Please welcome guest blogger Kat Duncan.
How can you profit by reading short stories? Let me count the ways. Short stories are the Reader’s Digest condensed version of a story. They have characters, conflict, mood, plot, and setting. All the basic items you need to learn the craft in a bite-sized nugget your can serve yourself anytime of day.
Haven’t got time to read and analyze lots of genre books? Read genre short stories instead. After a dozen or so, you’ll catch onto the basic ideas of what makes a story interesting and suspenseful. You’ll also have a good idea of what turns you off or makes you yawn. Read a few and make a list of what you liked and didn’t like, then try to figure out if there is a general pattern to what worked for you. This is a great way to uncover a general theme or pattern that you could use in your own writing by giving the idea your very own unique twist.
The very best short stories also often have imagery, metaphor, symbolism and theme. Great Literary Scot! No time to take a graduate course in Creative Writing? Look up a few stories such as “The Most Dangerous Game”, “After Twenty Years”, “The Sniper”, or “Young Goodman Brown”. You will learn some very classical ways for handling story structure and suspense.
Every short story has a turning point. A buildup of tension followed by a shift or sudden change in mood, or in the way a character behaves. Some stories have more than one. Study these shifts. Analyze them for clues. What led up to this change? How did the author convey the change to you? How did you feel when you realized the story had shifted? Lots of fodder here to feed your own writing cannon.
Pay attention to POV. Most short stories can only afford one point of view. How does the author use the POV character or narrator to tell what is going on in the heads and hearts of other characters? If POV is not used, how are dialogue and/or body language used to convey what the non-POV characters are thinking and feeling?
Copy the technique for practice. I’m not suggesting you make a pastiche or parody here. I’m suggesting that if you walk a few pages with the classical author’s pen, you may learn something about how that author got so much to happen in such a short time. Read a bunch of stories, then take your favorite and write a fan fiction alternate ending, epilogue, sequel, prequel or spin off. Learn from the masters!
Read modern short stories from contemporary authors. A great (and free!) resource is http://www.shortstoryamerica.com/ where you can find everything from the classics, to many very good contemporary stories to boost your reading and writing EQ (educational quotient).
Eager for more ways to learn the craft of writing? Join me for a year-long novel-writing course at Savvy Authors. You can find me on the web at http://www.katduncan.net.
Kat Duncan obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry and German from Regis College in Weston, MA. She is a Fulbright Scholar who spent a year in West Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. She recently obtained her Master’s Degree in Special Education from Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She is a full-time tutor to students from elementary through college and beyond in reading, writing and math. An active member of the New England Chapter of RWA, and RWA-PRO, she has written a series of popular newsletter articles on grammar and style. She has presented a grammar and writing workshops for beginning writers both locally and online. She’s an Indie author at Amazon and Smashwords and her romantic suspense novella, titled Fifty-eight Faces, is available from The Wild Rose Press.
I write short. Even my novels struggled to hit 70K. But I also put my first turning point very early in the book. It gets us right into the story without tons of setup to bog the reader down. From there it is a fast paced ride with backstory, setting, theme, and everything else sprinkled in. It’s working so far.
Great post!
Hi Rachel. I tend to write shorter contemporary stories and longer historicals. I agree with you, early turning points are great hooks.
Great post, Kat! I wouldn’t have thought reading short stories could provide so much on the craft of writing.
I love short-cuts! A small effort for a big benefit.
Hi Kat. Nice post with lots and lots of great tips. I struggle with remembering to do the analysis when I read a novel. Using a short is a great idea. Of course, I’m willing to bet I’ll get lost in the short, too! Jordan http://www.evaprim.com
Hey Jordan! Getting readers lost in your stories (short or long) is a real skill. I definitely study the ones I get lost in…
Thank you Kat for a wonderful post! I’m going to start reading short story more often.
Hi Marilyn! Thanks for giving me this chance to share a great tip!
Kat, you’re talking about something I love – writing short stories. In the past year and a half I’ve sold 13 short romance stories to the Trues (True Love, True Romance, True Story). I love writing short stories. Shorts contain everything a longer story does – a conflict, a black moment, a turning point, a lesson learned. And they are usually only one POV. The Trues are first person which is a great exercise in writing. Thanks for the post.
Hi Cara! I should have known you wrote loads of short stories because your book, Murder, Mi Amore is amazingly well-crafted. Here’s the proof right here, folks! Check out Cara’s book if you’re looking for a longer story. It’s a romantic suspense and one of the Jewels of the Night Series. Click Cara’s name (above) to read an excerpt and find the buy links. And yes, Cara, writing first person is a great exercise and very easy to do because you can just let your mind wander and let those lovely characters in your head take over and tell their stories. Reap the benefits!
Thanks for the tips, Kat! I usually breeze through short stories without really thinking about all the craft elements, usually because I’m short on time to begin with. Now I’ll definitely look at them more closely and maybe write them more often as well
Hi Ella. Breezing through is a good sign that the stories are well-written. Certainly worth slowing down to take a closer look (after you’ve enjoyed, of course)!
Kat, thank you so much for the nice things you said about Murder,Mi Amore. It is true that writing short stories really helps in novel writing. I’ve heard that if you’re having trouble getting into deep POV in a scene, trying writing the scene in first person.
You are welcome. Murder, Mi Amore is worth the praise. Thanks for chiming in on the short story issue and for making a nice “point” about point of view!
Kat, Great advice. I wish I could write short. Cara’s stories are wonderful and I have another friend who also has done well writing short. It certainly is a talent. I’m checking out short stories right now.
Thanks,
AJ
Hi Autumn. I never thought I could write short until I tried. Of course, I was terrible at it at first, but I think I’ve done some good ones. Just the exercise alone is great for getting the creative juices going…
Great advice, Kat!
I wish I had thought of short stories back when I was testing out different genres. I did find anthologies helpful and read plenty of novellas.
Many don’t realize the paramaters for writing short is different from novels. H/h need to be together at least 90% of the time. You can’t afford lots of secondary characters or subplots. Only the absolutely necessary back story and no long descriptions.
Basically, a short story pares everything down to the bone. I think this is why some readers don’t care for them, but you’re right about the value in teaching a writer what’s important.
Hi Ashlyn! Yes, the parameters are a bit different, but what’s cool is all the same essential elements are there, so it’s a good way to practice your writing without worrying about extras. And as far as reading and analyzing, it’s a real shortcut. I do love anthologies, too.