Short stories

[sarillia]

Anyone have any tips for writing short stories that may be different from tips for writing longer forms? I'm much more familiar with novels but I'd like to try to submit some short stories for open calls that look interesting.

Comments

[agilebrit]

Basically, what I do is concentrate on one character with one problem and keep side plots and characters to a minimum.

The basic formula goes: Each character adds at least 500 words to the story, merely by existing. The thing I'm working on right now originally had seven characters running around in it--it's part of a series of stories and all those characters exist in the series, though they're not usually all in every story. That was completely untenable, so I excised two of them by the simple expedient of sending them out of town for the duration.

One of the remaining five is minor to this one, but I don't really have a good way of getting rid of him. The villain is, of course, necessary. And the two other characters have significant roles to play.

It comes down to paring out extraneous characters and situations, in the end. I also keep description to a minimum.

[sarillia]

This is definitely a good thing for me to keep in mind. I have a habit of getting too interested in minor characters.