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I have a problem. I can't write short stories. I start out with a simple elegant story idea and the next thing I know it is a bloated 8000 wd monstrosity with the end no where in sight. Is it a case of monkey see monkey do as my reading tastes have always run to long novels and series? I have been trying to read more short fiction in the hopes that good examples may help but I don't know if this will work.
If you write mostly short fiction, please give any advice that comes to mind.
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Cheyne, I used to have your exact same problem. Like for example I had a recent story about a guy who got all genetically messed up, which was not at all possible to turn into a short story. I found myself moving the pace super fast and jumping along.
To fix this I take a day or week out of a character and focus on one simple problem and resolve it. A short story is usually a chapter out of novel. The reader doesn't need to know everything, but what happens in that scene and of course you have to get it across with proper history, descriptions, narrative, and ultimately a climax that is resolved.
I also found that the shorter the story the less amount of characters that are involved. Like for instance, I'm working on a new short story about a family of three that is dealing with an almost supernatural problem. This story spans the amount of three days.
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Time to recommend Hills' WRITING IN GENERAL AND THE SHORT STORY IN PARTICULAR, I guess. Short book, good advice in it.
Also, as Grijalva points out, a good rule of thumb for short stories is to remember to stick to ones--one place, one unit of time (day, week, month--though the shorter the better), one point of view character, one problem, one attempt to solve it that can fail, one price for success.
You don't have to be rigid about the ones, but the closer you can stick to one-ness, the easier it is to stay short.
I remember someone saying one time that the hardest part about writing short stories is figuring out what you can leave out. Leave out as much as you can while still making it clear to the reader.
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Mine's the exact opposite...I've had trouble sustaining things over short-story length, leaving a lot of unfinished longer works in my files. Seems to me I've said all I had to say in a short length. I've gotten some comments about my stories being "thin," but I'm usually at a loss as how to pad anything onto them.
I may have overcome it---and reversed the problem---what with my last finished work coming in at twenty thousand words (with only two major and four minor characters), and a hundred thousand words of unfinished novel---and with a lack of anything else getting going in the last year.
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