Yes, I’ve been focused on writing short stories much of the past six months. Oh, I’ve had quite a few great ideas for novel length stories, but I’ve become fascinated with short stories. Why? Well, because it seems many science fiction and fantasy writers break into the business on short stories. And anyone who is interested in attending certain workshops (Clarion, Clarion West, Odyssey, Orson Scott Card’s Writing Class & Literary Boot Camp, etc.) as I am, short stories are what is needed to get into them.

I’m hoping to attend one of those workshops in the near future, but this year I’ll probably have to just try for the week long Orson Scott Card workshop. Maybe next year I’ll have enough time off saved up to go to the six week Clarion workshop. Of course, I’d have to be accepted to these workshops, so I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m hoping my writing is decent enough, or has at least improved enough by application time to be accepted!

I was never attracted to short stories growing up. Maybe I was one of the few who didn’t have a short attention span and preferred novels. <shrug> Now though, I see the merit in pursuing this form of story. So, I’ve submitted a story to the Writers of the Future Contest and as I mentioned in a previous post didn’t even receive an honorable mention. I’ve re-examined the story and identified why a reader may not have wanted to go beyond the first couple of pages. Heck, maybe not even the first page. I’ve fixed those problems, but before I was able to identify them, I had ordered a couple of books that really helped me.

I was excited when Creating Short Fiction, by Damon Knight, Storyteller, by Kate Wilhelm, and Reading Like A Writer, by Francine Prose showed up on my doorstep. Knight and Wilhelm helped to found the Clarion workshop, so I was very interested in what they had to say. After reading their books I knew exactly what was wrong with my short story and have a much improved opening and complete story.

After having written a couple of novel length stories, tackling my first short story was difficult, and forced me to write more efficiently. I believe the short story is much more difficult to get right than a novel. In a novel, the writer has time to let things develop over the course of many chapters, and indulge in minor characters and side plots. In a short story there is little or no room for any of that.

Well, off to read a little Stephen Baxter, Manifold Time, before I hit the hay.

I’ve been concentrating on short stories lately. While my experience writing in that form is limited, I’m finding it difficult to embrace. It has it’s advantages–a complete story in basically what would be the chapter of a novel–there are more that I’ll mention, but there are also disadvantages to the form as well.

Advantages:  Learning economy of words–short of poetry, I can’t think of a better way to learn to be succinct and get the most across in the shortest amount of words. Also, the aforementioned complete story in the space of maybe 5k words. The short story doesn’t allow boredom. One can simply finish a story and move on to a nice new shiny idea and then another, and another. The blood, sweat, and tears just isn’t there in a short story as it is in a novel.  Just the sheer number of words the novel requires makes the short story very satisfying to get ideas out.

Disadvantages:  Developing multiple characters and stretching out. There are times I just want to keep going on a certain topic, and then I realize I need to keep it going or the short story will turn into a novelette, and morph into a novella, or novel. I love to write from multiple POVs, meaning: I like to have multiple POV characters and write chapters based on their POV. Similar to George R R Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series, but of course I could only hope to write half as well as GRRM.

On the surface, it may seem there are more advantages to the Short Story, but the chance to fully develop characters and be able to live with them for thousands and thousands of words in a novel is very appealing to me. I find it very hard to get in the mind of a character in a short story, and maybe I’m just missing the point in that form. I’ve read that in Science Fiction short stories it’s more the gimmick that the story evolves from, and in the end the character learns something meaningful. I know that is a simplification, but I’m just too lazy to quote from the actual text.

Well, I’m going to keep plugging away on the short stories. I do feel they are a great way to break into writing–at least into Science Fiction and Fantasy. On a related note, I got notification back from the Writers of the Future Contest that I did not win, and in fact, I didn’t even place in the competition. The good news is that I submitted the first short story I had ever written and the coordinating judge for the contest, K.D. Wentworth (a past winner and published writer of fantasy and sci-fi) submitted stories five (5) times before she won. So, I don’t feel bad, I’m still learning and with each story I can only get better.

So for now, I’m busy writing short stories, and revising the ones I’ve finished. I still need to finish revisions on my novel Progeny, which I’m becoming more excited about revisiting.

I’ve become fascinated (after writing some sci-fi short stories) with writing a Science Fiction novel. I’ve been tossing some ideas around in my head, but decided I needed to re-educate myself on modern physics. It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve taken a college level physics class and I’m quite sure there have been major advances since then….

For some light reading I chose Parallel Worlds by Michio Kaku. Very easy read so far, it’s definitely written for the layman, and at times I find myself wanting a little more number crunching and pure science. Overall I’d recommend the book if you are at all interested in cosmology but are afraid to pick up a book on it for fear it will be over your head.

Alistair