fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2992 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2992 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Grand Theft Auto 5]

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[Zipang]

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[Ricky Gervais]

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[Tokyo Babylon/X1999]

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[Dexter]

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[The Mentalist]

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[The Truth - Terry Pratchett]

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[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]

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[Douglas Adams]

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[Black Books]

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[Lucky Star]

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[Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter Wimsey]

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[Ga-In, Brown Eyed Girls]

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[Oz the Great and Powerful]

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[Colin Baker]

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[9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors]

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[Yatterman Night]

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[Johnny the Homicidal Maniac]

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[Blake's 7]

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[Game Grumps]

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[Alexis Denisof]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 07 pages, 170 secrets from Secret Submission Post #428.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How can I write shorter stories?

I feel like I'm incapable of writing an actual story in under 30K (and most are considerably longer). I want my default length to be closer to 10K. I outline and I try to combine as many scenes as possible and am as ruthless as possible with cutting things to the bone (so I feel my stories move at a breakneck speed or can be choppy as a result).

Any suggestions?

Maybe try to move your goalposts a bit? I once had a fic idea that seemed like a monster to me (two characters fall in love through letter-exchanges, one of them is a lawman and one a criminal. inspired by Catch Me If You Can), and I was trying to figure out how to make it /not/ be a gazillion-k fic, because I also have a tendency towards length.
So instead of starting at the beginning, I started at the end - from the very last letter one of them sends the other. That effectively cut down my fic by a lot, because a lot of what would have taken time turned into backstory instead of story-story.
So maybe try to reframe your stories so they "feel" shorter to you?

This is a good version of Vonnegut's advice, which is basically to start your story as close to the end as possible. Sometimes this can only be figured out in editing, where you end up writing more of the pre-history and then chop off whatever can just be inferred later on.

Anyway, his other bits of advice are here -

http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/538

Vonnegut was always a good example of a writer that got it done as compact as possible; a lot of story in tight packages.

Well if I hit on Kurt Vonnegut's advice there's got to be something to it!

This is a great link, thanks so much :)

DA

This advice is from Bagombo Snuff Box, OP, and you really need to read it. In fact, everyone needs to read it.

...I'm not biased! Why would you say I'm biased? ;-)

Perhaps try to see if you use a lot of adverbs or use long sentences with plenty of superfluous words. I tried the Hemingway Editor app* for one of my texts for fun and apparently I use quite a few long sentences that can easily be shorted and be more concise (though honestly I quite like long sentences). I think it shorted my (already fairly short) text quite a bit to remove all adverbs and edit the hard to read sentences.

*http://www.hemingwayapp.com/

I have the opposite problem. I'm really good at short stuff, but I can't seem to write longer stuff.

Stick in more plot. If you have more plot, then you need to write more stuff to make it happen :P

lol I'm responding to you all over everything today

I'm just not good at dialogue, so if I stick in more plot I end up with paragraphs of prose back to back and it doesn't work well.

I'm really just not a good writer. I usually only write when it is either for a challenge somewhere or for a pairing I think needs more fics.

Hmm, in that case (if it's something you really want to put effort into), maybe try writing only-dialogue stories? Or even go so far as write a script. Even if you don't post it anywhere, it would force you to reframe your story as conversations rather than description.

I'm really just not a good writer. I usually only write when it is either for a challenge somewhere or for a pairing I think needs more fics.

This is the same for me as well. I get pushed with some sort of prompt, but it doesn't take me very far.

Are you trying to focus on too many characters or events? I sometimes end up following the ripple effect too far and the story gets bogged down. In shorter stories, I've found you can't try to cover too much and it's best to focus on just a few significant events.

OP

I like writing first time romances and I think what trips me up is that I like the relationship to grow organically, which means they don't jump into bed but actually have to get to know each other and fall in love. That seems to take time.

Are there any shortcuts for that?

I don't know, when I wrote my last romance I could have written your exact OP. It was supposed to be a short story and then it ended up at around 15k. I'm still working on romance myself.

There's two things that have helped me curb my tendency for epic-length stories.

1) I joined a writing community that has prompt-based drabble challenges. Having to condense an idea into such a small space is very challenging, but it has helped me reign in some of my wordy tendencies.

2) I saw earlier that you like to write slow-burn romances. Why not try writing what I think is called "curtainfic". Instead of trying to tell the entire story at once, break it up into vignettes. Like character "x" and character "y" go to the store type stuff. or "x" and "y" have a midnight deadline. They find out that morning and have to work together. Pick a moment. You don't have to write the beginning, middle, and end all the time. :)

Well, first I'd ask if it was really necessary. What's your end result look like? Is it a good story with decent pacing? Does the plot flow well, with few unnecessary tangents or sub plots that don't add anything to the overall work? If it's a good story with good flow and pacing, then I'm not sure it "needs" to be shorter, per se.

But if you're worried about length because you're trying to follow a specific guideline, then maybe it's time to ask yourself if you're simply squeezing too much plot into one story. I had a friend like this. It wasn't enough for him to write an awesome story about a space cowboy wandering the galaxy in his ship with only a sentient octopus for a companion until he's called upon to rescue a dying planet, it just HAD TO BE a story about a whole army of space cowboys with sentient octopuses and bionic arms who were marooned from Planet Xenar, the descendants of a lost colony from Earth during the Cold War who were also secretly infiltrated by the Illuminati, and the dying planet they had to rescue was really the sole habitat for a species of exotic lily whose pollen was a cure for the disease that was killing the Queen of the Mole People, a legendary cosmic seer and prophetess who...

You get the idea. Not that the ideas weren't great, but he just could not cram all of that in and still get a coherent story at the end. But! He didn't want to leave ANY of it out, and refused to edit it enough to where she was left with a plot that still made sense. You can ruthlessly edit something and still fail to do a good editing job, unfortunately. It's not just cutting out words, it's knowing where to cut and how to reshape what's left.

I'll ask you this... how much 10K length fiction do you read? Because if you're not reading lots of short fiction, you're missing out on a good resource. See what other authors are doing to keep their stories that length and still tell a good story.

[ SECRET POST #2992 ]

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