Novel to short story?

No, but I've had ideas for short stories which ballooned into novels. In fact, I just finished a short story this morning which could probably venture off into a novel-length feature...

Cutting a novel down to a short story sounds like an exercise in masochism. I have searched my mind for why anybody would want to do such a thing and come up with a blank.

I have excerpted short passages from novels and molded them into short pieces for submission, but just can't see why anybody would want to chop a novel down to a short.

Layla Nahar said:

Hi

Has anyone here ever used an idea for a novel and turned it into a short story? any insights, how-tos, thoughts, suggestions?

thanks
LN

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I've never taken a novel I've written and whittled it down - I have, however, had ideas that i thought might make decent novels turn out to lack the necessary substance for a longer work and get turned into a short story.

Usually that happens when an idea I have turns out to have shallower depths than I thought it did when I first had it.

But otherwise, if you're not in the "just starting on the story" phase, I don't think I'd recommend doing it.

Often an idea simply won't fit the length you had in mind for it. I've had several ideas that are just too complicated to make a solid short story. Having what you think is a novel idea eventually become a short story or vice versa isn't all that uncommon, nor is it surprising. It happens all the time.

For sure. And perhaps that's what the OP meant here and I mis-interpreted it.

Last year I had an idea that I thought would be a cool sports novel. It ended up as a 24 minute screenplay.

hmm...I get ideas. I write, they determine the length. Some turn into shorts, some have turned into novels. I can't predict.

All my novels are short stories.

Actually, one of the writing gurus (I forget his name! ) here on the board said it best:

Writing is like a tapestry.

In a short story, you'll see the wild horse escaping from the corral near the ranch house, the cowboy who chases it down to the cliff. You'll see the cacti that the wild horse leaps over on his speedy run. You'll see some of the mountains in the distance, but they'll be hazy, vague. You'll see the woman on the front porch of the house, shading her eyes to watch everything. The cowboy returns, defeated; the wild horse escaped down a cliffside trail his domesticated horse wouldn't follow.

In a novel, you'll see the wild horse escaping from the corral near the ranch house, and the three cowboys who chase it down to the cliff. You'll see the cacti that the wild horse leaps over on his speedy run, his hooves knocking the delicate pink blossoms off the plant. You'll see the wide mountains in the distance, snow-covered and rugged. You'll see the woman on the front porch of the house, shading her eyes to watch everything. Her skirts are blowing in the wind heralding the unusual thunderstorm from the north. Dust from the wind obscures the air. Then hail rattles on the tin roof. The cowboys return, defeated; the wild horse escaped down a cliffside trail their domesticated horses wouldn't follow. They are soaked, muddy, as the hail turns to a strong rain. Puddles form in the now empty corral.

Now that's not said writing guru's example word-for-word, but you get the idea. A novel and a short story can have the same plot, it's just the novel has got TONS more detail to it. The short only provides the essentials to give the reader a strong sense of place.

Layla Nahar said:

Has anyone here ever used an idea for a novel and turned it into a short story? any insights, how-tos, thoughts, suggestions?

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Hi Layla,

This is my first post here. Apologies for not introducing myself on the newb-board first.

I've done a bit of thinking and experimenting on this -- mainly for ways to test key novel ideas before writing a whole novel. So these are half-baked thoughts, but hopefully they're not totally wet. Here they are:

• Unless you're playing with "spin-off" ideas, work with one of your novel's main characters
• Pick a point in your novel at which the main character is seriously tested - and must either change or remain steadfast
• Simplify the short's main character so that the characteristic being tested is prominent, and the other characteristics are used only for flavour and support
• Identify the key reasons that the MC changes or doesn't. Simplify the test so that it can be set up in one or two scenes, and the key reasons can be captured in one or two scenes. (These scenes may not actually exist in your novel - you might need to write new scenes)
• Cut the support characters back to just those relevant to the test
• Simplify the novel's setting - or relocate the story into a simpler but suitable setting
• Check that your key themes are intact

Example:

In Lord of the Rings, a key transitional scene is where Strider the Ranger agrees to become Aragon, King of the West. His main reason to do this is that the petty kingdoms of the West are falling apart before an onslaught of the magical overlord Sauron. His main reason against is that his ancestor Isildur betrayed his duty and allowed Sauron to return from the dead. The key support characters involved are his elven girlfriend Arianwen (who keeps the royal blade), and the wizard Gandalf (who goads Strider into accepting his inheritance). In thematic contrast with Strider's fear to risk, the immortal Arianwen pledges herself to a mortal life just to be with her beloved. So let's work with just those elements.


Here's a brief scene outline for how you could write it as a three act short.

1. As Strider overlooks the smouldering ruins of a Western town the wizard Gandalf tries unsuccessfully to persuade him to accept his birthright
2. At Arianwen's home, Strider argues with his lover about his duty - citing the failure of his ancestor Isildur and vowing never to touch his ancestor's blade.
   
   Act 2
3. Dismayed, Arianwen reforges the blade, steals Strider's armour and leads the kingdoms of the West into disastrous battle that ends her life and sees the kingdoms of the West in rout
4. Reeling with shock and grief, Strider receives his lover's body and is dressed down by Gandalf
5. Taking the bloodied ruins of his armour and the shattered remains of his sword, Strider returns to the fray and rallies the troops
6. Under the banner of the Dead King Returned and the Shattered Sword, Strider (now Aragorn) launches a desperate attack that kills Sauron (in this story just a powerful general), but costs his own forces dearly.
   
   Act 3
7. While the Western Kingdoms wish to crown Aragorn the new High King, he bestows the shattered blade and the kingship on a young lieutenant and departs to mope by the grave of his brave, dead lover.

This short doesn't hold to the events of the novel (in which Strider willingly takes up his duties, Arianwen lives and they go on to rule together), but I think holds the key themes and the initial situation, and is true to the personalities of the key characters. That's about as close as I've managed to get. Anything more risks infodump, I feel.

Good luck!

Twizzle said:

hmm...I get ideas. I write, they determine the length. Some turn into shorts, some have turned into novels. I can't predict.

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What sucks is when you're attempting to meet goals you've set for yourself, and the short story you set out to write just won't stop.

I had a short story on my weekly goals (to have a first draft completed) for three weeks, as it kept believing it was going to be a novella until I smacked some sense into it...

As punishment, I'm not going to edit it at all in January.

astonwest said:

What sucks is when you're attempting to meet goals you've set for yourself, and the short story you set out to write just won't stop.

Can I get an amen?!

I had a short story on my weekly goals (to have a first draft completed) for three weeks, as it kept believing it was going to be a novella until I smacked some sense into it...

As punishment, I'm not going to edit it at all in January.

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Yeah. That's showing it who's boss. (you do know it's in your computer snickering at you, right? )

Twizzle said:

Yeah. That's showing it who's boss. (you do know it's in your computer snickering at you, right? )

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Only until I shut the power off...and then it screams in agony!

Layla Nahar said:

Ruv, what a nice first post! this is really useful

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Layla, thanks for your comments. I also have a "training wheels" ground-up method for writing shorts which I'd be happy to post if it might help.

A Trainer-wheel Recipe for Short Writing

Ruv Draba said:

Layla, thanks for your comments. I also have a "training wheels" ground-up method for writing shorts which I'd be happy to post if it might help.

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Actually, I think it might help someone, so I'm posting it anyway. This is a 'ground up' approach to short design, Layla. It might help you indirectly, but it also might help anyone who suffers from 'short bloat' too.

(Warning: this is a recipe with a worked example. It's a fairly long post.)

I turned to writing shorts when I realised that I needed more practice in story design. Since it was the design rather than the writing I wanted practice in, the more stories I wrote, the better -- hence shorts.

In moving to shorts I also moved from organic to planned writing -- again, so that I could get a more conscious handle on design. For learning purposes I didn’t mind if my stories weren’t stunning and life-changing – I just wanted them competent and reliable, and have some impact. This approach probably won’t work for everyone, but since it worked for me, it might work for others.

Anyway, here’s my recipe. A worked example follows.


Ingredients:

• A theme. This is an observation or idea, and will be the ‘point’ of your story. Your theme should be of the form ‘If X then Y’, or ‘When X, Y too’.
  
  [For SF, Layla, I recommend that your theme covers a concern of either technology (machines or methods or sciences) or frontiers (places or states or people that are new and uncomfortable to us). (I use other concerns for other genres). For SF, especially, think about these concerns from a consumer, adventurer or victim perspective.]
• A situation and a setting in which the first part of your theme (X) could be true.
• A Main Character (MC) who lives in that setting, and experiences the situation where X is true. Make this character interesting – a person, not just a role.
• An objective that the main character wants because of this situation. Make this objective somehow link to X – so that the main character is either a consumer or a victim or a pioneer of X. (The MC might know of X or be unsuspecting)
• Some opposition to this objective. Something that makes getting the objective difficult or dangerous. This should be part of the setting and situation.
• The risk of disaster – something that may befall the main character, or people the MC loves if the objective is not met. Link the disaster to Y from your theme -- the disaster might arise from Y happening, or from Y not happening.

You don't strictly need them, but the following two ingredients help a lot:

• An idea for a Climax scene – where the disaster must be fought
• An idea for an Ending and how the MC will feel. Does the MC succeed or fail? How will we know? Will the audience feel good or bad about this?

Method:

Write eight scenes at one line per scene. Each scene must feature your MC either attempting something difficult (action scene) or reacting to something new and significant (reaction scene). I often list the scene location too.

To keep it short you have a scene budget as follows:

• Scenes 1-2 (Introduction): Introduce the character, setting and situation. Introduce the objective and opposition.
• Scenes 3-6 (Complication): Make the character’s objective difficult, dangerous or complicated
• Scene 7 (Climax): Here have the MC struggle mightily to prevent disaster from happening
• Scene 8 (Ending): Here, describe the aftermath.

If you want to meet a word count then divide the words by the number of scenes. That’s your average word budget per scene. (Note: these scenes don't have to change location. They each just move the tension on one notch.)


Theme: 'If we could all read minds, we would go mad from seeing the evil hidden inside us.’ (Like I said, it doesn't have to be true - just interesting).

Situation and Setting: It’s modern day in our world, and scientists make a breakthrough on a retrovirus that helps people read minds. The retrovirus works by increasing the production and connection of mirror neurons in the brain. (These neurons are thought to be responsible for empathy and learning - so maybe some autistic kids have problems with them?) Intended to help autistic children; the mind-reading is an unexpected side-effect.

Character: Mary Lee supports her young autistic brother Simon. (Note: she needs more character detail than just that, but this is just a sketch!)

Objective: She’s heard of Glass – the experimental retrovirus that’s supposed to help autistic children learn, and wants to get her brother put onto a course.

Opposition: While the treatment has near-miraculous results, the scientists insist on giving it to only the worst cases of autism, and only to the young. Simon is a teenager and not profoundly autistic.

Disaster: In cases where users already have near-functional mirror neurons, Glass gives them such high empathy that they can actually read minds. But this sends them mad and often suicidal – because human minds are actually far more nasty than we realise.

Climax: After getting Glass for Simon, Mary’s shocked that his rapid improvement is followed by terrible deterioration. In desperation she takes Glass herself to try to gain understanding of what’s happening to him.

Ending: Mary begins to see into peoples’ minds and she realises just how horrifically evil and selfish we are underneath. Horrifically, she realises that she is going mad -- as her brother already has.

Scene Outline (Action, reaction scenes are marked (A) and (R) respectively)

1. (Intro)At home, Mary struggles with the difficult task of helping her autistic brother Simon through dinner (A)
2. (Intro)At Simon’s special school, Mary hears about Glass – how one of the school children has improved, but how difficult it is to get on the program (R)
3. At the offices of the manufacturer (invent a name), and despite Mary’s strenuous arguments, Simon is refused entry to the Program on grounds of age and condition (A)
4. At work, Mary seethes over the injustice and fakes Simon’s application (Note: it might help if Mary’s job would assist this – eg a medical clerk) (A)
5. At home, Mary sees the marked improvement in Simon (R)
6. At home, as Simon starts to deteriorate, Mary tries helplessly to save him from self-harm (A)
7. (Climax) Desperate to save her brother’s life, Mary takes Glass herself to try to understand what he needs (A)
8. (Ending) Looking out with her brother’s eyes, Mary realises just how much evil is hidden in peoples’ minds – and prepares her own death and her brother’s (R)

This method isn’t for utter beginners. You need to have a reasonable understanding of character, setting, narration, plot, dialogue and tension for it to work. It’s meant for writers who understand the basics, but are having some trouble producing solid short story designs.

This is a training method. The whole point of this method is to put some discipline and focus around the design process so you can think about other writery things (like themes and characters and settings and narrative and dialogue) instead. If you hate discipline and focus -- or if you already have enough discipline and focus through some other method -- then don't even think of using this!

Using this method, key to getting a good story is to start with an interesting theme. If you're writing SF, it should be one that gives a SF concern a human face, and maybe makes us think a little. [For other genres (e.g. fantasy, horror, suspense) I have some notes on concerns and treatments that may help - ping me and I'll post them. For mainstream (non-genre) I leave themes up to you! ] But regardless of genre, it should also be a theme easy to ‘prove’ when you set up the story. Another key is to have the MC either change or else make some definitive character statement in the climax scene.

This eight scene structure is based on a conventional Three Act structure (Beginning, Middle, End), and adapted for shorts. You can make it shorter by dropping some middle scenes or even scene 2. You can also add some more middle scenes if the story requires it – but I find that 4 middle scenes makes a fairly happy medium.

Scene length varies depending on story and style. It might be as few as 100 words, or as many as 1,000. It’s often good practice to try and make your scenes as short as possible, and pack the most punch into the fewest words.

Cut down, this method adapts okay for some flash fiction (though again, you can’t tell all flash with it), but I wouldn’t try and beef it up for novella or novel design. I feel that it’s too inflexible and predictable to deal with the way that novels need to unfold.

Using this structure, you can produce some very capable, workmanlike shorts. But there are some shorts you can’t tell well in this structure, and there are many shorts that just tell better in other structures. However, once you have shorts popping out reliably, you can think about other ways to design and tell your story ideas.

Good luck!

Yes. I'm usually quite good at estimating if an idea will become a short story, a longer short or novella, or a novel. But sometimes I get it wrong. At least twice, what I thought was a short story turned out to be the start of a novel.

However, it has happened in reverse. In my late teens I wrote a novel (in longhand!) that I reached the end of in draft but never had any urge to go back and revise. I've no idea as to wordcount, but I suspect it wasn't especially long as a novel. Then, ten years or so later, I took the basic idea and characters and rewrote it from scratch as a short (novelette) of 10,000 words. The result has been published.

A short story won't give you the room to work on "all the ideas in general." If you want to work on those ideas, the novel, floundering or not, is the place to do it. To lean on Stephen King, he's the one who said something like this: The more lost you feel, the faster you should write. The idea, of course, that by doing this, you will finish the story.

As to the matter of turning a novel into a short story, yes, did that. Wrote a SF novel that no one wanted, then sat down and wrote a short story version of it. Thing is, that short story had almost nothing in common with the novel, beyond its main idea. Good news, though, is that the short story turned out to be my first professional sale. (I have long since foolishly spent the money, which is the only way I know how to spend...)

So why was the short story so different from the novel? I tossed out everything but the central idea -- the big, "what is the story about?" engine that drove the thing -- then added a character with a problem similar to the one the main character had in the novel, kept the noire feel, wrapped it up in a veneer of social isolation and gloom, turned the crank, and got a short story about futuristic drug addiction, the kinds of people who engage in this particular vice, and what effect the abandonment of mere humanity might have.

In the end, the novel was about these things, too, but told from the perspective of a cop who had to do a bunch of things to stop the spread of the humanity-warping drug. The short story was told from the perspective of a petty crook/druggie who bungled a small-time deal with the antagonist from the novel and was left dealing with the consequences. Whereas the novel was about several events, the short story was really about only two, which were hope and betrayal.

Which reminds me: it was Philip K. Dick who once said that novels are about a series of events, short stories about one.

Maybe you could pick one of the events from your novel and turn it into a short story?