My Peculiar Philosophy About Effective Short Stories

Writing short stories isn't like writing long fiction. It’s a different beast entirely. But I have a particular philosophy about writing short stories that many authors don’t ascribe to, and I’m wondering what you think about it.

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

I’ve published books and I’ve published short stories and short story collections. There’s a lot to be said about the differing strategies between them. But this post isn’t about the differences between novel writing and short story writing. Perhaps that is a post for another time.

Instead, I wanted to share a peculiar philosophy I have about short story writing.

Short stories share much in common with long fiction. They have a beginning, middle, and end. They have a story arc and character development. They have a climax and denouement. Short stories just have to be more focused. With fewer words to work with, the writer has to be more concise and constrained. Instead of building multiple plot arcs, they are limited to just one or two. Typically there is only one point of view character. Every word has to do work.

The thing is, a good novel will tidy things up by the end. All those plot arcs come together to a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion. Some books, as part of a series, might have a cliffhanger to draw you into the next book of the series, but you can’t do that will all of the story arcs or it will leave the reader unsatisfied.

A good short story, though, will focus on one plot arc, and at the end, the reader comes to a satisfying conclusion.

But here’s my peculiarity:

It’s okay, and even preferable, to create some mysteries along the way, which might never be answered. Also, if the story is well-written, it leaves the reader wanting more.

For instance, in my fantasy short story, Into the Ruined Lands, two girls buck their patriarchal society and risk the ire of their fathers to venture into the neighboring volcanic wasteland. From the story blurb:

Two teen girls, Talay and her cousin Shaali, defy their cultural norms and run away to the volcanic Ruined Lands in search of a flowering plant called sulfur wort, a necessary ingredient for a healing potion to be mixed by the mysterious Old Mother Aya in order to save the life of Shaali's younger sister. But the Ruined lands pose dangers that challenge hardened warriors. Are they up to such a quest? And are they willing to face the punishment for defying their patriarchal society? 

There they face a hostile land, filled with dangerous orcs who wish to defile them or eat them. Old Mother Aya also uses her magic from afar to help them in their quest.

But here’s the rub: I never explain the true nature of Old Mother Aya or her past. I don’t describe why the girls’ society is patriarchal or misogynistic. I don’t detail how the healing potion is made, or how the old woman casts her magic. I don’t go into the history of the Ruined Land or much into why society fears it.

And most importantly, I leave it open as to what becomes of the girls in the end. Yes, the story has a conclusion, but then what? At the end, one of the girls follows Old Mother Aya, wishing to learn her ways. But I don’t describe what those ways are, or what eventually comes of it. All I do is hint at what’s to come.

A good short story should leave the reader wanting more. A strong character, and effective worldbuilding, means that there can always be more to the story. I take it as a matter of pride when one of my readers says, “What happens next? This could be the start to a great book!”

What do you think?

My Review of The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers

 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was longing for a good space opera scifi, and this story didn't let me down in that regard. The greatest strength of this book is the immersive way the reader is pulled into the characters and their interactions. This is, more than any other book I've recent in recent years, a fully character-driven novel. Chambers does an amazing job of describing the many different alien species, the interactions between crew members, and the differing ways they see the world through their respective lenses. She does so without being heavy-handed or info-dumping. It is done naturally, and you get to know the crewmembers in a very personal way despite them being very different alien species.

Do not expect a book full of action. In fact, there's almost no competition of any sort between characters, civilizations, or species. It's sort of nice, frankly. There are three or four points in story where there is tension, but it is over quickly. No one is shooting anyone else. No blaster fights or punching or anything. It's just a NICE read, which is refreshing. This is not a book for hard scifi or military scifi enthusiasts.

What the book lacks is a cohesive plot. It's basically a long series of character vignettes, with the loose thread of making a journey to a distant planet to "tunnel" a wormhole for the rest of space to travel there. [Slight spoiler] When they finally reach their destination, though, the end comes quickly and you are left realizing that the destination and the trip there were really just a macguffin. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I wasn't set up for that by anything in the description of the book or the initial "hook" (which had suggested the story was primarily around Rosemary faking her background and going on a long and dangerous journey, which turns out was only a small part of the book).

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My Review of The Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles

 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book wasn’t what I expected, and that’s a good thing. I like surprises. The characters are very individualized and three-dimensional. The story had twists and turns, and by the end you realize there are deeper meanings to it. I found myself relating to the characters in different ways. 18-year old Emmett has lost his father, his mother, and then his father’s farm, all while dealing with having just been released from a juvenile work farm for unintentionally killing another boy in a fight. Now he has to make a plan for himself and his 10-year old brother, Billy, to make a new life together. But Emmett’s well-laid plans to travel the Lincoln Highway from Nebraska to San Francisco to start that new life are thrown into chaos by the unexpected appearance of two other boys his age, Duchess and Wooly, both of whom had been at the work farm with him and escaped. Duchess is mercurial and chaotic, though often well-meaning, and Wooly is intellectually challenged, but kind. Along the way, the four boys come to meet some other notable characters who sometimes help them and sometimes challenge them.

There are some almost-spoilers below, so stop here if you worry about it….

The name of the book is a bit misleading. The Lincoln Highway is really a “McGuffin” in that it triggers the plot but isn’t actually the planned route they ultimately follow. I didn’t mind that, but it did break the “contract with the reader” if you will, from the initial plan that was laid out early in the book. Really, the plot is driven by Duchess, a troubled boy who has his own motivations, which he justifies in different ways, that throws everyone else’s plans asunder. Frankly, all of the characters have tragic histories, which makes them very interesting. Another oddity about this book is that it starts sort of in the middle of the story (which is actually a plot point stated by Billy, who is obsessed with a book about heroes and their journeys), and at the end of the book you realize that the story hasn’t really ended for some of the characters yet. None of these things really take away from the quality of the story, it’s just something to note that sets this book apart from others and makes it unique. I will say, though, that Duchess was so much the driver of the story that all the other characters were a little weaker for it, where they were mostly reacting to Duchess in one way or another.

One thing I definitely did not like, though, was that the dialogue is written without quotation marks. Rather, Towles uses a dash to signify when a speaker has started dialogue, but nothing to signify when they stop the dialogue. Thus, it was occasionally confusing when they stopped and the prose began. Towles also needed more dialogue tags, as sometimes I was confused who was speaking which sentences.

Be prepared that this has a bit of a tragic ending that left me concerned for the motives of some of the characters I’d come to like. But overall, it was a worthy read.

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My Review of Anathema, by Keri Lake

 

Anathema by Keri Lake
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The good part about Anathema is that Lake has done a great job of worldbuilding. The magic system is reasonably unique, the land and civilizations are interesting, and there are unique and interesting monsters and supernatural creatures.

The story is told from the POV of two characters: Zevander, who is an assassin, and Maevyth, who is a waifish and innocent young woman. Zevander is a complex character with an interesting background, powerful in magic, and very dark and brooding, haunted by his past and his curse. Definitely an anti-hero. I enjoyed his part of the story. Zevander's part, and the worldbuilding, are the only reasons I bumped up to 3 stars.

Maevyth, on the other hand, is a very two-dimensional character and very weak. She (and to a slightly lesser degree, her sister) is constantly victimized. In fact, her entire community victimizes her, including her (stereotypical) evil stepmother and her lascivious uncles. So much so that nearly every page of her part of the story involves some sort of in-you-face disrespect or outright torment. Everyone is out to get her, and every man is lustful and rapey. It's so heavy-handed that it is nearly unreadable. It isn't entertaining. And just when you think she's finally escaped her repressive situation by fleeing to the other world through a portal, she is immediately captured, threatened with rape, and thrown in a cell. And then she is rescued... only to be thrown in a cell again. She doesn't drive her story, she just reacts to the constant victimization, pulled along by the winds of torment. Not fun. And then, in the midst of this victimization, somehow we are supposed to buy that she is getting attracted to and aroused by the other protagonist? It's the worst sort of forced romance.

The book then ends on a cliffhanger which is not satisfying in any way. I also didn't like the editing of this book, as there are frequent sentence fragments and modern allusions that bump me out of the story and setting. I don't recommend.

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My Review of "The Maid's Diary" by Loreth Anne White

 

The Maid's Diary by Loreth Anne White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This story definitely has some twists in it. No spoilers, but it was getting to be near the end when a gigantic twist is revealed. Normally I see things coming, but this twist caught me by surprise. There is someone pulling all the strings, and they did it with panache. Another thing I liked about this book is that all of the characters in it are very three-dimensional, with complex backgrounds and skeletons in their closets. It leads the reader to wonder just who the bad guy is, and maybe the worst aren't actually the murderer.

White tells the tale from five points of view, which actually worked out okay. Stories with too many POVs can sometimes get a bit lost, but she held it together. But one thing that I found less than ideal was that there were two chronological storylines going at once: the "before the murder" storyline, told from the points of view of the three main protagonists involved in the crime, and the "after the murder" storyline, which is told from the POV of one of the detectives. I don't much care for jumping back and forth between chronologies like this, but I can see why the author did it: to put the reader into the mindsets of those involved in the crime, and the the other to piece the crime together afterward. Then it all comes together in the end. But not really my thing. The other thing that I didn't exactly love was how White uses "third person present tense" for everything other than the maid's (Kit's) diary entries. Again, I can see why she did it -- to put the reader in the moment -- but it doesn't lend itself to emotional storytelling, and sometimes the text read more like a police report and less like something I could get emotionally attached to.

Another thing that REALLY bothered me was that the author threw the reader a red herring at the end, which is typical for mystery stories (where there are many), but the one at the end was WAY too convenient to have me believe it. I can't say more without spoiling, but it involved the snooping old lady next door to the murder scene, and it had me rolling my eyes in annoyance. For this reason I wish I could drop from a rating of 4 to a 3.5, but half-stars aren't something I can put here.

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Which Kind Of Writer Are You: A "Pantser" Or A "Plotter?"

You’ve got a great idea for a novel, but how should you go about it? Are you a “pantser” or a “plotter?” Are you a “writing wanderer” or do you prefer a map for your writing journey?

 

(image by Glenn Carsten-Peters via unsplash.com)

First of all, let me say that every fiction author has their own method for writing novels. Do what works best for you! But after writing four fiction novels (three of which are published so far, plus my current WIPs, and a couple other books that aren’t novels), I’ve had some experience with this.

Generally speaking, the popular notion is that there are two camps: “pantsers” and “plotters.” Pantsers are writers who “write from the seat of their pants” without using any plotting at all. “Plotters” (sometimes called “planners”) are writers who outline a book ahead of time. I’ve written both ways.

As I see it, writing a novel is a journey. Plotting is like unfolding a map to guide that journey. That map guides your way so you don’t get lost along the trail, helps you choose the most efficient path and see the pitfalls, and you know your destination. But maybe you are a pantser, a sort of “writing wanderer,” preferring to explore the wilderness of your story. Getting lost along the way can be exciting, with unexpected obstacles to overcome. If so, your writing experience is not about the destination, but the journey to get there, wherever that may be.

Stephen King is a famous pantser, as he described himself in his book, On Writing, a book that is often cited as a sort of textbook on how to write novels (though about half of it is an autobiography and, frankly, King broke a lot of his own rules, particularly in his early books that made him big). He goes so far as to say, “Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters’ theses.” Wow, okay. But he enjoys discovering the book with the characters and being surprised by the ending.

John Grisham is an example of a famous plotter. He has said, “I’m doing the outline [of my story] upfront so I always know where I’m going. I work on the outline for weeks, months, sometimes even years if I can’t get it right. But when I start the book on January the first to finish by July the first I’ve got a clear outline—I know exactly where the story’s going— I know how it’s going to end.” Given that he’s published at least 74 books (about as many as King), 47 of which have made the New York Times Bestsellers list (King has had only about half as many), it sort of blows away King’s statement that he’s a “bad fiction writer” because he makes outlines.

In fact, King and Grisham had an online discussion with each other that included this very topic. King asked Grisham if he ever wrote himself into “a blind alley,” and Grisham responded quickly: “No.  I don’t write the first scene until I write the last scene.  So I always know where I’m going.” This must have made King’s head explode, since in On Writing he likened this to “eating dessert first.”

As far as I can tell, the term “pantser” may have come about from NaNoWriMo, an annual event where writers attempt to write a draft of a novel in just a month. From their website: “National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.” Who has time to do careful plotting when you only have a month to write a book, after all? (Personally, I can’t imagine being able to write a quality book in such a short amount of time, even as a draft, in part because I have a 50 hour work week dayjob and a life outside of writing, too. But I digress.).

When I wrote my first novel (which is still unpublished), I was a pantser. I had a great idea for the start and some general ideas of what I wanted to have happen in scenes throughout. I had some characters in mind, too. But for the most part, I just let the ideas flow. Pantsing is a free-form storytelling. You, as the author, let the characters and action guide the story. You’re along for the ride, exploring the plot as it develops, which makes the process of writing more fun, at least at first. You’re as surprised as your readers will be when the plot twists. You get started writing quicker. The ending is an exciting discovery! I experienced all of these things as I wrote mine, and it was really interesting to see where the story went.

The problem with pantsing, though, is that you can’t see around the corner. Without knowing what’s coming, you can’t build in foreshadowing. You can’t develop the characters, plan the setting, or place important items along the way. You can’t as easily build up to events. This can lead to what writers call “the messy middle” – a situation where the plot and subplots just seem to fizzle or go astray, and you have trouble bringing them together, sometimes resulting in writer’s block. And the ending can fall flat. Coincidentally, Stephen King is often criticized for having poor endings. I wonder if this is why. The book I wrote as a pantser also had a “messy middle”, years to write, and it took far too many words to bring it all together. In fact, the first draft was a whopping 220,000 words! (I eventually pared it down to about 122,000 in a later draft). I think the ending was good, but maybe it wouldn’t be satisfying to everyone. It was bittersweet.

A hybrid approach is to write a synopsis or a partial outline. This would include a beginning and ending, significant scenes you expect along the way, and character descriptions. When I wrote my second book, which became Dragon of the Federation, a high fantasy novel, I used this hybrid approach. I basically wrote out a one-page synopsis with paragraphs describing the important scenes and characters. I had a defined beginning and ending, and the scenes acted as crucial stepping stones along the way. This approach worked pretty well, but I had to be very careful along the way to make sure everything came together, particularly since it was told from two different points of view. It took me years to write it. At some point in the middle, I wound up making a more careful outline using Microsoft Word in order to keep it all coherent. That was the moment I realized the full strength of proper outlining. Once I made it, the story came together in a much more seamless way and the writing went much quicker.

Plotting involves making an outline of each chapter. But even before that, it’s a good idea to write a one-page synopsis, or even an “elevator speech” (one or two sentences on what the book is about, as if you were describing it to someone during a short elevator ride), to summarize the book and it’s important concepts. The outline might be as simple as a short description of each chapter, or it might be as thorough as carefully describing each character’s motivations and actions, character arcs, settings, and how they weave into subplots. Again, everyone is different.

The third novel I completed became The First Nova I See Tonight, a fun science fiction space opera novel. By this time I had a lot of real-world experience with writing and had a better idea of what worked best for me. From the very start, I began with an “elevator speech.” Then I wrote a general outline of the book, chapter by chapter, each with a short paragraph of the character actions and story plot. After spending some time trying to visualize the book as a sort of movie in my head, I then created an Excel document with each of those chapters as a separate line and a few sentences of what was going to happen in each chapter. Since this was a fast-paced novel with lots of action, I wanted shorter chapters and a shorter overall length, so I aimed at an average of about 2000 words per chapter. This gave me an idea of how many chapters for a final length of around 80,000 words (in the end, I was just under that at about 79,000). Once I had that groundwork done, I started writing the book. I found that the outline was tremendously helpful. Even while working a full time job and having an active lifestyle, I still wrote the draft in about a year. Writing it was lots of fun, I didn’t have the “messy middle” problem, and the ending came together smoothly on the first try. I wasn’t rigid about my outline, however. I allowed flexibility, moving chapters around a bit, combining or separating chapters, and allowing the characters to develop in their own ways, which changed the outline a bit as I went.

An excerpt from the "visual outline"
I created for Footman of the Ether.

The fourth novel I published, Footman of the Ether, a sequel to Dragon of the Federation, also used this plotting method. It, too, went more quickly. The outlining helps pace the book and judge the length. But because it was told from four points of view (POV), I had an additional outline: a “visual outline.” This visual outline was a color-coded guide of how the four character viewpoints weaved through the novel. See the image attached here. Trust me when I tell you that involving multiple POVs makes the writing of the story much more difficult, as it requires careful balance. I doubt I’ll ever do more than four in one book, for this reason. The challenges of writing multiple POVs is a topic for a future blog post.

In another later blog post I will go into more detail on my current plotting method. For now, though, I hope this article gives you a good idea of the differences between pantsing and plotting, and a hybrid of the two, and their pros and cons.

 

Cheers and happy writing!

Footman of the Ether is Now For Sale!

 

I'm overjoyed to report that, at long last, Footman of the Ether is now for sale: the explosive fantasy novel is the sequel to Dragon of the Federation, and book two of the Heartstone series!

Available direct from GladEye Press, Amazon, or any other bookseller!

Who can fathom the motives of a demon?

Azartial, demon-dragon, is meddling in the affairs of men. Disguised as a human mage, he conspires with a mysterious cult and the Emerald Dragon to destroy an entire town and its institute of magic. When Torra Com Gidel, a young mage with untapped potential, comes to investigate the destruction of her hometown, the demon seems to side with her and her companions.

Drawn to the energies of the renegade magic used todestroy the town, the Gold Dragon, Ingal Jehai, suspects the sinister Triumvirate Gods are at the root of it. Complicating matters, a cruel general from the Southlands also seeks a powerful artifact that can restore his family to the imperial throne. Azartial schemes to draw them all together.

But to what end?

Cheers and happy reading!