 Short Stories: September 03, 2014 Issue [#6514] |
  Short Stories
This week: Short Story or Chapter? Edited by: Annette  
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| Hello short story writers and readers. I am Annette , and I will be your guest editor for this newsletter. |
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Short Story or Chapter?
Novel chapters make poor short stories.
Before you send me an upset email about my log-line: I've done it too. I've used ideas that were meant to be chapters in novels as short stories. I did it and I don't regret it. But I also don't think that those stories are any good.
Just like a novel, a short story has to have a beginning, middle, and a satisfying ending or conclusion. Short stories that are really a chapter in a larger body of work leave the reader with a vague feeling of having been cheated because it's so obvious that they didn't get a complete story. On the other hand, it is very difficult to turn a collection of short stories into one cohesive novel.
Even Ray Bradbury who wrote The Martian Chronicles in a series of short stories did not achieve to make the short stories into one novel. Each short story (chapter) had new characters, new events, even sometimes a bit of a different writing style. How then did he pull it off? For one, he kept a straight time line (with a couple of wobbles here and there.) The short stories lined up an way that reading them in book form made sense for the most part. The red thread, the colonization of Mars, was there and could be followed. Maybe it worked because the main character was a planet and not a person. A couple of years ago, I read one of the short stories per night to my kids until we were all through with the book. Toward the last quarter of the book, my middle son asked me if we were ever going to read about Ylla from the first or second story again. We didn't and it frustrated him. He wanted more of that character that he came to like in the beginning. To him, the short story format was uncomfortable. No disrespect to Ray Bradbury. He is a genius, but a kid's critique is just as valid as any.
My advice: do not mix and match. When you want to write a novel, let it be a novel. That doesn't mean you can't take inspiration from contests here that ask for short stories to get a new chapter started, but don't hand it in to the contest host as a short story when it is really a chapter with and unfinished ending. It's frustrating to read. To me at least.
Dedicate your short stories to be true short stories. Let them stand alone. You can always add more detail, new plot twists, and end up with a novel length work that has the same beginning and ending as your short story with simply more in it.
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For my last Short Story newsletter "Real Short Stories" }, I got the following replies:
Quick-Quill  wrote: This short story has been chosen as one of the top 10 for the Women On Writing website. It was chosen by a literary agent. I have submitted stories before. I just wish she'd read my MS.
Hey, this one was chosen! Look at the bright side.
blunderbuss wrote: Thanks for the newsletter Giselle. I agree that sometimes you can get so hung up by all the advice and 'do's and 'don't's that you can forget that enjoying your writing is probably the most important thing!
Yes. If we didn't enjoy writing, how are our readers supposed to enjoy reading it?
BIG BAD WOLF is Merry  wrote: Some are always a laugh.
You?
Zeke  wrote: My trick for inspiring a short story is the question, What if??
Great starter. There is a contest right here on the site that gives "what if" prompts to start stories.
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