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  1. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

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    Abridgment?

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by GuardianWynn, Oct 2, 2017.

    Full disclosure, I am tired and not 100% sure what I am trying to ask but I feel as if I have an interesting little nugget in which I am curious to see all the replies too.

    So, I was writing this short story with my girlfriend and she pointed out(I agreed) that one scene was a bit too perfect. Essentially an accident happens and a powerful man crashes onto her planet. The MC is a seer, and the moment he changes directions towards her, she sees it and becomes fascinated with him. She can see his crash site and goes to him. Being the core of the plot.

    Except this short story was part of an anthology and we were trying to keep the word count low, 3k range.

    So this is the dilemma in my head. I originally wrote that he was just a few miles away and the traveling to him wasn't much of a plot point. The word count more heavily wanted to lean to who she was and the encounter and such. Yet that is where the perfectness really sort of bothered us. I mean, not only did he crash on this planet but just a few miles away! Perfect much!?

    Making him 500 miles away is actually an idea I love. If it were more like a 15k story, having middle section be her travels and her mind, the anticipation, desire and fear about his arrival sounds amazing! Yet, we aren't writing a 15k short story. We are trying to write a 3k short story.

    So, perhaps my question is how would you do such a scene?

    Shorten the distance like my first gut reaction?

    Skim over the long travel in summary?

    Or some middle ground?

    Or do you think this can't be fixed?
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Skim.

    I assume that this isn't modern day so she can't catch a plane?

    She spent the next five days following the vision to its source. A fishing vessel out of Janesville, a wagon from the port, and finally a borrowed donkey when the roads deteriorated past the best the wagon wheels could do, and she was finally in walking distance of the village.
     
  3. KevinMcCormack

    KevinMcCormack Senior Member

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    I'm with ChickenFreak.

    You can move the crash site closer, but you risk one of the "Three Cs" ("Contrivance", in this case). I feel that contriving a closer crash site will do more damage to the story than compressing travel.

    But it's a close call, because one element of short stories is constrained time and space, so I see your dilemma.

    Another option is to open the story when she arrives at the crash site, coming in closer to the start of their actual interaction.

    Final option is to decide this is a longer story and park it for later, using something else for the 3k word project. I've had to do that when I come up with an idea for a competition with a word limit. Sometimes shoehorning a rich story into a very short limit does it an injustice.
     
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  4. KevinMcCormack

    KevinMcCormack Senior Member

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    I just thought of another option. Is MC the only seer on the planet?

    What if seers are common, and MC is just the one nearest the crash site, so has the strongest premonition.
     
  5. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

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    Isn't skim when you read it and summarize when you write it? I have no idea, so curious!

    And yeah, that was one of the ideas, being that you show the detail a lot quicker. And... never thought about the world she was on(technically this is her origin and she doesn't exactly stay on her planet lol. So its development wasn't huge.)

    My concern with this is that the short story was going in decently descriptive detail and then suddenly glosses over what sounds like a huge adventure in 4 lines? Isn't that bad or do you think it works fine in this case?
     
  6. The Dapper Hooligan

    The Dapper Hooligan (V) ( ;,,;) (v) Contributor

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    There are times to show and times to tell. At worst you can try it both ways and use whatever feels best to you in the end.
     
  7. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Switching from scene to summary and back again is totally, totally normal. You're not detailing every moment that your character puts on her shoes or brushes her teeth or rolls over in bed and turns her pillow to the cool side, right? This is the same thing, even though you're skipping over a bigger chunk of time at once.
     
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  8. GB reader

    GB reader Contributor Contributor

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    Can't he just seconds before his crash in some 'magical' way feel that there is something, someone he needs to meet.
    Using the few pounds of fuel he still has to change his trajectory to crash close to her?
    At the speed he's traveling he can cover a lot of ground and you can do it in three intense sentences.

    With intense I mean you can throw in whatever, mountain ridges, open sea, his curiosity about her ......
     
  9. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

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    Oh you have misunderstood the situation. She is aware of him. He isn't aware of her.
     
  10. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    So, what is it, she can just see the crash site like, from her house or something? That is quite convenient. Why not make it so she can foresee where he'll crash, and arranges to get there before him?
     
  11. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    Narrative summary is really the way go to. Like others have said, keep it short and sweet. It won't add anything to your word count.

    You don't need travel scenes if they add nothing to your story.

    Here's a short article on narrative summary:
    http://www.pcwrede.com/narrative-summary/
     
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  12. GuardianWynn

    GuardianWynn Contributor Contributor

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    Oh she can see the crash site before he lands with her magic.

    It had just seemed to break the flow to be like:

    She traveled really far to meet him! In such minimal detail. So I thought about moving the crash site closer to help the word flow or that was one possible option.
     
  13. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    I think the crash site being nearby is more of a problem. Like I said, bit too convenient.

    You could have a jump cut that completely skips the travel ("She was in Montana by the next week, setting up camp not far from where there would soon be a crater ...") or more of a single-paragraph montage if you don't want to pass over it entirely for whatever reason, but keep your wordcount down ("Then it was cabs, and buses, and trains, and one very long flight that she spent staring at the clouds and wondering what her life would be after the crash ..."). I think either's workable. But in short stories you really need to make every word matter, so unless there's a compelling reason to keep travel time, I'd be inclined to opt for the jump cut.
     
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