How long do you take to hit the "action"?

Pike · Sep 3, 2007

I know the general rule of thumb is to hit the ground running with your story, but how long do you work into a story before you hit "the action"? Do many of you set up for a page or two, lay out some atmosphere then go or do you throw the reader into the thick of it? Just curious about how others approach their work.

Pike

melaniehoo · Sep 3, 2007

hee hee *dirty thoughts, dirty thoughts*

First page, but I grabbed it from three or four chapters into the story. It's more of a prologue, I suppose.

CACTUSWENDY · Sep 3, 2007

I try to hit the floor running......oh, you mean...

I lead off with a hook, aciton, mystery, kick to the mind...what ever, to get you to keep reading.

Soccer Mom · Sep 3, 2007

I usually hit the ground running, but then again, much of what I write is flash and your legs had better be churning.

With a short, I do sometimes take a bit to set the mood and set up the scene, but hopefully with some sort of hook to make you want to read more. A short MUST have something to draw you in. I'm impatient in reading shorts. I'll give a novelist a page or two to draw me in. I'll give a short a paragraph to hook me. It can be a unique setting, a character, a compelling voice that just lights me up. I want an inkling of the conflict immediately.

Jamesaritchie · Sep 4, 2007

Action

Short stories have limited room, so I get to the action faster than I do in a novel. The first page or two, however, while generally containing some action, is primarily for giving the reader an idea of what the story is about, introducing the main character, and setting the mood and tone.

Stijn Hommes · Sep 4, 2007

So far I've only written short fiction - most as short as one page. So I tend to get to the action within a paragraph.

Pike · Sep 4, 2007

Generally, I try to lay out some ground work first but as James and Mom said, give the reader something to chew on, some hook that you can reel them in with.

I asked this question mainly because I was working on a horror story that didn't hit the actual "horror" until the end of the second page. I laid out plenty of conflict and character prior to that but started to doubt where I started from. I prpobably should post the piece on SYW and let others take a swing at it. Still, thanks for everyone's input.

Pike

larocca · Sep 4, 2007

Start with the dead body, and if there isn't one in your story, go outside and kill somebody just to get yourself in the mood.

Aren't you glad you don't live in my neighborhood?

Kate Thornton · Sep 4, 2007

I like to get to the "little action" right away so I can set up the "big action" - but if my story is too long in the front (I take too much time to get to anything) I just start pruning.

PeeDee · Sep 4, 2007

With short stories, I usually get into the action faster than in novels...less as a conscious decision, and more because that's how the story goes. I'm not interested in the back story, because it's not going to belong here. So I start with A and work my way to Z in short order, best as I can.

J.Ziekemijjer · Sep 4, 2007

I write short stories. I pick the main event of my story and begin close to it. Usually not close enough though, so I chop my first paragraph or two

Pike · Sep 4, 2007

PeeDee said:
With short stories, I usually get into the action faster than in novels...less as a conscious decision, and more because that's how the story goes. I'm not interested in the back story, because it's not going to belong here. So I start with A and work my way to Z in short order, best as I can.

That's where I tend to stumble. I want to fill the reader in so there's no confusion. Damn it's hard to let it go.

Pike

The_Grand_Duchess · Sep 4, 2007

I think with short stories you have to hit the ground running. I like using that line. You have limited space to tell the story. I mean should always be as long as it needs to be and no less but the flip side of that is it should be no more. The person's enitre life history that lead up to the moment of him being chased down the street by a pack of vampire vixen lesbians isn't important. And if it is, then maybe your story isn't a short at all.

ChimeraCreative · Sep 5, 2007

As always, I think Kate's advice was splendid. A little action, build up some foreboding and atmosphere then have a big splash at the end. When you're finished trimming the excess material is usually a straightforward process.

For my short stories I get straight into the action if it's going to be less than eight pages long. I have a habit of creating a lot of build up to a joke at the end of some of my longer ones. ^_^

Good luck with the efforts Pike. We're all rooting for you. ^_^

-An

PeeDee · Sep 5, 2007

Pike said:
That's where I tend to stumble. I want to fill the reader in so there's no confusion. Damn it's hard to let it go.

Pike

If it's relevant to the story that takes place directly in the pages you're writing, fill 'em in. If it's an interesting aside, or interesting backstory, or whatnot, then don't.

OR...

DO fill them in, and wind up with a longer story, which is still by no means unsellable or failed. Hell, some of Stephen King's short stories have plenty of backstory in them.

BUT...all the backstory his short stories have is directly related to what's happening. THat's important.

I think of it this way: A short story is a CD single -- just one pop song that'll make it onto the radio. A novel is an entire CD, or a concept album if you want. Meaning that occasionally, it does meander and some of it wouldn't work as a short story and isn't necessarily catchy.

Summonere · Sep 5, 2007

Page one. But that depends on what you mean by "action."

Blam! Blam! Blam! and screeching-tires kind of action sometimes occurs on page one, but far more important to my brain is creating a sense of story purpose so that no matter what's on page one, readers get the sense that, hey, something's going on, here, this is going to amount to something, thereby getting them to keep reading. It seems that if I can get a story to do that, then it really doesn't matter what kind of action occurs on page one.

maestrowork · Sep 5, 2007

It depends on the genre, of course. I write lit fic short stories so they generally unfold more slowly than my horror shorts, for example. But I tend to get right into the core conflict, if not on the first page, to get the ball rolling. In media res works very well for shorts.

Shane Fitzsimmons · Sep 5, 2007

With short stories more than anything, you need to start things off right in the middle of the conflict, almost entirely without exceptions. If you spend the first page or two or even paragraph "setting the mood" you've already failed.

Jamesaritchie · Sep 5, 2007

Shane Fitzsimmons said:
With short stories more than anything, you need to start things off right in the middle of the conflict, almost entirely without exceptions. If you spend the first page or two or even paragraph "setting the mood" you've already failed.

It depends what you mean by "conflict," but I don't really agree with this. I've sold an awful bunch of short stories that didn't start with action, and with very little to no conflict. I think setting the mood and tone are incredibly important. In fact, I can't remember selling, or writing, a short story that doesn't set the mood and tone in the first couple of pages.

I do think the first two pages should introduce the main character, and should give an idea of what the story is going to be about, but that's enough.

Like any other form of writing, what matters is holding an editor's interest. And as an editor, I can tell you that so many writers think that a short story must begin with action that such stories get old fast. When every story I pull out of the slush pile starts with action, my eyes glaze over after ten minutes.

Ava Jarvis · Sep 5, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
I think setting the mood and tone are incredibly important. In fact, I can't remember selling, or writing, a short story that doesn't set the mood and tone in the first couple of pages.

It took me a while to come around to this (years) but this makes sense. Stories pick up when the status quo changes. You don't know how the status quo changes until you see the status quo.

Like any other form of writing, what matters is holding an editor's interest. And as an editor, I can tell you that so many writers think that a short story must begin with action that such stories get old fast. When every story I pull out of the slush pile starts with action, my eyes glaze over after ten minutes.

I wondered if it was just me that rolled my eyes at the ubiquity of drop-folks-in-the-action-no-context starts, and if there was something fundamentally wrong with me....

Cathy C · Sep 5, 2007

I tend to write to a specific size of story (in that I gear short stories to particular markets.) So I'll write the story as it feels right to me and then step back and look at it. Often what happens is that the first few introductory paragraphs can be cut without affecting the flow. I tend to start with a line of dialogue that speaks of the action while in the middle. Then I'll put back in whatever few sentences need to be there to introduce the characters.

Weird, I know. But it's what I do. :Shrug:

Stijn Hommes · Sep 5, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
I think setting the mood and tone are incredibly important.

I put the mood, the tone and the action all in the first two lines of my latest story.

Pike · Sep 5, 2007

Jamesaritchie said:
I've sold an awful bunch of short stories that didn't start with action, and with very little to no conflict. I think setting the mood and tone are incredibly important. In fact, I can't remember selling, or writing, a short story that doesn't set the mood and tone in the first couple of pages.

Phew. Thank you, James.

This writing thing is such a learning curve. Each story tends push me into a different direction, method, and approach. Time to stop stressing and go back to writing.

Pike

Stijn Hommes · Sep 6, 2007

Pike said:
That's where I tend to stumble. I want to fill the reader in so there's no confusion. Damn it's hard to let it go.

Pike

The reader is usually smarter than you think. They don't need the backstory, a lot of it can usually be guessed.

Jamesaritchie · Sep 6, 2007

Mood

Stijn Hommes said:
I put the mood, the tone and the action all in the first two lines of my latest story.

I think it takes a lot more than two lines to get any of it in properly.

How long do you take to hit the "action"?

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