Writing short stories - advice please

[TitaniumTi]

I'm making poor progress on my novel-length WIPs, so I've decided to write some short stories.

I started on a short story and thought I was making good progress, until I re-read it at 1.00am. Then I heard the collective wisdom of Chronners asking, "Is this necessary to the story?" (Thank you all, and especially Brian, for asking that question in the past.)

I've restarted the story and I think it will be stronger for the change. However, as a reader who prefers novel-length fiction, I feel ignorant about the short story form.

Can you suggest some good short story anthologies, in the science fiction, fantasy or other popular fiction genres? Also, I would be grateful for any advice about the craft of writing short stories.

Ti

 

[J-Sun]

Essential Anthologies - you have to skip the first couple posts, which are about collections, before it becomes about anthologies.

I can't remember if they're mentioned on that thread or not and I haven't read them yet, but I also have Robert Silveberg's Worlds of Wonder (aka Science Fiction: 101 and perhaps other titles) and a pair of Robin Scott Wilson's anthologies (the Clarion guy) called Those Who Can and Paragons. All three are mixes of fiction and non-fiction on the fiction. Silverberg discusses great stories by various authors in the one while the authors discuss aspects of their own stories in the other two with Wilson providing sectional essays on Plot, Theme, etc. They all look quite good (I've actually got almost all the fiction but that's just an indication of good selection to me, in this case, and I got them more for the non-fiction, brief though it is) and I look forward to them.

Oh, and Heinlein's Rules for Writing.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Thanks, J-Sun.

I'll look for copies of the Robert Silverberg and Robin Scott Wilson anthologies. They don't seem to be available as ebooks, so I'll lookin the second-hand bookstores.

I've started looking through Essental Anthologies.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hi Titanium,

IMHO Length of work does mean that the discipline of the short story is very different to that of the novel - you will know from your own experiences how different a 75 word limit makes from a 300 word limit on a story.

So the question is how long is a short story? Well, that is another of those 'how long is a bit of string' questions, however I would suggest that ~3-5k is a good range to 'target'. So decide a length and try and get your story fully formed within these limits.

When I was researching the short story market - I got an average of just over 5k. Now there were in that figure quite a few 'long shorts' or stories that might be defined as novellas, as they were edging over 10k. But it felt like to me that the editors would allow a big hitting name, an exceptional story or someone that they just seemed very keen on the luxury of a large wordcount! So I'd aim for 5k, say, then if you just can't fit it in, perhaps give yourself an extension of a thousand words or so. But really try hard for your original limit.

I've read too many short stories from people clearly happier with longer forms - so you get shorts that are thin synopsis for novels, so quite disjointed, or four thousand words of descriptive setting up, then one thousand words of things actually happening i.e. some sort of chapter one.

Oh and get hold of some short stories being published in the market today as well - it's good to know current trends. I don't know what part of the world you are from, but I'm here in the UK, and I tend to go first to Interzone for SF/Fantasy and it's sister publication Black Static for horror and related. The US and other places should have their own obvious markets. (Nothing would have stopped me trying to submit to a US magazine, other than I produced a lot of UK-centric urban/horror/dark fantasy and as I was really just learning the craft, so looking back they are bit phew!) SFWA has a whole section on 'where to submit short stories' so you could look around there and see what magazines take your fancy:

https://www.sfwa.org/category/business-of-writing/where-to-submit/

I think they classify them on a professional/semi-professional/amateur rating. Others will have a much better idea of perhaps what magazines to look up - it has been some time since I've tried to submit a short myself!

 

[hardsciencefanagain]

I'm thinking along the lines of "The Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction(the magazine,that is)",if you can get them.

 

[Toby Frost]

I've always found short stories much harder than novels, word for word. I can't reccomend a collection off the top of my head, but I was once given two really good bits of advice:

1) Not all short stories shoudl exist for a surprise ending, and those with a surprise ending should be about much more than just setting up the surprise.
2) A short story needs some kind of plot. It should be more than just a character sketch in which something happens (a depressed man buys his lunch, say).

I wish I could remember where I heard those, but they've stuck with me.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Thanks, Venusian Broon, for your very useful answer. I thought that short story writing would be a very different discipline. I enjoy the 75 and 300 worders, but 3000 words leaves me at a loss.

Thanks sciencefictionfanagain for your magazine suggestion. not sure about the Australian market for stories... It'll be poor, I suspect, so I'll need to look further afield. I'll look for the magazines that you and VB have suggested.

Toby Frost, your comment about surprise endings confirms something I'd come to suspect, after entering and reading the challenges.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Not all short stories should exist for a surprise ending

True, but for shorter ones, even if not exactly a surprise, I like to be slightly amused or very occasionally horrified(needs to be very well done as I don't actually like Horror genre), "punch line" or twist in the tail, if it's very short.
I think Asimov was better at shorts than novels. I liked his "Widower" mysteries.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thanks, Venusian Broon, for your very useful answer. I thought that short story writing would be a very different discipline. I enjoy the 75 and 300 worders, but 3000 words leaves me at a loss.

I first kick-started my 'proper' writing i.e. learned how to more or less write every day, with a dirt cheap correspondence course. They only allowed short stories at 2000 words. It does teach you a lot to have such a hard constraint (especially as I have a tendency to over-write if given no limit )

I think the thing is just knock one out and see where you are. The good thing about short stories is that 3-5000 words should be doable in a day, so you've got a finished draft very quickly!

 

[Foxbat]

Ray Bradbury has plenty of short story collections out there...always worth a look...and like Ray (McCarthy that is...not Bradbury), I much prefer Asimov's shorts than his longs (and I don't mean trousers).

For some recommendations outside the genre - you could try Guy de Maupassant (Selected Short Stories...Penguin Classics) or some of my favourite Scottish writers ...William Mcilvanney (Walking Wounded) Alan Spence (Its Colours They Are Fine)

...and finally Children Of Albion Rovers (a collection of Scottish dark humour which has a particularly good short by Irvine Welsh about alien, cigarette smoking football supporters).

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Ray Bradbury is excellent. Also, Orson Scott Card's Maps in a Mirror is a fantastic body of shorts - he is someone who mastered the art.

 

[LittleStar]

I have written a bunch of short stories for my uni course over the last few years, and while I'm not claiming anything, I found that I didn't actually change so much of my process.

Toby makes good points. I didn't write 'twist' stories, and certainly agree with the point made that such stories should be more than just a set up. And there definately needs to be a plot, it is still a story after all (I made this mistake, and swiftly learnt from it, as my first submission as a freshman)

Shorter word counts do mean less room for development and setting, but it makes you think that much harder about just how you are working with words.

It may be different for you, as I have become a planner, so my story is all done in my head and planned on paper before I actually get to writing it, so I know how long it is going to be. But with 1.5-2k being the limit for the course I learnt how to gauge a story's length. I urge you to d the same, and work out which of your ideas are actually short stories and which are novellas/novels/epics or even just flash fiction as a couple of my ideas turned out.
I think VB had it right, that setting yourself a limit and trying to stick to it is good practice, only veering away if the story really needs it, and try to be fierce about what it needs.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Ray Bradbury is excellent

+1 absolutely. I've 1600+ giant pages of his they are so good ... A lot of his are like paintings, beautiful and not need to be a cartoon (= twist at the end).
He's good eerie shorts, rather than outright in your face horror.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Ray Bradbury
Asimov's shorts
Guy de Maupassant (Selected Short Stories...Penguin Classics)
William Mcilvanney (Walking Wounded)
Alan Spence (Its Colours They Are Fine)
Children Of Albion Rovers (a collection of Scottish dark humour which has a particularly good short by Irvine Welsh about alien, cigarette smoking football supporters).

Orson Scott Card's Maps In a Mirror

That's a really useful reading list. Thank you.

 

[TitaniumTi]

It may be different for you, as I have become a planner, so my story is all done in my head and planned on paper before I actually get to writing it, so I know how long it is going to be. But with 1.5-2k being the limit for the course I learnt how to gauge a story's length. I urge you to d the same, and work out which of your ideas are actually short stories and which are novellas/novels/epics or even just flash fiction as a couple of my ideas turned out.
I think VB had it right, that setting yourself a limit and trying to stick to it is good practice, only veering away if the story really needs it, and try to be fierce about what it needs.

I'm a planner, too, but I have difficulty judging which stories will fit best in 1000, 2000 or 5000 words. As you suggest, I need to practise, and you and others have provided very useful tips to help me. Thanks.

 

[Michael Coorlim]

It may be different for you, as I have become a planner, so my story is all done in my head and planned on paper before I actually get to writing it, so I know how long it is going to be.

I've been a planner for novels, but I've never found a good way to plan out shorts. Got any tips?

 

[LittleStar]

I've been a planner for novels, but I've never found a good way to plan out shorts. Got any tips?

I'm probably not going to be very helpful here, but I kinda just do it the same...
The same basic ingredients are needed, a start, middle and end, character development, conflict and plot arc etc. only on a shorter more condensed scale.

I think I have quite a straightforward method, in that I start with the idea, the thing I think is cool about they world or character or situation, and then I figure out what drives it, and there I have the story. I choose and ending and maybe a few scenes, and many times that's where my planning ends. Then I write it. Though sometimes I go a lot further with my planning and figure out most scenes and roughly what happens in them (as I am doing now for a new novel series).

But I think a lot of my planning goes on inside my head, because I replay the story (or what I have of it at the time) over and over, until a new scene fits into place or I work out some problem that stuck in the way. They are often floating around for months before I whet around to writing them.

I think the best piece for advice is what I said before, knowing when a story is too big for a short, and not trying to cram it all under 10k if you need 20.

 

[Michael Coorlim]

Thanks! I've been trying to spend more time writing shorts lately, but I've been focused on novels for the last 3 years and I'm afraid I've lost my touch.

What I like in short fiction, what I think works, are unexpected endings. Not O. Henry style tricks, necessarily, but the subversion of expectation. A revelation of some sort that becomes clear at the end and is inevitable if you think on it, but which takes the reader by surprise. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is a prime example.

 

[TK Greenleaf]

Thanks, everyone, for this helpful advice. I'm a long-form reader and writer, thinking in big plot sweeps and character development, so short stories have always been a bugbear for me. I would love to get a lot better at writing them a) because they're worthwhile in and of themselves and b) because they're excellent for overall platform-building as an author, giving us something to publish that doesn't require 1+ years to write (hopefully...actually not so true for me). Also a great way to explore new ideas that could eventually turn into future novels. But again, they have loads of intrinsic value as art forms, even without those extra benefits, not just a means to an end.

I've been looking for solid advice on writing shorts for awhile now and have begun to believe that there are very few actual techniques that are different from long form stories.

Are there any short story editors in the forum that can comment? I'd love to hear what makes you pluck a piece from the slush pile and wave it in the air.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Not all short stories shoudl exist for a surprise ending, and those with a surprise ending should be about much more than just setting up the surprise.

"punch line" or twist in the tail, if it's very short.

I choose and ending and maybe a few scenes, and many times that's where my planning ends. Then I write it.

What I like in short fiction, what I think works, are unexpected endings.

Not all short stories shoudl exist for a surprise ending, and those with a surprise ending should be about much more than just setting up the surprise.

I feel particularly daunted by the prospect of writing short story endings. The challenge of writing a seamless short-story ending, that ties up loose ends and doesn't leave behind a dissatisfied reader, is daunting.

Welcome, TK Greenleaf. This is a great forum for readers and writers. I look forward to reading samples of your writing here.