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Sleep has sometimes been referred to as "the little death." So too, may a short story be a little novel.
After three failed attempts at National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org), and twice as many failures at writing a novel on my own, I realized that perhaps writing short stories is more my speed. My attention span is short and the subplots that help keep a novel afloat keep my already chaotic brain running in circles. For awhile I beat myself up about it then decided that it's okay that being a novelist may not be in my future.
But what to do with my attempts. I can't just toss them. You know what? There's gold in those pages. I have a mine filled with short story ideas and even a few stories already in rough form. I have plans for a book in which the short stories relate to one another either by characters or setting. Some plots may criss-cross one another. Charles DeLint has a wonderful tome called The Newford Stories that utilizes just this technique. It's a wonderful read and draws the reader in with the way in which he weaves his characters and the city they inhabit. I can do that. I can concentrate on vignettes of the lives of my characters.
Now instead of throwing out those lovely nuggets, I spend my time picking through them, deciding what to use now and what to save for later. I have fodder and ideas stacked on ideas for stories. If you have partial novels sitting around, collecting dust, try pouring over them with an eye toward dividing it up into smaller, possibly more manageable stories. You may find you've struck gold.
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Short Stories: February 04, 2009 Issue [#2869]
