The art of war (read: the short story)
Novels, short stories, novellas, flash fiction — they’re all the same, right? Wrong.
Photo by @sunnystate from Unsplash.
“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”
Hey, my friends, it’s been a while since we last spoke. I’ve been thinking about you, thinking about this blog, and just generally, thinking. There’s a lot of thinking to be done in silence, after all.
Part of my thinking revolved around short stories and my aim as an author of them. If you’ve read any of my short stories, which is an added benefit of subscribing to my blog or checking out my Patreon, then you know they’re pretty different from my poems and from my full-length fiction. I don’t want to say that short stories are where I practice different styles and forms for my novels. But they are a place where I get to express and experiment with different ideas in short form.
So what makes short stories different from a novel? Is it simply the length? The maximum length of a short story is typically 10,000 words, 1/5 of the minimum length of 50,000 words for a novel. So it’s not simply cramming an idea for a full-length book into a shorter format. Don’t get me wrong — short stories can definitely spur novels. But the novel format is usually far different, with broader themes and more characters and side-plots. In its scope, short stories are far more singular.
I don’t want to claim expertise in the art of short stories, but I would like to share some things I’ve learned while writing them. I’m currently working on a new one which I’ll be sharing on my Patreon this month, tentatively titled “Dolbear’s Law.” Here are some things I’ve learned while planning it and writing it:
My homemade cover for “Hollow Bones” which you can read on my Patreon.
Focus on a singular theme. Novels may have a main theme, but they usually have far more, which they can explore in further detail than a short story is able.
Start as close to the end as possible. I’m struggling in “Dolbear’s Law” because I’m including a lot of exposition in order to explain the main character’s struggle. I may reformat that later, but for now, I’m going to write it as I’ve planned it and make the edits later.
Experiment. I mentioned this earlier, but short stories really do give you more opportunities to experiment with structure, especially since you have to include backstory and exposition in as little as a few sentences. In one of my newer short stories, “Hollow Bones,” I do this to the extreme. To the point where some people didn’t get it at all, haha, which while not the goal, is at least a learning tool for me. Which leads me to my next point.
Edit the shit out of it. This is absolutely necessary. We may think that short stories require less editing than a novel simply because of their length, but that is not true. While the short stories I share on my Patreon are unedited first drafts, that’s because of the quick turnaround time I have on them. I still edit my short stories and am beginning the process of submitting them to journals, since an edited version usually differs pretty greatly from the first draft. Don’t be afraid to tear a short story apart as you would a novel.
Have fun. I think we forget that writing, first and foremost, is for ourselves. I wrote so many stories when I was a kid that I had no intention of publishing ever, but just because I wanted to. I don’t know where that changed in adulthood, but I’m starting to open up to the fact that not everything I have to write has to be for building my portfolio or submitting to journals. Sometimes I just want to write something for me. Something I want to say or an idea I want to mess with. “Dolbear’s Law” may end up just being that, something I’ll share with a few people, but ultimately will be for me. A fun experiment that will never see the light of day.
I’ve been thinking of offering short story prompts and some short stories I’ve enjoyed reading, which I’ll share with my subscribers on my blog. If you do end up writing a short story based on that prompt, I’d love for you to send it to me, or if you ask nicely, even a basic line edit or general suggestions for the piece as a whole. If you don’t want to share it, I hope you write it anyway. Just for fun.
Don’t forget to preorder my debut novella, Just Us! Or mark it as to-read on your Goodreads account. Reviews and publicity are so important for indie publishers, so I’d appreciate any shares you can give it :)
Sending love to you all, and happy writing.
