Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Writing short versus writing long

This is topic Writing short versus writing long in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Smaug (Member # 2807) on :

I tried writing a lot of flash fiction over the past couple of years, and what I'm finding now is that it's hard for me not to write flash. Even when I want to write longer stuff, I find myself winding up the story at around 1000 words. I'm actually trying to just write, without thought of length now, but still find myself in this pattern. Any suggestions? Has this happened to anyone else?

Posted by Marva (Member # 3171) on :

I found myself starting with very short stories, around 1000-1200 words. I'd go back to see what I could put in that would add color and depth to the story. If I said a door, then maybe it should be a wooden door, or an old metal door or something else that shows rather than tells. I think us flashies need to learn to show more as it's so easy to just tell. That's my particular problem, anyway.

You might also try to write a series of flashes with the same characters and setting. Maybe they could then be melded to form a longer work? Just a thought.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Plot complication showing up on the ship sensors now, Captain.

Posted by Silver3 (Member # 2174) on :

lol
I can't write flash. Even on a time limit, I go way past 1000 words.

Plot complications are good. So are characters you know in depth, and who have extra backstory. A non-standard setting, if that's where your affinities lie, can also be pretty good.

Posted by Smaug (Member # 2807) on :

Great advice from all of you---thanks. I think I have just felt trapped into cutting things to the bone.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

As I've posted on a couple of other threads recently, I've felt trapped by the same problems, so it's not just you.

I've stopped flashing in fact, for the time being, just to try and break out of the rut.

My solution so far, and this is the first one I've found that seems to work for me, your mileage may vary, is to write down every single specific scene idea I have for my novel. Then go back and figure out an approximate word count based on how much I need to cover in each scene. Once I have a target to shoot for, when I'm writing I can look at my projected word count and try to make the goal, while not padding my prose unduly. Just taking the time to flesh things out a little; putting in bits of description that I would have cut in flash, that kind of thing. Seems to be doing well so far.

For example, I wrote out an outline of each scene that was fairly detailed. I estimated my outline would be 4k. It ended up being 5k, which is fine by me. Longer is okay at this point. If I need to cut bits of the novel later, I'll be able to. I'm just getting the dang thing on paper.

Posted by quidscribis (Member # 2240) on :

It's only just recently that I've even considered writing anything shorter than 85,000 words.

Flash fiction versus short stories versus novels... All fiction, all related, but they require different skills.

Try plotting the story out, adding more plot details. Put your characters into the worst positions you can think of, and make their lives complicated and messy.

Good luck.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

No, no, no. Not different skills, but different aspects of the same skills. There may be scenes in a novel where flash writing is perfect because you want to get a point across in as few words as possible. Consider info-dump, if you are going to do it, brevity is best.

Posted by Beth (Member # 2192) on :

Last weekend I went through an interesting exercise to expand a flash that I thought was too tight. Somehow just rewriting it wasn't working for me; it seemed too finished already.

So I broke every sentence out into its own paragraph, and then wrote several more sentences to finish each new paragraph. The end result was about 3 times longer than the original, and I'd found ways to work in a lot of the information and nuance that I needed to. It's also repetitive and dull in a lot of places but for me it is much easier to cut than to add, so that will be easy enough to tidy up.

Now if I wanted to take that thousand-word piece and expand it into a novel, I'd need to add several more fairly significant characters. I'd make sure they're all in conflict with each other, and that each has problems of his/her own that need to be resolved, preferably in ways that conflict with other characters resolving their problems. And then at the end I would have the evil robot monkeys kill them all.

Posted by Susannaj4 (Member # 3189) on :

lol-Beth.

I guess that you could begin with a short flash as Beth has done, but instead of focusing on every sentence, focus on particular areas that you know could be expanded, like details(Sights, sounds, smells,tangibles) and characters.