Historical Short Stories

I'm interested to hear the answers too, Julie. As I'm really between novels right now, I wanted to try some historical short fiction, and have been having a really hard time getting started. I have one story that I've started and scrapped halfway through three times!

Perhaps you could try this?

For historicals let's define a short story as a short piece of prose which looks at one moment, one important moment in a character's life.
SO
Start with a character in a period you know and like. Who is s/he?
Think about hir, know hir family history etc.

Then using that knowledge of that character, give that character a decision to make. The decision will affect hir life and the story shows the decision and its consequences.

Show it in 3-4,000 words.

Decisions can be big: Go on the Crusade? Join the navy in war time?
OR
smaller: Stay at school although it's the Depression and the family's hungry? Give up marriage for duty to parents etc.

I was just on the point of asking the same question, having read the competition thread. Thanks for the answer, pdr. Only time I've managed to write short stories, I had to think of the plot in terms of the short plays we used to have to write in college and perform, but for a historical short story, I wasn't sure if there were other conventions. I sort of think of short story as more making a single point, sort of what you've said about the single moment.

Now all I need is an idea.

You might also go back up and look at some of the reversal posts in SYW to get some ideas. There's also a short fiction forum up not far from the top of the board. And, this may sound silly, but look at some of the 60 word posts for ideas.

One of the hazards (which was addressed a bit a couple months ago either in historical or in one of the reversal posts) especially for historical, is writing vignettes instead of an actual story. A story does need the beginning, middle, and end, and there must be tension. Pick an event (or make one up) that happened in a day or less and see what you can do with it. Puma

May I politely point out...

that if you try to write a short story around an event when you are learning to cope with short story writing and making every word count, then you may well end up with too many characters, too much happening and no conflict.

If you start writing a short story from one character's POV with that character struggling to decide/do/not do something then you have a good chance of making a reasonable short story as the conflict and consequences are set up for you by the character.

Don't forget to make a short story KISS - keep it short and simple. Eliminate more than two or three characters, eliminate any words that don't carry their full load, eliminate anything which isn't adding to what you want to say.

Topics?
Well, Jess. How about the classic Civil War one of a family divided? Father royalist Son Roundhead or any combination like sister a puritan and brother not! Or the Roman who hates the Empire and mucks up the system?

PastMidnight: 1950s marriage or career? First Kiss and it's your brother's girl?

Julie:You're in Germany. How about the anarchists, do you hide your brother who is plotting to blow up someone?

Who else is in for the challenge?

pdr said:

that if you try to write a short story around an event when you are learning to cope with short story writing and making every word count, then you may well end up with too many characters, too much happening and no conflict.

If you start writing a short story from one character's POV with that character struggling to decide/do/not do something then you have a good chance of making a reasonable short story as the conflict and consequences are set up for you by the character.

Don't forget to make a short story KISS - keep it short and simple. Eliminate more than two or three characters, eliminate any words that don't carry their full load, eliminate anything which isn't adding to what you want to say.

Click to expand...

This just reminded me of a seminar ages ago on the difference between short stories and novellas, where we had to compare 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner' to 'Billy Liar', and one of the main points was the focus on one particular character in a short story rather than having a full cast.

Topics?
Well, Jess. How about the classic Civil War one of a family divided? Father royalist Son Roundhead or any combination like sister a puritan and brother not! Or the Roman who hates the Empire and mucks up the system?

Click to expand...

I'm doing the divided family thing in my big WIP, so I was trying to think of something different. I actually just sat my exam in medieval history and am now in the middle of writing a paper on the relationship between Roman Law and custom in medieval Europe, so my brain is more stuck in around the tenth to thirteenth centuries at the moment. I have half an idea for a little thing on Irnerius and Mathilda of Tuscany, but it's not fully formed yet. I've just always wanted to write about Irnerius, give him some sort of life and character.

My trouble is keeping those ideas restrained, as in not allowing them to get very complicated and become ideas for novels rather than short stories. What I have to do is try and restrain myself to one incident that's important, I think, and how one or two characters react to that.

Do you read a lot of short stories? You might find it useful to pick up or borrow a copy of the "2007 Best Short Stories" Anthologies or something, or the Pushcart Prize book for this year, etc.

There's always the "how do you go back to short" thing, too. I've always written shorter stuff, but since I've been working on much longer WIP for just a few months, even if I think I'll give it a rest for a few days & write a short story, I can't do it. I start making the characters too complicated, the story too long, and then I'm putting it in my vignettes folder to come back to later as another novel idea.

A short story should capture a single moment, an emotion, something real. A small event that signifies something bigger. I just read a lovely one in All-Story called "The Stars are Bright in Texas" where a lady is talking about house-hunting in Houston and going into the oil business. They go house hunting & along the way she is talking about having just miscarried her first baby - she's still taking antibiotics. They find the PERFECT house, but someone outbids them. They are on their way back home & telling each other, "there will be another one." Then she says, "But we wanted the one that was gone." And you realize she means more than just the house. It made me cry when I read it. It's ostensibly about house-hunting in Houston (and I bought the issue because lately I get so homesick for Texas I'll even buy a magazine with a short story about somewhere in Texas) - but really it is about loss.

A really good novel transports you for a long time into another world & tells you a great story. A really good short story will capture a single scene that says something about life in general.

Not everyone would probably agree with me, but that is my opinion. Uncle Jim says that a short story is a piece of wood, and a novel is a box. If you build your box and it doesn't square up, you can take away pieces, put others on, rearrange, whittle away, and make it into a good box. But with a piece of wood -- it's either a good one or not, and if it isn't good, you just have to start over. I didn't agree with this assessment at first, but now I can kind of see his point (oh, go find his commentary on it; it's better than my paraphrase).


wee

Thanks for the suggestions! I actually have a few ideas for some historical short stories that would do all of the things talked about here, but the thing that keeps tripping me up is choosing a MC and deciding POV. As someone who has written novels for so long, I get started writing a short and dont feel like I have sufficient space to develop a MC. I know this is my own problem and something I need to get over, as the character is developed through the events even more so than in a novel. It is tricky to make the switch!

Puma, good point about looking to the sixty word stories for ideas. I was having trouble paring down ideas enough for short fiction but realized that, if I could tell it in sixty words, I could tell it in 400 or 1000. That exercise gave me ideas, but I'm getting tripped up by the execution.

wee said:

A short story should capture a single moment, an emotion, something real. A small event that signifies something bigger.

...

A really good novel transports you for a long time into another world & tells you a great story. A really good short story will capture a single scene that says something about life in general.

Click to expand...

I think that sounds accurate. The short stories that I've enjoyed reading have done exactly that. Given multiple layers of meaning in one brief scene. Well said!

Yes...

I'd forgotten UJ's part about short stories. Do read that and the Show v Tell sticky in the Short Story Forum.

He's spot on. They are harder to write well because if the original idea isn't right for your story and your writing then it's tough to make it good.


Just concentrate on one moment for your character and KISS!