A short story is not merely a condensed version of a novel. Short stories will often have one major plot, a limited number of characters and revolve around a concise period of time. Novels can have intricate sub-plots woven into the thread, a cast of characters that come and go throughout the book, and the time span can be up to several years. A short story is a segment of life, the novel can depict life.
As a writer, you have to decide which you will produce. You have to breathe life into your characters; if you will bore of your characters easily, living with them day and night, then perhaps you would prefer to stay with a short story format which may take only a few days or a week to finish (before edits). But if you just can’t let go of your characters and you want to keep them going on in your life, you might want to consider a novel length work.
What if you haven’t made up your mind and just started writing? What signs should you look for? If you find you’ve told your story quickly in just a few pages, beginning to end, you might just be a short story writer. If you are trying to reach for those 60-thousand words and find that you are filling up your pages with unimportant and unrelated nonsense, you might just be a short story writer. And if you find yourself breathless after trying to come up with enough dialogue and action for a small group of characters, you might just be a short story writer.
On the other hand, if you find that your cast of characters seems overly crowded and you can’t seem to fit all of the action you need into the story and still keep it under 10-thousand words, you might just have the makings of a great novel on your hands. Less common than full length novels is a novella; “the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000” (from Wikipedia). All formats will work well as serial stories.
The short story: In my short story Not Alone which appeared in Mandimam Press' Forever Friends anthology, I told the story of two college age friends who were dealing with guilt and grief after losing one of their friends in a car accident. Told in first person narrative, the main conflict dealt with the speaker’s decision whether to stand by her friend who was being blamed for the accident. The story had one central conflict, two main characters, spanned just a few weeks in time, and was told in 2500 words.
The novel: In Final Sin the scene opens on a gruesome murder scene and as the plot unfolds through the book, it is divulged that there has been a series of murders taking place and it is up to Jake, who heads up a crime investigation unit, to solve the crime. That’s the main plot. Subplots include a burgeoning love affair between Jake and paramedic Julie, Jake’s ex-wife and her vendetta against him using their son, a secret that Julie’s best friend is keeping from her, and Jake’s career climb and obstacles. While the story doesn’t span a long amount of time, a lot happens and the cast includes at least ten identifiable characters. Final Sin was submitted with 78,240 words.
This week’s writing exercise:
Think of something (minor) you might have lost recently – like a pair of gloves. Write a paragraph, or more, starting with where you think you lost the item and follow its journey. Perhaps the gloves eventually found their way onto the hands of a young single mother scraping together her last coins to care for her child and to her the gloves are a luxurious treat. How do these gloves change her life?
A terrific opportunity:
The Muse Online Writers Conference – you MUST register by August 1. This conference is FREE, online and really worth attending.
Maybe I will see YOU there?
