guess I'd been caught up by the fact that, at least with literary short fiction, not a lot happens in short stories. ...I knew I disliked a lot of the short stories I read, ....

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I could really hurt the people who choose short fiction for textbooks just for that reason. (but of course I'm not going to because I have better self control than that)

Generally, they pick these boring, long-winded, nothing-happens stories, force you to read them, and then, because you don't like being forced to read dreck, the appreciation for the form is lost.

Bah.