Struggling with short fiction

[Dru]

Hello everyone,

I'm moving this question from the "Learning to Write with Uncle Jim" thread since it really deals more with short fiction issues.

I'm currently struggling is an issue I have. I have a confession: I'm just not very comfortable with short fiction. I think this stems from the fact that I don't enjoy it much as a reader and that colors my reaction as a writer. When I read and write I want to spend as much time "in" the story as possible.

As a writer however, short fiction seems to be a better place to develop skills, since the cycle time is (generally) quicker. Not to mention that there are far more avenues in short fiction than novel length fiction, at least for getting your feet wet.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for helping trying to craft shorter pieces from longer material or ways of approaching short fiction for someone generally not used to it?

Any resources, thoughts, tips or tricks would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

--Dru

[veingloree]

I went into short stories primarily as a writer. I have learnt to appreciate them more as a reader but like most people I continue to prefer longer fiction.

My approach was to think of them as an exercise in developing effective plots. Sometimes I tried to write a series of book chapters that could also work as stand alone stories. but basically I did it to get published and I wrote what the markets wanted. It helped to write in the few genres where I had enjoyed short fiction as a kid (mainly sci fi).

Good luck.

[HConn]

Dru, I'm going to question your assumption that writing short fiction is a better place to study craft.

Some people just aren't comfortable with short forms. If that's you, you should write the stuff you love. That's the best training.

That said, if you still want to write shorts, think of it this way:

Unity of Place.
Unity of Incident.
Limited number of characters

Those three ideas aren't meant to be descriptive of all short stories--they're only tools to help a long-form writer keep it short.

The best thing to do is to get your hands on several magazines and anthologies, sit down and read them. Study them. There's no better way to jump in.

[Jamesaritchie]

If you don't enjoy reading short stories, there's not much point in trying to write them.

Some few skills translate from short story to novel, but most do not. Short stories and novels are simply very different forms of writing, and very few things in the two are done the same way.

Trying to gain novel writing skills by writing short stories just doesn't work. You learn to write short stories by writing short stories, and you learn to write novels by writing novels.

This is triply true for anyone trying to write short stories without first loving to read them.

Just write a novel.

[Dru]

*nod*

Thank you all for the comments.

I usually get a lot of blank/"you're a bug-eyed monster" stares from the groups I've been working with for critiquing and skill building when I say that I feel more at ease with novels than short stories.

I definitely agree that readers always pick up when an author doesn't have passion for their work, so that's why I've been struggling with the subject some.

So everyone, let me flip this around somewhat. If I'm not the best with the short form, but want to build/work out skill kinks in my writing in a shorter cycle than the typical novel length, what would you recommend?

Thank you again for the helpful words.

--Dru

[HConn]

If you haven't done it yet, go to the novels forum and read the whole "Uncle Jim" thread. Do all the exercises Jim suggests.

Then start writing books.

Why do you want shorter cycles?

[Jamesaritchie]

So everyone, let me flip this around somewhat. If I'm not the best with the short form, but want to build/work out skill kinks in my writing in a shorter cycle than the typical novel length, what would you recommend?

I'd still recommend writing novels. You're looking for shortcuts, and in my experience, there simply are none.

You work out the kinks in your writing by writing the kind of material you like to write, at the length you intend to sell.

It happens no quicker at all writing short stories than it does writing novels. In fact, it doesn;t happen nearly as fast. Writing a 100K novel will teach you far more about writing novels than writing 200K worth of short stories.

It takes no longer to write a 100K novel than it does to write twenty-five or thirty short stories, and odds are a heck of a lot higher that the novel will be better and teach you more than all the short stories put together.

Don't look for shortcuts. Doing so just wastes much time you could be using to actually write novels. If you want to sell novels, then write novels. That is the shortcut.

[veingloree]

It can be worth writing short work as a separate skill (and to improve basic things like grammar). My reasonaing was that I wanted to get in print more often... there are only so many novels I can write in a year ;)

[Jamesaritchie]

It can be worth writing short work as a separate skill (and to improve basic things like grammar). My reasonaing was that I wanted to get in print more often... there are only so many novels I can write in a year

Can you get into print by writing things you don't love to read and write? And it's a heck of a lot tougher selling a short story than selling a novel. You may have to write a hundred short stories before you're good enough to sell one, and a hundred short stories is like writing five novels. For that matter, it's much easier writing a novel than writing twenty short stories, let alone a hundred. A novel requires one plot, one story, one central problem. Twenty short stories require twenty good plots, twenty of everything. A hundred short stories means a hundred of everything.

Even writers who love writing short stories can write for years and years without selling one.

And if anything, spending too much time writing short stories can injure your ability to write good novels. The forms are just too different. You can do much of anyting in a novel the way you do it in a short story, and if you get short story techniques too deeply ingrained, writing a novel can be tough.

Learning grammar is no easier with short stories than with novels. Short story or novel, each sentence needs grammar skills.

I understand the desire to get into print more often, but the best way to get into print is to write whatever you most love to read. Every minute you spend writing a short story is a minute you aren't spending on a novel, so the question of how many novels you can write in a year depends partly on how much writing time you spend working on novels, and how much writing time you spend working on short stories.

It's hard enough to get published even when writing something you absolutely love. It's darned near impossible when writing something you don't love.

Short is not easier, it's harder. A heck of a lot harder, and the competition is far more intense. A novel has room for flaws, but a short story must be nearly perfect to sell. And just about every paying market for short stories has the best writers in the world trying to fill the very few available slots.

It isn't easy getting anything published, particularly in paying markets, but trust me, you stand a far better chance of selling a first novel than of selling a fiftieth or even a hundreth short story. Even if you love reading and writing short stories, odds are you'll go years before selling one. And if you don't love to read short stories, I'd say the odds of selling one are almost zero.

Nine out of ten writers who dedicate themselves to writing short stories never manage to sell one to a paying market, and most of these are writers who love to read short stories, and love to write short stories.

I see the logic in thinking shorter means easier, that shorter means a better chance of breaking into print, but it just isn't so. Shorter is harder, and shorter means less chance of breaking into print. Partly this is because just about all new writers seem to think shorter is easier, so potential markets are flooded with millions of short story manuscripts each year. Anyone can finish a short story. Most are really bad, but they are finished, and they are in submission.

Not many can actually finish a novel, and still fewer have the dedication to keeo sending one out time and time again. Most stop after a few tries, or resort to POD or self-publishing.

Odds of selling a novel are roughly one in one hundred. Even at small magazines, odds of selling a short story are roughly one in one thousand. And the larger the magazine, the worse the odds. Even established writers can have a very hard time selling a short story, and established writers with recognizable names are your main competition in the short story market.

It can, and usually does, take several years to learn how to write short stories that are good enough to sell, and most never reach this point at all.

Granted, if you can sell short stories to paying markets, agents and editors will pay serious attention to your novels. But they reason for this is that so very few can sell short stories to paying markets. Most who do have already sold novels, in fact.

I understand your desires, but the reason to write short stories is not because you want to be in print more often. It just doesn't work this way. The reason to write short stories is because you absolutely love to read short stories, and find writing them extremely pleasurable.

[Dru]

James and HConn

You've been very clear on the good reasoning why I should stick to the novel if that's where I feel the passion for the story.

The reason why I asked is that when 90% of the people I've worked with on craft over the past couple years talk to me, the "You should be writing short stories" comment invariably comes up.

I am still trying to develop my skill level, not by circumventing the hard work, but by trying to find effective tools and techniques to improve my work.

I'll go back to lurking around the Uncle Jim thread and proceeding through the Lessons I haven't already done.

Actually, I need to get my BIC for today, and stop flossing the cat here.

The clear commentary has been very useful and a wondrous sanity check for me. This board continues to impress. Thanks.

[reph]

Short is not easier, it's harder.

That depends on who you are. My mind works best in short bursts, really short bursts. I've sold microflash fiction, and I can't even imagine writing a novel.

[veingloree]

I think there is no hard and fast rule. To take an extreme example the rule that book sell better than short fiction is not, in my experience, true of erotica. I did learn to both enjoy and sell short fiction without having a prior love of it.

[Jamesaritchie]

That depends on who you are. My mind works best in short bursts, really short bursts. I've sold microflash fiction, and I can't even imagine writing a novel.

Sure, but all things being equal, a novel is one heck of a lot easier to sell than a short story. Good novels sell, good short stories generally don't. There aren't nearly enough good novels to fill the slots, but there are far more good short stories than any editor needs. There are simply too many good short story writers out there. A short story has to be great to sell.

[Jamesaritchie]

To take an extreme example the rule that book sell better than short fiction is not, in my experience, true of erotica. I did learn to both enjoy and sell short fiction without having a prior love of it.

No, it isn't true of erotica. Short erotica is the easiest fiction in the world to sell.

But it is true of genre magazines, mainstream magazines, and literary magazines.

It's also true that if you want to sell novels, the only practice for this that works is writing novels, and every minute you aren;t working on a novel, you're just delaying the time when you'll sell a novel..

[maestrowork]

I enjoy reading/writing really short fiction, anything under 1000 words. I also enjoy reading/writing novels, anything longer than 60,000 words (but not too long -- I don't have patience).

IMHO, the short fiction market is limited. Most places only accept less than 50 mss. a year. and since short stories take much less time to write, the competition is bigger.

[reph]

Jamesaritchie, you've argued against my opinion by jumping sideways. Now you say you were talking about the comparative difficulty of selling short stories or novels. In the earlier post, however, you talked also about the comparative difficulty of writing them. It would be only fair to hold still.

There aren't nearly enough good novels to fill the slots, but there are far more good short stories than any editor needs.

Maybe that disproportion shows that short stories are easier to write than novels.

[veingloree]

There are also a lot of sup-professional paying short stories markets that can make a useful training ground for the beginning writer. Some of us can write a great novel straight out of the blocks, others need a few lessons in the basics of grammar, syntax and narrative.

[maestrowork]

I think many techniques are useful in both forms: dialogue, plot advancement, characterization, etc. But the mindsets are different.

Is it easier for a short story writer to transition to novels? Or is it easier for a novelist to transition to short stories? I don't know. But I think short stories and novels are similar enough that the transition wouldn't be too painful.

The transition between screen and novel writing, however, could be.

[Fresie]

And if anything, spending too much time writing short stories can injure your ability to write good novels. The forms are just too different. You can do much of anyting in a novel the way you do it in a short story, and if you get short story techniques too deeply ingrained, writing a novel can be tough.

James, do you mind if I ask you in which ways they are different? I do agree with what you've said, but could you please show it on a couple of examples? I'm more of a short story person, so as I work on a novel now, I'd really love to know what you think about the difference in techniques. Thank you! :)

[evanaharris]

Some of us can write a great novel straight out of the blocks, others need a few lessons in the basics of grammar, syntax and narrative.

I get the feeling that if you're not up to speed on your grammar, syntax, and don't have a basic idea about narrative structure, then you're not likely to be very interested in writing to begin with.

[veingloree]

In my case at least, you'd be wrong. Time to accept that it is a matter of horses for courses perhaps? Writing short stories can help some writers develop and hinder others. Some people start out with a lot of skills and other develop them on the way.

It is very easy to confuse one's recipe for success with 'the' recipe for success. I would have recommended short story writing to anyone, but now I can see it would be a bad idea for some. I still persist in suggesting that is can be useful for some genres and skills levels.

[evanaharris]

In my case at least, you'd be wrong

I still don't believe you, but as there's no way for me to definitively prove "Veingloree (or Jill, whatever your name is) is absolutely positively wrong!", and no real point to it, anyway, I'll just have to let it slide.

I do agree about the recipe for success bit. I spent a lot of time figuring that one out.

[veingloree]

Phrasing it as 'you'd be wrong' was a bit dumb anyway. But I am constantly amazed at how badly I wrote in almost every way when I was starting out. Looking at stories from 4-5 years ago is like reading a parody of bad writing, except I was serious!

[maestrowork]

I think a serious fiction writer should tackle both. It's good to know the difference between short stories and novels. We can always learn. It doesn't mean you have to do one or the other or both.

Besides, you double your opportunities.

[Dru]

I think that both forms have their lessons to teach people.

I'm sure there are general writing skills that cross the boundary easily. Some people may flip between formats easily, other may not.

I've learned a lot over the last couple years watching how short story writers tighten their prose over multiple drafts. I believe that's helped me make my words count for more in a scene.

My issue is that while I can attempt shorts from time to time, they don't flow mentally and creatively from me like scenes in a chapter/novel do. It is a skill I'm trying to develop, but it is definitely slow going.

Building tool-sets for your work is critical no matter what form you are trying to work in. I think it is good to exercise different muscles if you can, but sometimes you have a preference in the method you do that in.

[Jamesaritchie]

James, do you mind if I ask you in which ways they are different?

It's probably easy to say the only real similarity is that both teach you to write good sentences. Everything else is different.

Plot is much more detailed in a novel, and has subplots woven in and out. Characterizaion is also a matter of far more depth in a novel, and of being able to use detail and description to get the job done that you can't use in short stories. It's even worse the other way around. Learning to use characterization in short stories means leaning how to say an awful lot with an awful little, and once you get in this habit, it can be real hard to break it when you start working on a novel, and it's a technique that just doesn;t play well in novels.

There are other differences, but for those who get used to writing short stories, pace and flow can be a real killer when it's time to write a novel. There's a view with many that a novel is really just a very long short story, and it simply isn;t true. Pace and flow are far more than just adding more detail and description. All this does is make for a boring story.

You have to learn pace and flow in a novel all over again, if you write a bunch of short stories, and you have to learn pace and flow for short stories all over again when you spend your time writing novels.

Many extremely good novelists simply can't write a good shortstory no matter how hard they try, and many very good short story writers can't write a good novel no matter what.

[Jamesaritchie]

Maybe that disproportion shows that short stories are easier to write than novels.

No, it doesn't. It only shows there are millions of writers who write short stories, and only thousands of writers who actually finish novels.

A short story may be easier to write, if all you mean is taking one from start to finish, but a short story is much harder to write if your aim is writing one that's good enough to be published by a paying market.

The numbers speak for themselves. For a given writer, the odds of selling a short story are horrendous against doing so. For a given writer, the odds of selling a novel aren't really very bad at all. No worse than a hundred to one, and at those odds, we would all be spending our paychecks on the lottery.

There simply aren't many markets for short stories, and there are millions of writers churning them out.

There is room for errors in a novel, and there simply isn't room for errors in a short story.

And from reading thrugh slush piles, I can tell you that if writing a good short story were as easy as writing a good novel, someone is hiding all the good short stories from editors.

[Jamesaritchie]

But I think short stories and novels are similar enough that the transition wouldn't be too painful.


It's not only painful for many, it's impossible. My guess is that moving from short stories to novels is much easier than moving from novels to short stories, only because you seldom find writers who are successful in the second case.

But I think what's really being overlooked in all this is the most important aspect of all; whether or not you truly love reading and writing short stories.

We all have our differences in the way we write, the way we approach things, but there's nothing harder than writing in an area you don't enjoy reading, and this is an across the board rule.

If you don't enjoy reading short stories, you probably won't even know what a short story is, and you certainly won't know what techniques work, or what's already been done.

There are certainly many good short story writers who also are very good novel writers, but if anyone can point to such a writer who is successful at both without also enjoying reading both, please do point him out because I have yet to meet him , or even hear about him.

You get good at doing something by doing it, but you also have to enjoy whatever the subject is. Trying to write a good short story without enjoying reading short stories makes no more sense that trying to become a mathematician if you hate math.

[Jamesaritchie]

I think a serious fiction writer should tackle both. It's good to know the difference between short stories and novels. We can always learn. It doesn't mean you have to do one or the other or both.

Besides, you double your opportunities.

I think this is absolutely true IF you enjoy reading and writing both. I've sold a few novels, and I've sold almost a hundred short stories, and I think anyone who has a love for both should definitely write both.

But you aren't really doubling your opportunity. There are so few paying markets for short stories, and so many millions trying to write them that you really have to be extremely good at it to get published.

I think you maximize your opportunity by putting everything you have into what you most love to read and write.

I write and sell short stories only because I love reading them to no end, and I find writing them an intense pleasure. I think this is a requirement for any sort of writing you intend to do well.

[Fresie]

Wow, James, thanks a lot! Amazing answers.

[CapeRuby]

Thank you to everyone for your insights into this issue. It's been nagging at me for the last four years. (And thanks to reph for pointing me in this direction from the Uncle Jim thread.)

Dru, your problems sound exactly like mine.

I've been trying to hone the craft (plotting, pace, characterization, theme) by writing short stories. But I confess, I don't really like to read short stories. I've done it regularly, certainly -- to analyze, and learn. But a short story wouldn't keep me under the covers with a flashlight after "lights out" was signaled. The whole thing has a hint of duty about it.

When I try to write short stories, the ones that I'm most satisfied with -- ie, satisfactory characters, plot points, interaction among events and characters and theme -- are very round, if that makes any sense. They read more like little novels, despite the fact that they're only 6000 words (after butchery). If I try to alter their shape, if I try to make them incisive, or sharp as a sword -- the shape I see a short story as having -- they lose the "thing" that makes them satisfactory to me.

It helps to hear from people who have had some success at both that the skill sets are very different. It certainly gives me pause, and makes me reevaluate what I'm trying to accomplish.

[Summonere]

Here's an odd thing:

When I was reading novels by the bucketfull, I wrote short stories because I saw everything in novels that wasn't needed and honed them down to their simplest elements. Thus when I wrote, out popped short stories. When I read short stories by rick and bushel, I saw everything that they'd left out and so, when I sat down to write, out popped novels.

That aside, most everything Jamesaritchie has said in his posts in this thread is correct.

Most important of all is this: write what you are moved to write. Do nothing that seems a chore. When writing becomes a chore, you've lost the game.

P.S. Short stories are about a single event. Novels are about many events. (So said Philip K. Dick and Poe and Lovecraft et alia...)

[jwschnarr]

Here are my thoughts,

I think if you want to work on your grammar you should probably attend a writing class. poor sentence structure often doesn't matter in the fiction world whether it's novels OR short stories, but in professional writing (my day job) it makes all the difference in the world.

Writing short stories I believe is more closely related to writing poetry than it is to writing novels. Here your word count will either work for you or against you, and in either case you should always try to slim things down as much as you can. Of course, that's pretty much a given, right?

I definitely believe that writing a short story is more difficult than writing a novel, if for nothing else than the space problems you run into writing short fiction. I could make you love anyone if you gave me enough time and space to write about them. Making you love someone in 2-3000 words, however, is a real skill that takes a lot of practice and hard work.

For the most part, I don't experience the division in writing professionally, short stories, or novels. It's all writing, and either you can write or you can't. It's like saying you can't write in a specific genre. OF COURSE you can, you're a writer aren't you? That's what you do.

PS, for those who CAN'T write, there are TONS of classes out there that will bring you up to par in little time at all. And of course, practice is always the word of the day, right?

B.