{"id":1170,"date":"2020-07-01T08:29:04","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T12:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2020-07-01T08:29:04","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T12:29:04","slug":"going-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/01\/going-short\/","title":{"rendered":"Going Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a grammar thing in my occasional (rare) remarks about grammar and usage. I just heard this mistake in an online poetry reading. You may know what\u2019s correct, but if not, here it is. It isn\u2019t a happy thing, but we writers should get it right. The past tense of hang<\/em> when it comes to people is hanged<\/em>. This from Merriam-Webster: \u201cThe Salem “witches” were not burned; they were hanged.\u201d Otherwise, it\u2019s hung<\/em>.\u00a0 For our purposes, though, there may be exceptions. If I were writing about elves, for example, I’d use\u00a0hanged <\/em>(although the idea of hanged elves is horrible). Same if the characters in my story were talking animals.<\/p>\n

I have another less depressing one for the next post if I remember.<\/p>\n

On December 12, 2019, Whimsical Wordsmith wrote, I was wondering how to keep stories short. I often come up with ideas for stories that I like and want to work on, and I dive right in. But the plots and subplots become more and more complex, and suddenly, I have a novel on my hands. I\u2019m already in the process of writing a novel at the moment and can\u2019t tackle another right now; how do I keep short stories short?<\/em><\/p>\n

A conversation developed.<\/p>\n

Katie W.: What you can do (and what I have done several times) is write a single episode in the larger story. Novel chapters are usually pretty good lengths for short stories. I\u2019m not so good at incorporating the right bits of backstory to make it make sense to other people, but it might work a bit better for you. If you still want to try to write the entire story, you could try writing it from a summarizing standpoint, like authors do when they recap what\u2019s happened in earlier books. It would make it more formal, possibly too formal for your taste, but it might work.<\/em><\/p>\n

Whimsical Wordsmith: Thanks for the suggestion, that will definitely help. Maybe I didn\u2019t word the rest of my question exactly right though:<\/em><\/p>\n

How do I make short stories that stay short, but still include the important details? I try to incorporate the backstory, but it comes off as the character just spilling information to the character for no exact reason (I\u2019m used to information being revealed through events and little snippets, but it becomes a little too long and slow in a short story). How do I determine what and what doesn\u2019t need to be known to the reader?<\/em><\/p>\n

Katie W.: Sorry, I can\u2019t help you with that because I have exactly the same problem. I took a creative writing class this semester, and one of the most consistent bits of feedback I got was that there wasn\u2019t enough world building\/backstory for people to understand what was going on. The stories were about a third of the length I was used to, and for a lot of it I was working with characters I was already familiar with, and so I ended up leaving out a lot of stuff that apparently needed to be explained.<\/em><\/p>\n

Raina: I think there are two ways to approach this issue: one is to recognize what story ideas are meant for short story form, and the second is to actually cut them down.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some ideas are better fits for novels than short stories, and that\u2019s perfectly fine! Just be aware of that, and be ready to approach them from a different angle. Generally a sign is complex or multiple subplots, or too many main characters. For me, the general rule of thumb is if I can\u2019t plan out all of the plot events, beginning to end, without having to write stuff down, then it\u2019s not meant to be a short story. Number of scenes can also be an indicator; short stories generally focus on a small slice of life that tells a complete story in a few scenes, or in some rarer cases, a large \u201ctapestry\u201d that covers a lot of time but uses a lot of telling instead of showing and never zooms in (like classic fairy tales). But it sounds like you already recognize when a short story is turning into a novel. What I\u2019d recommend is to let it become a novel (just because you have an idea for a novel doesn\u2019t mean you have to work on it right away! It\u2019s perfectly fine to write your ideas down and come back to actually write the book when you\u2019ve cleared off your plate) or get rid of all the subplots to turn it back into a short story.<\/em><\/p>\n

As for how to cut your short story shorter: a good rule of thumb is that everything that does not relate to the central storyline in an important and unique way needs to go. And if you\u2019ve gone through the steps above to make sure your story is a short story, your central storyline should be clear and relatively simple.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to argue that unlike in novels, details such as backstory, character development, and world-building only need to be there if they have a direct impact on the present action. And it only needs to be there once; if you already have a paragraph showing a personality trait of your character, you don\u2019t need to have a different paragraph showing that same trait in a different way, unless it contributes something significantly new and important. For example, look at the classic short story \u201cLamb to the Slaughter\u201d by Roald Dahl (Upper middle school and up, link here: http:\/\/www.classicshorts.com\/stories\/lamb.html<\/a>), which is about a housewife who murders her husband in a crime of passion and gets away with it by feeding the murder weapon (a frozen leg of lamb) to the unwitting detectives. The story is 3899 words and has approximately 3 scenes covering about an evening of real time. Notice what details Dahl leaves out: most of Mary\u2019s relationship with her husband, including the actual details of the conversation that incites her to murder. If this was a novel, it would be great to show a lot of flashbacks to see the intricacies of the relationship between Mary and Patrick, or little details to show their individual personalities. But in a short story, that would be unnecessary, because the story isn\u2019t about Mary and Patrick\u2019s failing marriage; it\u2019s about Mary getting away with murder with a clever scheme. Dahl tells us what we need to know in broad strokes. Mary\u2019s pregnant (which is relevant because that\u2019s her motivation for trying to get away with murder), she\u2019s a doting housewife who adores her husband (which is why she\u2019s so shocked and devastated when he asks to divorce her, and puts her in the mindset for murder), and her husband just dumped her (which is what pushes her to murder). All of those directly relate to the central storyline, which is the murder and the subsequent cover-up.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m with Raina all the way.<\/p>\n

If a story wants to be a novel, I say, Hooray! My mind also makes a natural beeline for complexity. Some of us are mainly novelists and some mostly short story writers.<\/p>\n

But if you\u2019re a novelist and want to try a shorter form, that\u2019s terrific. We should stretch ourselves sometimes, in this case by shrinking!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also with Raina about bringing in only a few major characters. In fact, I think that may be the most important strategy. I\u2019d also suggest that only one character\u2013or none!\u2013is allowed a backstory, which will narrow our plot and keep it focused. The reader should really care only about our MC. Okay, maybe one other character can matter.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t read many short stories, but my favorite is \u201cCathedral\u201d by Raymond Carver (high school and up). There\u2019s very little action. The MC and his wife are visited by an old friend of hers who\u2019s blind. The MC, who is an unappealing character, doesn\u2019t like blind people. They eat dinner and watch a documentary on TV about a cathedral. The wife goes upstairs, comes down again, falls asleep on the couch. The blind man and the MC draw the cathedral in the documentary. That\u2019s it, and yet the unlikable MC goes through a transformation and is barely the same person by the end. The story is an astonishment.<\/p>\n

There are just three characters, and the only back story is related by the MC, and it\u2019s about his wife. We never find out what made the MC the closed-off, biased person he is. We\u2019re shown his personality vividly through his thoughts and don\u2019t need anything more to participate as readers in his transformation.<\/p>\n

So one choice we can make is to focus on character over action.<\/p>\n

And to remember that backstory often isn\u2019t necessary. We may need it for ourselves to understand our characters, but the reader doesn\u2019t have to be in on the secret. Even in novels, backstory is no more than optional. In the Sherlock Holmes books, for example, we never learn what makes Holmes so brilliant and peculiar or why Moriarty is evil, and why Dr. Watson is ordinary. They just are.<\/p>\n

Another strategy is to paint on a small canvas. If our setting is limited, we don\u2019t have to devote a lot of words to it. \u201cCathedral\u201d begins and ends in the MC\u2019s home. The action may even take place in only one room, but I don\u2019t remember well enough to be sure.<\/p>\n

I have four published short stories in anthologies. One is a contemporary fantasy, and another would probably be described as contemporary science fiction. The other two are simply contemporary without any magic. If we stick with the modern world, we have only the fantasy element to explain, if it\u2019s there. If we try fantasy, I\u2019d say we should impose limits on our world-building. We can set our story in familiar settings, like a medieval town and then leave most of it to the reader\u2019s imagination. We can allow ourselves, say, one dragon and one elf. We\u2019re just asking for a novel if we include ogres, fairies, and changelings.<\/p>\n

The premise of my short story, \u201cWish Week,\u201d a contemporary fantasy, is that in a certain town, during Wish Week, the sixth graders make a wish, which, within certain limits, comes true\u2013for a week. Only the child who made the wish remembers the results in detail. At the end of the week, everything snaps back to normal. My MC, who is in the middle of an argument with her best friend, wishes for the metaphor in the saying to come true: to walk a mile in someone else\u2019s shoes. My MC sees the effects globally as people understand the effects of their actions. The major characters are my MC and her best friend. Walk-on roles go to a former best friend, Tam\u2019s mother, and a few staff at the middle school. Settings are limited, too. There\u2019s brief backstory about the two friendships. The story is twenty-four pages long.<\/p>\n

Endings can be less resolved than they often are in novels. The reader doesn\u2019t find out if the transformation in \u201cCathedral\u201d lasts more than a day. In Raina\u2019s example, the reader doesn\u2019t find out if Mary goes on to become known as the frozen-meat serial killer.<\/p>\n

One more strategy: Keep the time frame of the story tight. \u201cLamb to the Slaughter\u201d takes place in an evening. Same with \u201cCathedral.\u201d \u201cWish Week\u201d lasts a week or so. Longer times will cry out for more pages.<\/p>\n

Here are four prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Your MC goes on a hike with a friend, and they meet one other person (or creature). When they come back, your MC has new insight into herself. Write the story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Fictionalize an anecdote from your life in a short story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 If you\u2019re in high school or high school plus, read \u201cCathedral,\u201d which is available online, and write a short story (or a novel) that takes place earlier in the life of the MC. Or try one that takes place after the events in \u201cCathedral.\u201d Or write both!<\/p>\n

\u2022 Use my wish-week idea. Your MC makes a different wish. Write a story about what happens.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a grammar thing in my occasional (rare) remarks about grammar and usage. I just heard this mistake in an online poetry reading. You may know what\u2019s correct, but if not, here it is. It isn\u2019t a happy thing, but we writers should get it right. The past tense of hang when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[173],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}