On Short Stories
This is an entry I made by combining a few days' worth of posts written over the past week or so about short stories.
Friday, June 3, 2011:
I've been thinking some today about short stories. I am really bad at writing short stories. I can write vignettes or pieces of scenes okay (I start somewhere, and I write until I feel I've come to the end of the scene), but writing a complete story in the space of, say, twenty pages, is somehow beyond me. In 2008, I wrote a Heroes fanfic that was about five pages that was kind of like an advanced vignette (it is one of those five things stories. You know, five scenes all centered around a theme?). I wrote a couple (using the Locus guide, it was, I think, one short story and two novellas) in 2004.
But lately, I've had more trouble with it. Ideas for short stories come to me and I start writing them, and then I don't know where to take them. I have trouble finding my way to the ending. I think at some point I tried explaining my problems to Caroline and said that I felt like if I didn't have so much space to spread out in, then I had trouble envisioning where the story was going and what the ending would be. Something like that.
I've got three short stories ("An Ideal Woman," the moth story, and a Varenta story) in my "current" folder and they all keep stagnating. I tell myself that "An Ideal Woman" needs research, but really, none of them grab me. Or I don't know how to find their endings.
Today I was working on the Varenta short story just because I felt like something should be moving forward, and I thought about how I don't know the ending for that story either. It's easy to write, because Varenta is easy to write, but I still don't know what happens in it.
So I compared it to Missing Pieces, where the questions I raised while writing it somehow answered themselves as I wrote it, and everything fell into place on its own, and I thought about it a lot, often while driving to or from work. (And it was kind of The Forbidden Story, because I kept telling myself, "No, you are not allowed to work on this now! You are supposed to be working on AEFB! Stop working on this!" which naturally just made me want to write it more.) So then it occurred to me: maybe it's not the space, but the time. I had lots of time to think about Varenta and where he was going, and maybe that's why it just fell into place on its own. Because it was so much longer than a short story, I was able to hammer it out just because it took longer to write.
That doesn't make much sense either, as I seem to recall writing the Torquil story (a novella, the first Liabet story--which I also considered naming "An Eye for Beauty" but instead decided on "Strengths"--and a shoot-off from the Charal novel, inspired by Crown Duel and "The Lady's Paying") in a couple of days. Maybe the stories I'm writing just aren't grabbing me hard enough.
Still, taking fanfic into consideration, and ruling out vignettes (which I almost always consider scenes from something I haven't written yet and may or may not write), the last short piece I finished was in 2008. I even tried writing two different Liabet short stories/novellas, one in 2009 and one in 2010, and failed both times. I keep stalling; I start something and then I don't know where to take it. It's so weird and frustrating!
I started "An Ideal Woman" in February of 2010, and though I go back and pick at it periodically, it hasn't found a linear story yet. I just keep writing different pieces of it, hoping it'll somehow fit together. I started the moth story in December of 2009, worked on it a few times, and more or less gave up. As for the Varenta story, I only work on that when I'm shirking AEFB and need something else to write.
I always remember Robin McKinley saying at the end of Rose Daughter: The thing that tells me when one of the pictures in my head or phrases in my ear is a story, and not a mere afternoon's distraction, is its life, its strength, its vitality. If you were picking up stones in the dark, you would know when you picked up a puppy instead. It's warm; it wriggles; it's alive.
Maybe I'm not supposed to be writing these things? I knew from the start that Missing Pieces was a novel, just as I knew that "An Ideal Woman" was not a novel. Kind of like that. Like I started writing it and it just seized me. It grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I'd tried writing the polygamy story a few times and failed, and tried writing Varenta a few times and failed, but the way I started this particular version, it set up questions I wanted to know the answers to, and it allowed me to channel my own feelings about life through Varenta. Something about the story, and about Varenta himself, made me want to work on it all the time.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011:
After all that talk about being short story impaired, I just finished (the first draft of) the Varenta short story I've been working on. After weeks of staring at it and wondering how I was going to finish it, I sat down and started writing and then the whole thing poured out of me in 4700 words. (But that is the way I write Varenta, in big, inspired chunks.) It might be called "A Light Hand," or "A Heavy Hand," or something like that.
But hey! A short story! Fifteen pages! Complete story! Finished!
(...well, semi-finished!)
And HEY LOOK AT THAT, a THIRD thing in my life that needs revising! *fails at life*
You know, I don't believe in writer's block anymore. I used to, but eventually I realized that the only way to make writing happen is to just keep doing it. And some days you sit down and force out 1000 words of drivel, and some days you sit down and can't stop writing and manage 3000 words of something you love. But the good stuff only comes because you keep working on it. And this story only happened because I forced out a few sentences and then the rest of it grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
So maybe I should get over myself and just keep plugging away at "An Ideal Woman" and the moth story?
Yeah, so I wrote a few sentences and then I got a groove going, and then I couldn't stop. And then I sat back and went, "Hey, a short story," and then I said to myself, "This story is called 'A Heavy Hand.'" The end.
Friday, June 3, 2011:
I've been thinking some today about short stories. I am really bad at writing short stories. I can write vignettes or pieces of scenes okay (I start somewhere, and I write until I feel I've come to the end of the scene), but writing a complete story in the space of, say, twenty pages, is somehow beyond me. In 2008, I wrote a Heroes fanfic that was about five pages that was kind of like an advanced vignette (it is one of those five things stories. You know, five scenes all centered around a theme?). I wrote a couple (using the Locus guide, it was, I think, one short story and two novellas) in 2004.
But lately, I've had more trouble with it. Ideas for short stories come to me and I start writing them, and then I don't know where to take them. I have trouble finding my way to the ending. I think at some point I tried explaining my problems to Caroline and said that I felt like if I didn't have so much space to spread out in, then I had trouble envisioning where the story was going and what the ending would be. Something like that.
I've got three short stories ("An Ideal Woman," the moth story, and a Varenta story) in my "current" folder and they all keep stagnating. I tell myself that "An Ideal Woman" needs research, but really, none of them grab me. Or I don't know how to find their endings.
Today I was working on the Varenta short story just because I felt like something should be moving forward, and I thought about how I don't know the ending for that story either. It's easy to write, because Varenta is easy to write, but I still don't know what happens in it.
So I compared it to Missing Pieces, where the questions I raised while writing it somehow answered themselves as I wrote it, and everything fell into place on its own, and I thought about it a lot, often while driving to or from work. (And it was kind of The Forbidden Story, because I kept telling myself, "No, you are not allowed to work on this now! You are supposed to be working on AEFB! Stop working on this!" which naturally just made me want to write it more.) So then it occurred to me: maybe it's not the space, but the time. I had lots of time to think about Varenta and where he was going, and maybe that's why it just fell into place on its own. Because it was so much longer than a short story, I was able to hammer it out just because it took longer to write.
That doesn't make much sense either, as I seem to recall writing the Torquil story (a novella, the first Liabet story--which I also considered naming "An Eye for Beauty" but instead decided on "Strengths"--and a shoot-off from the Charal novel, inspired by Crown Duel and "The Lady's Paying") in a couple of days. Maybe the stories I'm writing just aren't grabbing me hard enough.
Still, taking fanfic into consideration, and ruling out vignettes (which I almost always consider scenes from something I haven't written yet and may or may not write), the last short piece I finished was in 2008. I even tried writing two different Liabet short stories/novellas, one in 2009 and one in 2010, and failed both times. I keep stalling; I start something and then I don't know where to take it. It's so weird and frustrating!
I started "An Ideal Woman" in February of 2010, and though I go back and pick at it periodically, it hasn't found a linear story yet. I just keep writing different pieces of it, hoping it'll somehow fit together. I started the moth story in December of 2009, worked on it a few times, and more or less gave up. As for the Varenta story, I only work on that when I'm shirking AEFB and need something else to write.
I always remember Robin McKinley saying at the end of Rose Daughter: The thing that tells me when one of the pictures in my head or phrases in my ear is a story, and not a mere afternoon's distraction, is its life, its strength, its vitality. If you were picking up stones in the dark, you would know when you picked up a puppy instead. It's warm; it wriggles; it's alive.
Maybe I'm not supposed to be writing these things? I knew from the start that Missing Pieces was a novel, just as I knew that "An Ideal Woman" was not a novel. Kind of like that. Like I started writing it and it just seized me. It grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I'd tried writing the polygamy story a few times and failed, and tried writing Varenta a few times and failed, but the way I started this particular version, it set up questions I wanted to know the answers to, and it allowed me to channel my own feelings about life through Varenta. Something about the story, and about Varenta himself, made me want to work on it all the time.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011:
After all that talk about being short story impaired, I just finished (the first draft of) the Varenta short story I've been working on. After weeks of staring at it and wondering how I was going to finish it, I sat down and started writing and then the whole thing poured out of me in 4700 words. (But that is the way I write Varenta, in big, inspired chunks.) It might be called "A Light Hand," or "A Heavy Hand," or something like that.
But hey! A short story! Fifteen pages! Complete story! Finished!
(...well, semi-finished!)
And HEY LOOK AT THAT, a THIRD thing in my life that needs revising! *fails at life*
You know, I don't believe in writer's block anymore. I used to, but eventually I realized that the only way to make writing happen is to just keep doing it. And some days you sit down and force out 1000 words of drivel, and some days you sit down and can't stop writing and manage 3000 words of something you love. But the good stuff only comes because you keep working on it. And this story only happened because I forced out a few sentences and then the rest of it grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
So maybe I should get over myself and just keep plugging away at "An Ideal Woman" and the moth story?
Yeah, so I wrote a few sentences and then I got a groove going, and then I couldn't stop. And then I sat back and went, "Hey, a short story," and then I said to myself, "This story is called 'A Heavy Hand.'" The end.