Short Story How do you make the switch from novels to short stories?

Great question, and as you noted, some of us are going the other way. I've slowly worked my way from poetry to flash fiction to short stories and now novelettes. This thread reminds me of something a friend told me years ago. It went something like this:

"Anyone can write a 50,000-word novel. Some writers can write a 20,000-word novelette. A few can write a 5,000-word short story. But only a few can write a 500-word story. And how many writers can handle a 50-word poem or a 17-syllable haiku?"

Que

 

Perhaps it may help to read many short stories
to get a feel for how to write a condensed story,
vs. a much larger novel.

 

One major action by the character... a catalyst or a reaction to the catalyst. You could limit it to one event as well though all things considered, I classify that as the same thing. One thing happens or doesnt happen and the story told is the outcome or the climax. Write it as though it were the last chapter or last page depending on how short you want it to be.

Does that clarify? I feel as though I'm speaking in riddles...

 

It's hard to explain, but yeah, I get what you mean. It kind of backs up what I've read ABOUT short stories as opposed to novels. It's an outcome itself that matters more than the journey to it, if THAT make sense? But of course these things are not cut and dried.

 

I found it interesting to realise that I prefer Sci-Fi short stories to novels. I've read both, but I'm much more inclined to pick up a book of Sci-Fi short stories than I am a Sci-Fi novel. In fact, before I started culling my printed book collection, I realised I had dozens of sci-fi 'yearbooks' like the ones edited by Gardner Dozois.

So what is there about sci-fi that makes me gravitate towards that form, in that genre and no other? I think it might be that sci-fi short stories concentrate on presenting a startling idea—and showing where it leads—rather than a more gradual exploration of a 'world' or a character.

I haven't got the kind of brain that would write a sci-fi story, even though I love reading them. But applying that principle to short story writing itself means I need a startling central idea. Which isn't how I usually write. I usually have a character I start with. Or a setting. And I put the two together and see what happens.

Hmmm. Interesting. Interesting that some authors have no trouble writing both story forms, while others write only one of them, and never manage a crossover.

 

Many of the science fiction writers of the middle/late middle of the 20th century specialized in short stories with a kind of a punchline to them. Clarke's The Sentinel (which became 2001: A Space Odyssey) is one example, Asimov wrote dozens if not hundreds of such, Heinlein dabbled in it, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle had quite a few in the Known Space universe, etc.

I suspect you may have been programmed to view SF as a short story medium in your younger years (that's not a crack at you, just an analysis of what would have been available). It does lend itself to the sudden reveal and curtain technique.

 

Yeah, I don't dislike Sci-Fi novels, and have quite a few of those. It's just that I do LIKE Sci-Fi short stories ...and I don't much enjoy other kinds of short stories.

So many other short stories seem ...what? ...contrived a bit? I am not terribly fond of authorial 'twists' although some of these can be memorable. But I prefer a story where the outcome is natural, and arrived at via visible progression, rather than a suddenly whipped-away cover or yanked-back curtain. I don't find any real pleasure in trying to create a surprise or a twist. I need to find a middle ground.

I like Bernard McLaverty's short stories a lot, because they don't rely on any kind of surprise or any piece of information that has been withheld from the reader, or disguised as something else. It's his kind of short-story writing I'd love to emulate. He has such insight into the way things 'are.'

 

I think though that a majority of Asimov's short stories were written during his college years, when he was trying to make money to support his studies. That was the era when magazines like Amazing Stories and Weird Tales were in their heyday, and Asimov had a good relationship with one of the editors, I forget whom. Later in his career, he primarily, if not exclusively, moved on to writing novels.

 

That's true. There was a huge market for sci-fi short stories back then. The very first sci-fi book I ever read was Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, but even that was more or less a collection of short stories, all tied together via a similar theme. I certainly cut my sci-fi teeth reading short stories.

 

I can't imagine a time in my life where reading short stories wasn't some part of my life. Even back in the day long before I ever thought about writing, I read the short stories in The New Yorker and such. In undergrad, I was in love with a bookseller who was into all the literary journals. I started to read them all so I could go back and buy more and have smart things to say. But, honestly, I don't know how anyone can get through an issue of The Paris Review and not fall in love. Of course there are others (I've read lots of them), and I feel pretty much the same way. It was great to have someone to sort of discuss what the experience of reading some of short stories was like. The bookseller liked me most during those moments, but (despite my efforts) nothing ever happened.

I took short story workshops in undergrad, but it wasn't until over a decade when I did an MFA program that I found people to have those conversations with about short stories. There are certain stories worth rereading and studying. Of course there are classics or ones that everyone has read, but I loved having those unofficial talks over coffee and cigarettes where you really look at today's art, what it's doing and what it's saying. I guess I had some sort of unofficial book club for short stories going on for awhile.

Of course, we were all writers. I'm not sure if the bookseller was a writer. We never once talked about our own scribble. But my other friends. Maybe you could say I got into reading for the wrong reasons, though any such argument would be silly because there is no matter reason to become an avid reader of anything, but I kept reading. And I wrote short stories because I was captivated by the form and how so much or so little could happen, but it always seemed to be the right amount.

I know @jannert is a big reader. I say look back over the short stories that stuck with you and give them another read. They are probably right there on your bookshelf or nightstand just waiting to be read again.

It is a different form. It can be, but most of the time it's not a chapter or part of something longer and it's not supposed to be. Also, I read poetry. It makes me a stronger writer and probably a stronger person. Sure, I try my hand at it every now and then. I gives me a deeper appreciation of it when I struggle, when I fail, when I will continuously think every so often I should really write more poetry. I love that I can stay lost in a novel, that I want to read through the day or several. I like that continual pull to be part of a story that I think comes from novels. But just as they take forever to read, they take forever to write. It can take a lot of work to sell a short story. I mean just the writing and rewriting and submitting leading up to that, coupled with the whole back-and-forth with the editor over changes and revisions can be a lot. Maybe part of me is glad in a way that I never got so far with a novel. I don't think I could have done it. It still seems like a lot.

I think it's important for writers to have a strong relationship with the written word in many forms. Trying these things out is only going to help in some way down the road. And let yourself be inspired by whatever form you decide to work with. Ideas often have a best-execution path. You don't want to try and jam that square peg down the round hole.

 

If you need background material, the toaster we have is clearly evil. I can cite experiences.

This is the truest think I know about short stories. Long-form writers avoid tropes, or try to (at various levels of effort). Short story writers use them for foundation material. I've written a couple of shorts in other peoples' universes, where the canon gets leveraged heavily. Look at all the Star Wars fan fiction out there. Most of them leverage "Jedi". None of them tell you what a Jedi is, nor what a blaster is, nor what a wookiee looks like. Star Trek short stories don't describe "warp drive" or "starship".

Snacks are worth eating as much as meals are, particularly dessert!

I like this bit of advice, even though I like to end my short stories with twists. In Mexican Standoff (1350 words), I ended with both. I was (am) quite pleased with myself over that.

When I wrote that story, I did it simply to practice a different writing style. I had no idea what to do at the beginning. I had been reading Lonesome Dove, and liked the style. It's set (at the beginning) in Southern Texas, near the Mexican border. I wanted to use words like chaparral and mesquite. I thought about Mexico. What do they have there where they also have chaparral and mesquite? Sand, sun, cacti, Mexicans... it's a Western, so Mexican standoffs... (please don't judge how my brain works). OK, so we have a Mexican standoff. Short story, so let's cut it down to the minimum number of people: two. I like the close perspective, so zoomed right in behind the main character's eyes. What's he see? What's he thinking about? Again, minimums. I made the perspective character kind of dumb so he wouldn't think much. But even smart people don't go around actively noticing everything around them. If they did, it would be exhausting.

The main idea is to cut what you would naturally think you want or need to write. Only describe what's significant to the action at hand for the character. Focus on what they're focused on, and don't worry about the trimmings and tshotshkes, focus on what the reader needs to know to propel the story forward. Get the story down in as few words as you can, then embellish from there.

Cheers.

JD

 

@jennert I personally love writing short stories to a creative writing prompt. What I think is important (in my limited experience) is remembering that the prompt is open to interpretation. Don't take the prompt too seriously and you should be fine. One of my favorite prompts that I've written to was: Write a story from the point of view of a stranger that you see everyday. The vignette type of story can also be a type of puzzle, like, why is the author bringing our attention to this one particular thing? It's like a European movie that you can't stop thinking about after it ends because there is so much to interpret and digest. That's just my two cents. =)

 

Just an idea that might work?

If you can sum up your novel in two to three sentences (which I am sure we can all do if we try) then you are able to scale down to the minimum. Equally, if you can expand the following sentences many tens of thousands of times you might have a winning formula...

For instance:

A young man discovers an ancient force, meets his father and saves the universe from an evil empire...

A young boy struggles against a dark wizard who killed his parents. He has to stop the dark wizard from becoming immortal and saves the world in the process...

Try:

Summing up your novel in three sentences(ish)
Condensing the premiss of your novel into around 5K words (Short story?) Or expand the three sentence premiss of your novel to 5K.
Write a poem based on the premiss of your novel - possibly the best way of developing pound for pound word choice.

I am not saying that this is the golden, bullet, not even the silver bullet, but the practicalities and the obstacles faced when writing short stories quickly become apparent. Only then will the excellent advice and observations made by others on this thread become truly useful.

 

Good advice. But I struggle to write a synopsis OR a blurb for my novel! I guess I feel the way Phillip Pullman (I think it was him) does, when he said (I paraphrase ....this isn't a direct quote) "If I had wanted to tell my story in 50o words or less, I wouldn't have bothered writing a novel."

Condensing and synopsis is more about selling a story than anything else. I mean, the book exists just fine without any summation. It could be nothing more than a book with a title and author's name, and it would still be the same book. The summing up is done for other purposes. It's not about telling the story at all. It's about selling it.

I try to write each chapter of my novel as if it was a short story ...in that it has a clear beginning, middle and end, and achieves a purpose. However, it's not a stand-alone. It's just a chapter in a larger story, which still has a long way to go.

It's finding a 'shorter' story subject that's probably the key, and I'm not entirely sure I want to do that. It's just that I feel, sometimes, that I 'should.' But why? I don't feel the pressure to be a poet, or to write a play. So why should I feel I 'ought' to write short stories? Weird.

I rarely read short stories, because I prefer novels. I like the slow buildup and the evolution of events and characters in a novel, and the way I get immersed in that world—sometimes for days, certainly for many hours. A short story is just too ...short. And, sadly, too often dependent on a gimmick or 'trick.' I don't want to feel tricked. I want to feel as if I've been elsewhere for a while and had a new experience. That's why I read, and that's why I write, I guess.

 

I've done it. I only have practical advice but I think you'll like it. I focus on the characters, not the story. If you focus on a character a good story will most definitely come out of there. I even ask people to tell me when they are interested in a particular secondary character/extra. That might give me ideas.
You know that man from your novel, the one that talked an awful lot before getting to the point? He talked so much that he could have had everybody killed, and yet he was the key to saving everyone. Sorry, I couldn't possibly remember his name. He was only there for, like, five minutes.
But I thought he was a very interesting character. Focus on him. Surely there's a story there. Why/how come has he developed this way of interacting with people hiding his true self behind a waterfall of words? Why does he need the attention? Was he neglected as a child (dramatic potential here)? Or/and, on the contrary, is he a narcissist (limitless potential here; he could be a serial killer and could be burying bodies in his backyard and no one would even suspect that nice man)? Look into that. Look into who this man really is. There must be a funny or dramatic episode worth telling. (How did he manage to propose to his wife? How long did it take him? That could be a funny episode.)
Then you have to find a story about him that clicks with you, something good enough that you want to write about it.
Then write about that and only that. Don't get carried away. I'd say that "don't get carried away" is the key sentence here. If you're not careful you'll end up writing another novel.
Hope this helps.

(Remember the despicable tavern keeper from my story? I can see a story there, how he was poor and famished and taught to think of money above everything else by his parents. If I focus, I'm sure I can find the click moment where his story is worth telling, and, plus, tie it with the main characters indirectly, in the past or somewhere in the future.)

 

That's a really interesting idea - one I never thought of at all! Basing a story on Charlie Whitton? Yikes. Might be fun!

 

Great writing prompt for a contest.

 

This is something I have also had a lot of trouble with. I plan on trying out flash fiction myself, and by practicing with that hopefully I'll be able to go for a short story from there. Good luck! Tag me if you end up writing one and posting it!

 

Well, really the only short stories I've written were fanfics. When it comes to original fiction, I tend to exclusively come up with ideas for very long stories - generally requiring several novels.

I think perhaps that, being a fantasy author, my concepts tend to involve creating a setting and a cast of characters, requiring long narrative to introduce and develop so that the readers can get to know them and get pulled along with their journeys. So for me, the tricky part of writing a short story would be to get the reader onboard with what's going on quickly enough. This is not a requirement when it comes to fanfiction (because the readers will already be familiar with the context) which is probably why short stories are much easier for me in that medium.

More generally, I also think that if you're used to coming up with novel-length story concepts, you're likely to find it difficult to intuitively come up with ideas for short story plots. (And vice versa.) I assume this is mainly a matter of habit and conditioning.

What I can say is that, as I've experienced it, novels relate stories sequentially: The plot will be a series of events, one leading into the next, from the instigating event to a particular conclusion. Generally the ending is so divorced from the beginning that a fairly long sequence of events will be required to bridge them.

Short stories, meanwhile, only concern a single event that concludes without leading into further developments. Something happens, the characters react to it, the issue is resolved and then it's over.

Other than that, I can't say I've noticed any particular differences in terms of technique: I don't think short stories are written differently than long ones, other than having much simpler structures.