Any advice on writing short?

[Suuran Songforge]

It seems that, with a few exceptions, I can't write stories I'm satisfied with much shorter than 6,000 words (With a couple exceptions, like "Asp" and "Death Marks"), and it more often takes me 8k to 10k to spin out an epic adventure yarn--and that's after I've cut out several hundred words from the rough draft.

I guess it seems that I'd sell more stories if I could write more pieces between 3k-5k words, but...well, one thing I've found recently is that in a good story, the events have meaning. If a monster gets slain by a barbarian in an epic battle, the story is pointless if that slaying has no broader significance or meaning to the character beyond the material reality of there being one less monster. Perhaps the monster destroyed his village and drove him into the warrior's life in the first place. Perhaps it killed his father, or his wife, or his son. Perhaps he doesn't really want to kill it, but he swore an oath to do so after a night of drinking--or whatever. But there has to be some depth beyond the events.

So, what I find is that it takes me at least 6k--and more often 8k or more--to build up interesting characters that allow the reader to care about them, an adventure with rising tension and a satisfying climax, and a cool setting, and then give it all meaning. (Err...not necessarily saying I'm master at any of that, but my attempts sure take up lots of space.) To use my Flinteye stories as an example, I could just write one where Flinteye faces off against a tough assassin, has a couple fights, and wins through some bit of cleverness. But without an interesting setting, or some particular meaning behind this particular job (perhaps he has a past with this assassin which makes killing him painful), or some time to get into Flinteye's character, I don't feel like the story would have much purpose.

These are just some issues I've been struggling with...but, the question is, do any of you have advice as to how to write shorter stories? I'm not saying I want to abandon longer works, but it would be great if I could consistently write shorter adventure stories (I'm still trying to sell something to Flashing Swords). I also wish more publishers were open to novellas, or collections thereof [;)]...

Sean T. M. Stiennon (AKA Suuran Songforge)

For information about me, see my author page at www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon (http://www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon).

[C.Cevasco]

Sean,

For me it's usually not a matter of "writing short" as much as it is "revising shorter." While some stories really do need to be 8k or 10k or 15k words, if I write a story at that length but want to see if it might not benefit from being shorter, I'll do the following:

First I print a hard copy of the story.
Then I arbitrarily set a number of words to cut, and I do this by saying to myself, "What's the maximum number of words I feel I can cut without damaging the story?" If the answer I come up with is 1000, then I double that--so 2000.
I then take out a red pen and keep reading the printout from beginning to end, crossing out lines or words or paragraphs. The first pass through is the easiest, and I'll then save my file under a new file name, implement the cuts, and check the word count. Inevitably I haven't cut nearly the target number, and so by the third pass, when I realize I still need to cut another 400 or 500 words and I can't imagine where that's going to happen, it becomes much harder. The number was arbitrary to begin with, but I force myself to do it anyway until I reach the goal. I then read through the shortened story and decide if it's better or worse then the initial draft. Sometimes I might decide to put back portions of what I cut, but more often then not, if I was psychologically able to get myself to put that red line through words in the first place, I find that those words were not really necessary and may have hampered the pacing of the tale.

I don't do this with every story I write. But now and then, even if I'm not sure where the excess baggage is, in the back of my mind I sense that a story might be a little flabby.

So anyway, that's one approach...

Chris

----------
Christopher M. Cevasco
Editor/Publisher
Paradox : The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag

[Raph]

Sean,

This is a tough one for me because I usually have the opposite problem--I have a hard time writing longer works. Most of my stories come out at 3K or under. But I think Chris has the right idea, especially since your writing style tends to be long.

When I write, I tend to be sparse on the descriptions of how things look. I use a few words here and there to give the reader the general idea of what things look like, and leave it up to their imaginations to fill in the rest. That's about all the advice I can give you. Hope it helps.

Mike O.

[Rob Santa]

I have two main tricks that I use to keep my word count at the appropriate level. I agree that many stories require 8k words or more to tell them properly, but at the same time, I don't feel I have any problem telling a full story that includes proper setting, characterization and background with less.

The first trick is the tough one: recognizing where the beginning of the story actually is. That phrase "worldbuilding" is coming to mind (not that I've seen much of that in your writing, Sean - this is just a description of my writing technique). I see a lot of stories through Critters (www.critters.org) where the authors are going to extremes to describe a tavern, a medieval town, the kingdom in which the knights are riding, and the long and the short of it is that the information just isn't that important. The story doesn't begin until the protagonist encounters the conflict; the rest is merely background. If your setting is not absolutely influential on the story, then you can probably brush it off in a paragraph or two. Characterization for me happens through action; I try to avoid dumping the protagonist's history on the reader. If I can tell the reader about the protag through his/her actions or through dialog with other characters, then I feel I am doing my job as efficiently as possible. For example...if I had to give a certain character a military background and make him world famous through some heroic feat (like saving the world from an asteroid impact), I would have him walking down the street in civies and sunglasses. Two officer candidates walk past, look him in the face, and snap to attention. Even though he's in jeans and a t-shirt, he returns a picture perfect salute and walks past, with the two ensigns-in-training yammering like star-struck school girls when he goes past. I feel readers are expecting this kind of subtle implication and will pick up on it pretty easily. What I could have said in half a page is whittled down to two or three sentences.

My second trick is kind of cheating. C. S. Lewis did this with the Chronicles of Narnia, and Ray Bradbury did this with Martian Chronicles. Please bear in mind that I am not comparing myself to either of these two masters; I am merely trying to copy their obvious skill. The trick is to let the reader fill in the blanks. Does every tree and village lane need to be described, or has the reader seen so many of them in his/her mind's eye that it is unnecessary to waste word count on it? If I want my spacefaring sergeant to be gruff-and-tough, I can probably use about twenty words of description and let the reader's imagination take over. Is it cliche? Maybe, but perhaps I'm not trying to build an exacting image of these minor characters. Go back and read Narnia after you see the movie. I betcha fifty bucks half those visualizations are the product of the director and not Lewis.

Sean, Flinteye is a great character. You've made him an individual, and I feel you could skip over a lot of what's going on in his world since you've covered it in previous stories. I understand you want each and every story to be able to stand on its own. Still, I feel we've all got a good image of the kind of guy he is and the kind of scrapes he gets into. The starbase doesn't need to be described down to the wall sockets (I feel, anyway). We've seen Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5 and 2001: A Space Odyssey and all those other movies. We know what a starbase looks like. We know what spaceships look like. A line or two is all I feel we need in order to put us in the right frame of mind. The story is about Flinteye, when it comes down to it, and not the color of the rug. If it's important to the progression of the story, by all means let us know. I'm guessing you'll be able to cut it out without affecting our emotional attachment to Flinteye by the tiniest bit.

My editing is nowhere near as vicious (and I use that word lovingly) as Chris'. Once I'm done writing I trim 10% of the word count, regardless of length. Then I set the manuscript aside for a month or so to see if it needs more (any sooner and I am still too "close" to the writing to do a thorough edit).

I figure my average story length is in the 4-5000 range. Last one over 8k I intended to be long and managed to get it to 11k+. I could have made it shorter, could have made it longer. 11k seemed about right. If your stories are 8-10k and they feel right, then they probably are. Don't sweat it. Good stories sell at any length, and you're doing that. I figure if you keep writing the quality stories you are, then editors have no choice but to modify their guidelines to accomodate you. Either that or you beg an editor to look at your story if it's longer than what they prefer (right Edward?[;)])


Rob Santa

[erazmus]

Sean,
some excellent advise above and I'll not contradict any of it. I'd like to touch on one more thing, however.
You have to have a short story to tell if you're going to write short. All the way back with the glimmer of an idea that grows to be a story you can't have too much. You will always be able to tell a story that was cut to size from one that just fit right away. There is a richness and surety in a very short story that naturally comes that way. You can edit a story down to length but only so far before it feels ...stripped.
Its an old saw to say that its easier to sell a good short story than a good longer tale. Its true but that hardly matters. Its much harder to come up with a 'good' story thats really short, say under three thousand words. Especially one that isn't a cheap twist tale or a feghoot. (Lord knows I've written enough of those, and they aren't easy to sell!) If you really feel you want to write some very short fiction, start by summarising the story. If it takes more than one short paragraph its going to be tough to write the tale under three K. Often very short work is telling very simple tales very well. And understating or only hinting at whole lines of thought you would normally address in a more open fashion. Deftness of imagery and knowing when just enough discription has been used for the reader to take over painting the background to your story. Its hard but very rewarding when you manage it, and frustrating as hell when you don't.
I wouldn't get too caught up in it. What you're doing is working well and you have a lot of things to build on as well as new things to try out. I'd say when you have a great but very short story idea hit you, it will come together.
Mike

Michael D. Turner
"Psyched Up" in _Turn the other Chick_-ed. E. Friesner-Baen books
www.baen.com
"Two Ravens" in Amazing Journeys Magazine #9 Sept. 05
"An Incident at Black Tongue Tavern" in _Bash Down the Door and Slice Open the Badguy_ from Fantasist Enterprises

[EdK]

Another trick is to limit the number of characters in the story. It's tough to write a 4k story with 6 characters contributing to the story.

I agree with Chris, too. Revising short is a good plan. Write the 8K story and then start cutting the fluff to see what's left. After you practice that a few times you start cutting the fluff as you write.

I'm using "fluff as a generic term for details, action, and dialog that can be trimmed without changing the story. Sometimes that's hard to do. From a the writer's eye the story is just better with this bit of action or dialog, but is that action or dialog intrensic to the storyline or just "fluff".

From an editor's point of view, I'm paying by the word. It's like buying a fleet of new cars. I'm looking for a little luxury in one or two of my fleet; I'd like to have cruise, power windows and locks, GPS, built in DVD... But sometimes I need a different kind of vehicle, one that just gets the job done, a workhorse that gets me where I want to go without all the bells and whistles. For AJM, I buy a couple of high-end machines for each issue and a few mid-sized sudans. The rest is made up of slick little well made economy models.

Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing
Amazing Journeys Magazine

http://www.journeybookspublishing.com
http://www.journeybooksonline.com

[ScrewMoonshine]

Sean, I have more or less the same problem. My stories tend to fall into the 6200-6500 word range with striking frequency, and all the mags I want to submit to draw the line at 6000. And call me a heretic, but rewriting just doesn't seem to be the solution for me. Once the story's been written, most of the parts that were, in retrospect, tangential are no longer tangential due to the way that they've been written in. Getting 'em out is like pulling your own teeth, and risks damaging the story. I do rewrite, of course, but it seems a mistake to rely on the rewrite alone to get a story within word count limits.

All great advice given here, I think, but allow me to add one more. What works for me(on the occasions when anything works) is knowing what has to go into the story before you start writing. Whenever I have a shopping list of plot points to go by, I naturally avoid the tangential stuff and my stories tend to fall within the desired limits.

My guess is that you already do this, but it's one more thing to consider. Good luck!

Robert Orme

[jonesha]

When I wanted to start writing shorter I dove into Saki, aka H.H. Munro, and read collections of his stories. all short. All complete. Most pretty brilliant (and in his case you're best to read one of his "best of" collections, because some of htem don't read as well as they must have to his audience at the time). Saki managed to tell marvelous tales in very short spaces.

After I read and absorbed I tried a handful of stories of about his length--2 or 3 k. Once I saw how to do THAT, it was easier to contemplate.

When I sit down to write Dabir and Asim I try to aim for 4-6 k. I've learned that means I really only have time to get to know 2-4 characters well. There's no room for getting to know others. Any complicated background situation needs to be thrown out the window or you'll write yourself in complicated knots and infodumps trying to get it explained succinctly. Start with the action underway rather than explaining first why the action will begin.

That is my advice--different things will work for different writers. I do know that the exercise of writing truly short pieces, shorter than I ever thought I could, after absorbing the work of a masterfully entertaining short story writer, was a HUGE help. I still number some of his short stories as my favorites, most especially Sredni Vashtar. A fine, fine tale...

best,
Howard

Editor-in-Chief
www.swordandsorcery.org
Flashing Swords E-Zine

[Red Viper]

Sean: I seem to write a lot of stuff that naturally falls into the 3,000-5,000 word count. In fact, I recently tried my hand at a Calthus novella and had the devil of a time getting the thing up to 17,000 words -- I was trying to write long and it just came up short. So writing short seems to be my thing.

You've already gotten some great advice above, so I'll just add a little. My writing process is this: I write the story first, without any attention at all to descriptions or world-building. If it's not part of the plot, it doesn't go in at this stage unless I come up with an absolutely brilliant piece of description that I'm afraid I'll forget. (Alas, that almost never happens...) Anyway, once I have the skeleton of the story down, then I layer on the descriptive flesh and background. I try to add only what is necessary for the reader to understand the story, and I try to do it vividly so that it will stick in the mind. I do it in bits and pieces as they become relevant, too, rather than full-blown descriptions of a temple or a monster or a person, and whenever possible, I try to make description part of the action.

A hastily made up example:

Instead of something like this:

Calthus approached the keep. The towering building was made of black stone, and ivy clung to the walls, which were aged and cracked. Great iron doors barred the entrance, and he found they were locked from within. He banged on the door with the pommel of his sword, and the sound echoed deep within the keep. But no answer came. Looking up, Calthus decided the only way in would be to scale the walls.

I'd try something like this:

Calthus strode boldly to the keep and hammered the great iron doors with his sword pommel. Only deep echoes answered him and the doors were bolted, so he decided to scale the towering walls. Ivy promised handholds, but great cracks in the aged black stone promised peril.

74 words versus 47 words, if I counted right, but the same information is presented in each version. Over the course of a story, it adds up to saving a lot of words.

Anyway, that process works for me. The danger, of course, is not giving the reader enough description or background. It's a tough balancing act, and I don't always fall on the right side of the line. But I try.

One other thing that'll help is a good critique group. Other writers (good ones, anyway) will spot excess verbage every single time. They certainly spot mine.

Anyway, I'm certainly no Zen master or anything; I'm just telling you what seems to work for me. Good luck, and keep writing!



Red Viper, aka Steve Goble

Upcoming stories: "The Grey Mother" and "The Bloated Curse," upcoming in Flashing Swords; "Zeerembuk," upcoming in "Clash of Steel 3: Demon" from Carnifex Press; "The Hungry Bottle," upcoming in Sword's Edge

[mikemunsil]

Another thing you can do is to practice writing short. That is, set out to write short from the beginning and stick to that goal as you write the story. Sure, editing fluff out is a good idea, but if you want to craft a dagger you don't start with a broadsword and then whittle it down.

Try to write against a timer. Give yourself an hour or 90 minutes and set out to write an entire story in that time period, regardless of typos and other crap. Just get it down.

I run Liberty Hall, and we do timed-writing challenges every week. We give ourselves 90 minutes to write an entire story. Every story is crtiqued, and then voted upon in several categories.

Find something like that, or join us, and you'll accomplish your goal after a bit.

Mike

www.libertyhallwriters.org

[Frank]

The black tower--cracked, ivy-covered, and locked tight--loomed. Hammering pommel to iron without reply, Calthus was forced to disregard the doors and contemplate the dangers of scaling the keep.

31 words, I think. How's that?

[Red Viper]

Frank -- not bad. Passive voice in the second sentence stretched you some, though. If you really, really want to clamp down on it, try:

The black tower -- cracked, ivy-covered -- loomed. After hammering pommel to iron without reply, Calthus ignored the bolted doors and pondered a dangerous ascent.

There, 24.


Red Viper, aka Steve Goble

Upcoming stories: "The Grey Mother" and "The Bloated Curse," upcoming in Flashing Swords; "Zeerembuk," upcoming in "Clash of Steel 3: Demon" from Carnifex Press; "The Hungry Bottle," upcoming in Sword's Edge

[darkbow]

Testing the tower's door and finding it locked, Calthus pondered climbing.

Not flashy, not Steve's style, but only 11 words. And I'm sure I could get it shorter if I worked at it.
I'm a nut for cutting description, at least in my own writing. Unless there's some particular reason to point something out, or I'm trying to set a mood or I'm introducing something very alien to the reader, I cut as much description as possible. Everybody knows what a castle looks like, or a horse or plate armor, or whatever. Or, at least, they have an idea of what such items are like. It usually works for me.

"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" -- upcoming in "Liquid Ohio" in 2006

[Third Axe Publishing]

I'm not sure that second sentence is truly passive voice as much as just a weak verb. With passive tense, you usually have to switch the subject and object to make the voice active, but all that is needed here is to remove "was forced to" and make "disregard" past tense instead of infinitive.

I've been wrong before, however.



Please visit www.brotherhoodofdwarves.com (http://www.brotherhoodofdwarves.com)

Third Axe Publishing - Bringing the "story" back into storytelling.

[Red Viper]

Third Axe: It's passive voice, in a sense. The true subject of that sentence could be construed as "circumstances," although the word is implied rather than stated. So a rewrite could be "Circumstances forced Calthus to yadda yadda yadda." But your edit is more elegant than that.

And Darkbow: You cheated, bud. The game was to convey ALL the same information in fewer words. You deleted information -- black, cracks, ivy, knocking. Granted, yours is shorter and omitting pointless description is a good thing. But you don't win the game! (Of course, you could add those things and still bring it in shorter -- and so could I -- but the point was to illustrate a technique, not to start a competition...)

Still ...

Calthus banged pommel on locked iron doors, then scaled the black, ivy-cracked tower.

14 words, all the info. Rather short on building dramatic tension, though ...

Red Viper, aka Steve Goble

Upcoming stories: "The Grey Mother" and "The Bloated Curse," upcoming in Flashing Swords; "Zeerembuk," upcoming in "Clash of Steel 3: Demon" from Carnifex Press; "The Hungry Bottle," upcoming in Sword's Edge

[Suuran Songforge]

Thanks for the advice, all! Lots to consider here...

Steve, how about post-modern stream of conciousness?

"Tower. Cracked, ivy-covered, black. Iron door. Calthus knocks with sword pommel--no answer. Climb?"

14 words. But I think I'd rather take up at least 50 [;)].

Sean T. M. Stiennon (AKA Suuran Songforge)

For information about me, see my author page at www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon (http://www.sfreader.com/authors/seanstiennon).

[Frank]

This is fun. I think we should start a whole board doing this.

[Frank]

I?m a strong believer in William Strunk (?Less is more?). I adore pregnant words and weighty understatement. I love to read and write very short stories and I love short, quick writing exercises, the literary equivalent of impressionist painting.

I will never possess the command over language of Tolkien or Wells. I?ve accepted that I couldn?t, in a hundred years of trying, approach their realm of eloquence. Instead I take pleasure in constructing short sentences that fall easily on the ear and convey all that an imaginative reader needs, without spelling everything out for them. I prefer my reader participate in my fiction, rather than passively absorb it, as one is forced to do with lengthy, detailed descriptions of the setting.

Pat Conroy said there is enormous power in stating something simply and well. I agree. Perhaps because that?s all I can ever hope to do.

[darkbow]

Red Viper, I wasn't trying to compete, just attempting to show another path.
If the tower being cracked and ivy-covered is important, for tone or for the plot for some reason, then yep, leave it in. If not, a tower's a tower.

If I was trying to compete, I would have written "Finding the tower locked, Calthus climbed.."
6 words. ;-)

"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" -- upcoming in "Liquid Ohio" in 2006

[Third Axe Publishing]

Frank,

I agree with you that many readers don't need much description to imagine a passage these days. I think that's a product of just how much visual media we are exposed to. In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo spent an entire chapter just describing the cathedral, but that was necessary because very few of his readers had ever seen it. Today, you could write the same description in a paragraph because most of us have at least seen a picture of it, so we don't need as much detail to get the image in our heads.

However, one thing that I think has been lost by this movement towards minimalism is maintaining a lyrical quality to the narrative voice. Often, when I read someone who is attempting this style, their writing may be good and move the story along, but it lacks that magical quality that makes prose memorable. Go back and read Hemmingway (the founder of this movement) aloud and listen to how the language sounds almost like a song. That's what made his writing so powerful.



Please visit www.brotherhoodofdwarves.com (http://www.brotherhoodofdwarves.com)

Third Axe Publishing - Bringing the "story" back into storytelling.

[Frank]

I think it would be fun for us to start a board where we can post a paragraph and then let everyone who wants to rewrite it in their own style. We could learn from each other. It doesn't have to be about word count or critiquing, either. Just different approaches for different reasons.

[Frank]

Axe,

I definately enjoy reading poetic prose if it's consistently good and pleasurable and interesting to read. Lengthly descriptions and meandering characters are fine if the writing is beautiful. But not every writer can pull that off. We can't all be Tolkien, and some of us (like me) shouldn't even try. But I love taking stabs at concise, moody sentences.

[MichaelEhart]

How to write shorter? Use fewer words.
See? Simple!

"Dancing with the Elder Gods"-- Thirteen Magazine, October
"It's a Living" Byzarium---November
"Voice of the Spoiler" and "An Exorcism Straight, Hold the Elvis" The Sword Review, October
"Oathbreaker" Mythica Vault
Host, 2005 Nebula Awards Live Chat, sff.net
http://mehart.blogspot.com/

[darkbow]

Frank and Axe, while I fully believe a writer should write what and how they want, it also doesn't hurt to keep your audience in mind. R.A. Salvatore has pointed out that he writes for an audience that has grown up with television.
Some of a writer's style also probably comes from their reading. For me, I feel I was much more influenced by the likes of Andrew Offutt, Don Pendleton and even Mike Newton than I was by someone as elegant as Tolkien. Short and to the point is generally my writing style, with exceptions made when I'm in the mood for something different.
But that's just my style. I'm often impressed by writers who can bring out poetry in their prose. And I like the wordiest writer of them all, Stephen King, for his story-telling abilities (though I tend to dislike his endings).

"Peter Piker the Pankin Man" -- upcoming in "Liquid Ohio" in 2006

[Frank]

Michael,

Your answer reminds me of an anecdote from Miles Davis' autobiography: John Coltrane, well known for solos lasting anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, once asked Davis how to develope the habit of trimming down his solos. Davis said "Take the horn out your mouth". True story.

[Frank]

Long writing for its own sake is despicable. Take Hubbard's Mission Earth series, for example. Conceived as a decology from the outset, Hubbard typed out this tortuously long story in ten volumes only because it had never been done before, and his publisher (after the enormously successful Battlefield Earth--an enjoyable thousand page brick from which I would not remove a single word) encouraged it for profit rather than for quality.

If the story you're telling merits length, then by all means give it the breathing room it needs. But if you're writing long just to generate more profit for both you and your publisher, or if you always write long because you're long-winded by nature and never figured out how to edit yourself, then please have mercy on your readers and either trim it down or make damn sure every sentence sings.